May-Lee Chai

Eight innovative, timely stories illuminate the hopes and fears of Chinese immigrants and their descendants.

Useful Phrases for Immigrants

A memoir of growing up in a rural South Dakota university town with a Chinese-American father and an Irish Catholic mother offers a portrait of a loving family who finds tension, fear, racial anxiety, and violence in their new hometown.

A Memoir

Hapa Girl

Winberg Chai

Organized alphabetically by subject, an accessible reference offers a comprehensive overview of Chinese customs, culture, institutions, and etiquette, ranging from what to bring when visiting a Chinese household to why Chinese names are written in reverse order and the current relationship between China and Japan. Original. 25,000 first printing.

Everything You Need to Know to Understand Chinese Customs and Culture

China A to Z

A young woman who has everything she could wish for in China--beauty, a good teaching job, a mother-in-law with connections, a darling son, and a TV set--finds herself determined to find happiness despite a failing marriage. A first novel. Tour.

A Novel

My Lucky Face

Seeking to confront her past, Nea travels from Nebraska to Southern California to find her biological father, who is wounded by survivor's guilt and refuses to acknowledge the family's secrets.

Tiger Girl

A family memoir set against the shifting tides of twentieth-century China, THE GIRL FROM PURPLE MOUNTAIN begins with a mystery: the Chai family matriarch, Ruth Mei-en Tsao Chai, dies unexpectedly and her grieving husband discovers that she had secretly arranged to be buried alone—rather than in the shared plots they had purchased together years ago. Faced with this inexplicable act, Chu Chai decides that if he cannot lie next to his bride in death, he will buy a plot on the outskirts of her mausoleum and act as her guardian for all eternity. Such is his great love for Ruth Mei-en Tsao. Mei-en was born in China at the beginning of the 20th century during the reign of the last emperor. Educated by American missionaries, she was one of the first women admitted into a Chinese university in an era when most Chinese women were illiterate and had bound feet. Later she would defy tradition and refuse to marry the man her family had chosen for her, instead choosing his younger brother as her husband. During World War II, she served as Lady Mountbatten’s interpreter in China. As the Japanese Army advanced across China, her foresight and quick thinking kept her family alive as she, her husband and three sons were forced to flee from city to city. After the war, the Chais immigrated to the United States to what, until her death, seemed a happier and more peaceful life. In this riveting memoir, Mei-en’s first born son and his daughter explore family history to reconstruct her life as they seek to understand her fateful decision.

May-Lee Chai

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