china, deep impressions, shanghai, susan ruel, the shanghai friendship store

Deep Impressions (‘The Shanghai Friendship Store’ — Chapter 4)

Deep Impressions, from the novel The Shanghai Friendship Store (Chapter 4), introduces some Chinese college students (circa 1982) who exemplify their nation’s next generation of scholars. From the Beijing collegians who launched the historic May 4th Movement of 1919 to those who took part (and, in some cases, gave their lives) in pro-democracy demonstrations on ...

March 27, 2020

Nspirement Staff

The Snake Pit: No Escape (‘The Shanghai Friendship Store’ — Chapter 3)

The following excerpt from The Snake Pit (Chapter 3), from the novel The Shanghai Friendship Store by Susan Ruel. It is the continuation of the previous articles, A Floating Life (Chapter 2) and A Chinese Eleanor Rigby (Chapter 1). It chronicles the experiences of a small foreign community living in Shanghai in the 1980s (the heyday of Friendship Stores). These state-owned stores ...

January 22, 2020

Emma Lu