Daisy Kwok's life spanned old Shanghai and modern Shanghai, old China and "New" China in a way that no other did. This book presents stories written by her of her life - stories from the high-flying years of Old Shanghai, and the desperate drama of the political campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s.

Daisy was born in 1908 in Australia, and in 1918 moved to Shanghai with her father who built and owned the Wing On Department Store on Shanghai's main thoroughfare, Nanking Road. For three decades, Daisy led the life of the rich and famous in one of the world's most dazzling cities. Then, after the communist takeover in 1949, she spent three decades being denounced as a "capitalist"

Through it all shines Daisy's effervescent personality