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How did Zhang Ailing portray life in occupied Shanghai?

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Scene from Romance of the Three Kingdoms — Chinese literature *Zhang Fei on the Long Sloped Bridge Turning Away One Million Wei Troops with a Powerful Stare*, woodblock colour print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 1884. It depicts a scene from the novel *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*.

Zhang Ailing (also known as Eileen Chang) began her writing career in occupied Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War, a period when many other Chinese writers had fled to the interior to produce patriotic literature.12

Rather than focusing on the overt political themes common to the war effort, Zhang’s fiction was characterized by exquisite narratives and a pervasive sense of impending destruction. She focused on "trifling matters between the sexes," using these personal dynamics to accurately describe the desires, imaginations, and personalities of urban residents living under occupation. Her work successfully combined elegance with accessibility, capturing the complexities of individual lives amidst the broader historical instability of the era.21

While her popularity during the occupation later led to criticism due to her husband's collaboration with the Japanese, her writing from this period remains noted for its unique psychological depth and its departure from the era's dominant patriotic literary trends.12