They kept to themselves at school but were inseparable once outside the campus gate. Jiang Lili insisted on bringing Wang Qiyao along wherever she went and, since it was Lili’s mother who usually invited her, Wang Qiyao could never bring herself to refuse. Wang Qiyao virtually became a member of the Jiang family. She went everywhere with them. It wasn’t long before their friends and relatives all became very close with Wang Qiyao — she was indeed one of them. Owing to her proper manners and her status as something of a celebrity, people began to treat her better than they did Jiang Lili, so that, before long, the tables were turned and she ceased to be invited out as Jiang Lili’s friend, while Jiang Lili was invited out as her friend. Wang Qiyao had clearly become the one in favor — but she never forgot her place and took special care to treat Jiang Lili even better than before.
Jiang Lili’s birthday party was followed by an interminable series of other parties. Nearly all were hosted by friends and relatives of the Jiang family; one led to another and they seemed never to end. Everyone at the parties looked familiar, as if they were all one big family. Although the partygoers came in all shapes and sizes and engaged in different professions, after a first meeting they were just like old friends. The parties followed the same basic pattern, and it did not take long until Wang Qiyao figured out how things worked. She knew that she needed to maintain her composure in order to set herself apart from the noise and excitement at these parties. She knew that she needed to dress plain and neat in order to show herself off against the rainbow of colors and carnival of the night. And she even knew that she had to maintain a genuine persona in order to create a contrast with the overly effusive people who were always eager to shower one another with compliments and favors. She seemed innately to know that “the string is easily broken when strung too tight.” Understanding too that she was not one destined to climb to great heights, she kept to her philosophy of “less is more” and remained calm and composed. The result was not immediately apparent, but as time went by it had its effect and gradually Wang Qiyao began to win over their hearts.
She was the single white peony amid a sea of violet and crimson. Hers was the only unaccompanied vocal piece in a long program of orchestrated medleys. She was a haven of silence in the midst of bombastic debates and ramblings. Wang Qiyao brought something new to those parties — a creative something that carried with it the resolution to persevere — while at the same time she maintained enough perspective to see things as they were. At every party she attended she always felt as if she had to depend on herself for everything. Everyone else seemed to stand in the host’s position, coming and going as they pleased while, as the only guest, in her comings and goings she was always controlled by others. She also realized that Jiang Lili was her only true friend at these parties; wherever they went, they went hand in hand. Jiang Lili actually despised parties, but was willing to make this sacrifice in order to be with Wang Qiyao. The two became party regulars. The few times they didn’t show, everyone asked about them, so that their names wound up circulating all around the parlor. Being occasionally absent from the parties was also a part of Wang Qiyao’s philosophy of “less is more”—a rather extreme part at that.
The party — what the Shanghainese call paitui—is the very life of the Shanghai night. Neon lights and dance halls form the outer shell of this sleepless city, but its soul is the party. Parties lie at the innermost core of the city, behind quiet shady boulevards in the parlors of Western-style residences; the pleasure they impart is wrapped in people’s hearts. The lights at these parties are always dim, casting shadows that whisper the language of the heart. But this language of the heart speaks with a European accent, in classical and romantic styles. And the life of the Shanghai party is always the proper young lady; she is the center. Myriad passions play out in silence; romance lies deep under the skin. Forty years hence, no one will remember these passions and this romance; in fact, no one will be able even to imagine what it had been like. The passion and romance of that era was a dynasty; splendid and glorious, it was a heavenly kingdom. The Shanghai skies mourn; they bemoan the loss of that passion and romance. The Shanghai wind tantalizes, and the waters surrounding her are a washed-out carmine.
Wang Qiyao is one little piece of that passion and romance, not the part that rivets all eyes and becomes the center of attention, but the part that serves as ballast for the heart. She is the heart of hearts, always holding fast and never letting anything out. Supposing there was no Wang Qiyao, the parties would become nothing but hollow, heartless affairs, perfunctory displays of splendor. She was the most meaningful part of this passion and romance. She was that desire that lurks in the soul; if not for this desire, there would be no reason for passion and romance. As a result, passion and romance have found their roots, coloring Shanghai with that thing called mood. The mood casts a magic on every place and every thing, causing them to speak words more gorgeous than song.
Wang Qiyao strolled into the Shanghai night. The night scene was set against the dim lamps of longtang alleys as well as the lights shining on the cloth backdrops of photo salons. No longer was this night an out-of-context photograph — it now had a story behind it; no longer still, it moved. Its movement was not the movement of the camera at the film studio, for the camera’s movement told someone else’s story. The movement of the night belonged to Wang Qiyao herself. Win or lose, she seemed to be in control of her own destiny — but not entirely. That belongs to the great sky beyond the stars, looming over the Shanghai nightline and enveloping the entire city. Turning white by day and black by night, transforming with the passage of the seasons, this corner of the sky is obscured by buildings and city lights, which serve as its camouflage, yet it withstands thunder and lightning and all the chaos of the world, eternally and boundlessly stretched out overhead.
Miss Shanghai
The peaceful atmosphere of 1946 arrived only after what seemed an eternity of chaos. Suddenly all one seemed to hear was good news; anything negative merely set the stage for good news to follow. Shanghai was an optimistic city that always looked on the bright side, in its eyes even bad news had its good side. It was also a city of pleasure that found it difficult to get through the day unless it could find something to make it happy. When torrential floods hit Henan province and people all over China were donating to the disaster relief effort, Shanghai offered its passion and romance — holding a Miss Shanghai beauty pageant to raise money for the flood victims.
The news of the pageant spread quicker than wildfire and, in the flash of an eye, everyone in the city knew about it. “Shanghai” was already a virtual synonym for modernity, but “Miss Shanghai” captured even better the modern cosmopolitanism of the city — after all, what could be more modern than a beauty queen? It stirred up the feelings of the people, for who in this city did not worship modernity? Here even the sound of ticking clocks seemed to echo the footsteps of modernity. People paid more attention to the election of their beauty queen than the election of their new mayor; after all, what did the mayor have to do with them? Miss Shanghai, however, was a feast for the eyes and everyone got a share. The newspaper that printed the first news of the pageant sold out within an hour of hitting the stands, but there was no time to print more copies, as other papers were immediately reprinting the contents of the article in special edition extras. The news spread along the trolley lines all over the city.