Why a Booktrail?
2000s: The overlapping lives of migrant Malaysian workers, forging lives for themselves in sprawling Shanghai.
Five Star Billionaire
What you need to know before your trail
Justin is from a family of successful property developers. Phoebe has come to China buoyed with hope, but her dreams are shattered within hours as the job she has come for seems never to have existed. Gary is a successful pop artist, but his fans and marketing machine disappear after a bar-room brawl. Yinghui has businesses that are going well but must make decisions about her life. And then there is Walter, the shadowy billionaire, ruthless and manipulative, ultimately alone in the world.
Locations
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Shanghai – “The fast-forward glitter of Shanghai”
Tash Aw charts the weave of their journeys in the new China, counterpointing their adventures with the old life they have left behind in Malaysia. The result is a brilliant examination of the migrations that are shaping this dazzling new city, and their effect on these individual lives.
“Shanghai weighed down on her with the weight of ten skyscrapers. The people were so haughty, their dialect so hard to her ears. If something talked to her in their language she would feel attacked just by the sound of it ”
It’s a fast paced city and this new city is portrayed as a ruthless, no nonsense kind of place which takes no prisoners: “stand still for a moment and the river rushes past you”.
It’s a city which changes you and which makes you change – “You must overturn all your old beliefs in order to succeed in life”. There are a lot of migrant workers, those with fleeting lives and use the city as somewhere to pass through. There are people who lead so called “floating lives” and says, “We all have to do things that sully us while we wait for our real lives to happen.”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Five Star Billionaire
Destination: Shanghai Author/Guide: Tash Aw Departure Time: 2000s
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