What about the Chinese? We are looking at a strong woman who valued freedom. How did she become Polly Bemis? What was it like to be Chinese in America at the turn of the century? This is after the Civil War. What happens next is the central part of the book. To whom? To a wealthy Chinese named Hong King, owner of a saloon at the mining camp in Warrens, Idaho. Soon after, in 1872, she was smuggled into the US through San Francisco and re-sold for 2.500 USD. He was not a bad man, but the times were bad. This is a biographical novel about the Chinese woman Lalu Nathoy (1853-1933), sold to bandits by her beloved father for the mere sum of two bags of seeds. The book is exciting - bandits, a fire, shootings. I think it's because it is optimistic, that isn't to say bad things are excluded from its pages. You need different books for different moods. “Lalu Nathoy’s courageous journey is an important contribution to the history of pioneer women.” -Ms. “A valuable book that gives Chinese Americans another true heroine.” -Maxine Hong Kingston Lalu/Polly was a remarkable pioneer woman-a new heroine of the American West-and we can thank McCunn for bringing her to life in such a moving and inspirational way.” -Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, San Francisco Chronicle “Lalu comes to life and transfixes the reader with her story of struggle and survival. This masterfully told biographical novel is the true story of an extraordinary woman’s successful fight for independence and respect in the early American West. The two live out their days on a bountiful farm, a homestead called Polly’s Place in Salmon Canyon, Idaho.

When admirer Charlie Bemis wins her in a poker game, he frees her from her enslavement and eventually proposes marriage. In a new country, she is given the name Polly and eventually auctioned to a saloonkeeper. She is sold first to a brothel, then to a slave merchant bound for America.

Lalu Nathoy’s father calls his thirteen-year-old daughter his treasure, his “thousand pieces of gold,” yet when famine strikes northern China in 1871, he is forced to sell her. A reissue of the classic biographical novel that has sold more than 200,000 copies

A thousand pieces of you book