The story begins with the storyteller, Jim, a youth of 11 years of age and images of the Yangtze River and coffins cast adrift from funeral piers of the poor Chinese on the eve of the invasion by the Japanese. Starvation ever present for the poor Chinese, they are dying daily by the hundreds. The only burial ceremonies the poor could afford involved floating the coffins down river accompanied by regattas of paper flowers.
Jim rides in his family's Packard and views the world around him through the rolled up window - crowds of people, begging orphan boys running beside the car, beggars propped outside the gates of the wealthy. As throughout Shanghai, propaganda newsreels promoted by the British war effort were shown everywhere: schools, churches, open air theaters and even at.....
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