This move up the social and business ladder is great for Pao at first, but things aren't destined to work out as he planned: Fay can't stand the Pao family home in Chinatown, Gloria's not too happy, and as time goes on, outside forces begin to take their toll on Pao, his family and even the traditional ways that exist within Pao's Chinatown. He sets his sights higher, and they land on Fay Wong, daughter of Henry, one of the richest Chinese men on the island, and the two eventually marry and have children. It isn't long before Pao becomes smitten with Gloria, but is advised by his friend that she's not the right kind of woman for marrying. Since the retirement of Zhang, the Yang family's friend, benefactor and Chinatown's own local "Godfather" figure, Pao has taken his place Gloria comes to him to ask for justice for her sister and future protection of the prostitutes living and working in her house. The story actually starts in 1945, when Pao is visited by Gloria, a Jamaican woman who comes to Pao in Kingston's Chinatown after her sister's been badly beaten by a white sailor.
It's an interesting book in which Pao's story plays out through all of the political, social and economic changes that occur in that 50-year period, taking the reader from the last decades of British colonialism through Jamaica's independence and its aftermath. Approximately fifty years elapse in this story, from Pao's arrival through the re-election of Prime Minister Michael Manley in 1989. The lovely island of Jamaica is the setting for this novel which centers around Yang Pao, a Chinese immigrant who landed there in 1938 at the age of 14 with his family after escaping civil war in China.
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