[citation needed] The stories in Taipei People vary in length and writing style, all focusing on characters and their lives after leaving China for Taiwan in the 1950s.
The collection includes 14 stories: "The Eternal Snow Beauty" (永遠的尹雪豔), "A Touch of Green" (一把青), "New Year's Eve" (歲除), "The Last Night of Taipan Chin" (金大班的最後一夜), "A Sea of Blood-red Azaleas" (那片血一般紅的杜鵑花), "Ode to Bygone Days" (思舊賦), "The Dirge of Liang Fu" (梁父吟), "Love’s Lone Flower" (孤戀花), "Glory’s by Blossom Bridge" (花橋榮記), "Autumn Reveries" (秋思), "A Sky Full of Bright, Twinkling Stars" (滿天裏亮晶晶的星星), "Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream" (遊園驚夢), "Winter Night" (冬夜), and "State Funeral" (國葬).
[4] Some of these stories were previously included in the 1967 collection The Banished Immortals (謫仙記) published by Wen Hsing Bookstore (文星書局).
Some of them include dance halls, teahouses, taxi dancer, and (sexual) patronage; mahjong; the Kuomintang military, especially the officer corps; China's diverse regions; fashion, especially the chipao (qipao); traditional Chinese interior furnishings; Buddhism; Peking opera; separation; and many others.
Fu Li-chung (符立中) regards the narrative technique of this book as following James Joyce's Dubliners and considers it a classic in contemporary Chinese fiction.
[5] Harvard professor Patrick Hanan praises the book as the "highest achievement in contemporary Chinese short stories".
For example, "The Eternal Snow Beauty" has been discussed in the context of theories of misogyny,[6] and studies have delved into the spatial imagery[7] and contemporary leisure and entertainment in Taipei.
The aging "Snow Beauty" (Yin Hsueh-yen) looks back on her days as the belle of Shanghai's Paramount ballroom; she is still the center of attention at upscale mahjong soirees she arranges at her Taipei home.
In an extended tale, the (female) narrator observes how an innocent middle school bride (Verdancy Chu) transcends the death of her air force pilot husband during the war years to attain some degree of stability in the post-war Taiwan environment.
A visit by a former commanding officer (Brother Lai) for some New Year's Eve dining and drinking provides a contrast between the heroic tales of past military exploits and the limitations of his current situation.
The story falls in a genre that explores the equivalence of the "mansion" and the "family," and the interweaving threads in their parallel growth and decline, in (modern) Chinese literature.
See, for instance, Ba Jin's Family and the classic of late imperial Chinese literature, Dream of the Red Chamber.
The collection's eponymous story is a tour-de-force of Chinese cultural allusion, as it contrasts the pre-Taiwan condition of a group of Kun Opera singers (Fragrant Cassia, Heavenly Pepper, Red Red Rose) with their current position as wives (or ex-wives or widows) of prominent society figures (Madan Ch'ien .
Kunqu is itself native to the area near Nanjing and Suzhou in China, in other words, it refers to the seat of Kuomintang government and support prior to exile in Taiwan.