NOWHERE IS MY HOME

Sole surviving male of an upper-middle-class Chinese family, Mr. Lo enjoyed a childhood of comparative luxury with nothing more serious to worry about than his classical studies and the care of his many pets. As the Japanese war-cloud began to loom, however, even his quiet neighborhood in the British concession of Tientsin began to stir with the activity of the student underground. He was called up during his first year of high school for a brief period of army training, and though he regretted becoming embroiled in politics, he could not resist a rising surge of patriotism and threw in his lot with the terrorist underground. In garish detail, he tells of the activities of the Tuan of which he became a part and eventually a leader. Inevitably, he was captured; his description of the tortures of the infamous Bridge House prison cannot be read without empathy. Relatives arranged his release, only to learn that he had been jailed a second time soon afterward. Ultimately, he found it necessary to flee the country, and by a roundabout route finally to settle in America, where he subsists by teaching the Mandarin language. He reflects back over the values of the Old China, and pleads that she be remembered. ""Nothing that was in China is the same, or will ever be the same again. I want at least to put down what I remember as exactly as I can."" With flashes of real charm, this is another piece in the tragic mosaic of World War II.