We Are Not Angels

We Are Not Angels is a novel by Yi Shu set in Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City, from the era of British colonial rule through the 1970s. The Walled City was a peculiar lawless enclave, a place of mixed company where people at the bottom struggled to survive. The protagonist, Qiu Qing, and her older sister, Qiu Yu, are half-sisters born to the same mother but different fathers. As the illegitimate daughters of a dance hostess, they endured contempt and social exclusion from an early age. Her sister Qiu Yu follows their mother’s old path, becoming a dance hostess and attaching herself to Mai Yujie, a minor underworld boss. The younger sister, Qiu Qing, however, has understood the fickleness of the world since childhood and refuses to accept the fate arranged for her. While helping to make a living in the gray areas, she persists in her studies, desperately trying to avoid repeating the mistakes of her mother and sister. The novel depicts several emotional and personal relationships in Qiu Qing’s life that influence her, and it also shows how, through repeated losses and farewells, she gradually comes to understand that relying on others is ultimately unreliable and that she must hold her fate in her own hands. In the end, through her own efforts, she earns a diploma in management studies and also finds her biological father. The book’s tone is spare and cool, yet within that coolness lies a compassion for people, repeatedly echoing the proposition of its title—there are no angels in this world, and between black and white lie thousands of shades of gray, deep and shallow; people can only love and sustain themselves amid imperfection, striving to make the best of the life they hold in their hands.