The Queen of Xiangjiang Jewelry: Period

1979, Hong Kong. Li Baolin comes from the countryside in Guangdong Province and lives in the cheapest partitioned room in a tenement building in Sham Shui Po. She washes dishes at a Hong Kong-style cafe and sweeps the streets near the gold shops. Everyone calls her “Ah Chan.” No one knows that Zhao Tiemei lives inside this body. She is the granddaughter of a mainland silversmith from the 1950s, raised around the craft and skilled in traditional filigree and engraving. The first time she makes gold jewelry for a customer, her hands are steadier than her heartbeat. Uncle Hai says, “The heavens gave this girl a remarkable pair of hands.” Only she knows that her grandfather spent a lifetime hammering that skill into her. From a goldsmith’s apprentice to the first ordinary woman in Hong Kong to earn a De Beers license as a gemologist, from “Chan Mei” to “Sister Baolin,” the name every shop on Goldsmith Street knows to call out, Zhao Tiemei fights her way to the top of Hong Kong with sheer grit. The spoiled young heir of the Rong family, Rong Hanyang, sneers the first time he sees her: “A street girl like you thinks you can handle diamonds?” Later, he squats outside the Wing Cheong Gold Shop, clumsily learning how to sweep, his ears red. Even when all of Hong Kong laughs at him, he still says, “Baolin, will you teach me how to make gold jewelry?” Theme: Hard work is the one thing that will never let you down.