Shanghai Noir

Category: About Karen Kao

  • Orient Express

    The first time I crossed China by train was 1984. I was on a group trip organized by the Smithsonian Institute, the start of a lifelong obsession with Shanghai. This particular train took our group from Xi’An to Luoyang. Back then, the journey lasted for 8 hours. These days, you can take a bullet train…

  • 2017 in Words & Pictures

    This so-called Chinese proverb is actually the brainchild of American adman Fred Barnard, who dreamed it up in 1921. He wanted folks to take him seriously, hence the fake Chinese source. Madeleine Thien is no huckster though she is a novelist. In Do Not Say We Have Nothing, she says the Chinese ancients believed that…

  • Martial Arts

    This is me, age 14, on Judo Award Night. Notice that my brothers have already advanced to a yellow belt. I remain in white: the lowest possible level in judo. It seems to me that I got hurt a lot. I didn’t like throwing myself onto the mat. The award in my hand was probably…

  • Not the Booker Prize

    Readers! You’ve come to this blog at just the right time. I need your help and I need it now. Every year, The Guardian newspaper organizes a contest for the best fiction published in the UK. They call it the Not the Booker Prize as The Guardian casts its net far more widely than the Booker…

  • Kitten Heels

    When I was a lawyer, there was a dress code. It was different in Washington, DC, where I first started practicing law, than in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where I ended up. Americans are more prudish when it comes to office attire. Yet there are common taboos everywhere if you’re trying to make a career. a…

  • Show Don’t Tell

      There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. W. Somerset Maugham And yet: everyone in the writing world will insist on show don’t tell. Put the reader in the room; let her smell the coffee or the roses or the gunpowder. It’s exactly the right way to describe the…

  • Through the Looking Glass: An Asian-American Identity

    Reading is a search for identity. We look for ourselves between the pages and sometimes we get lucky. For me, the first time was Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. It’s a mixture of memoir, Chinese myth and family tales of life in and outside of China. She called her style of writing talk-story: reminiscing about…

  • These Boots Are Made for Walking

    A wise man once told me: don’t quit the soccer club because you dislike the coach. He was talking about Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church. I’m thinking of Donald Trump and my US citizenship. Throughout this election season from hell, I’ve promised myself to turn in my passport if Trump becomes president. Maybe it…

  • At Water’s Edge

    Abandon the shoes that had brought you here right at water’s edge This line comes from a magnificent poem called Finisterre. It was written by David Whyte, a poet, speaker and healer of souls. I heard him speak not long after I had abandoned my own shoes. Finisterre is about pilgrimage: the ancient road to Santiago de Compostelo and the village…

  • Welcome to My Shanghai Noir Blog

    From 2016 to 2021, I had a weekly blog called Shanghai Noir. I retired that blog during the pandemic but you can still peruse old posts in my Dead Letter Office. Why was I so obsessed with Shanghai? Read on.  Shanghai: 2016 In 2016, Shanghai is a sprawling metropolis with an estimated population of over 24.1 million.…