Chin Yu was born in a London slum to a Chinese man and a British woman. When Chin was seven the family moved to her father's village in China but he died soon after they arrived. Her mother took the children to live in Hong Kong where, a few years later, she remarried. A few months after Britain had joined World War II, all British women and children were ordered to be evacuated to Australia. However, Chin and her brother were excluded because of the White Australia Policy, so they returned. Eighteen months later the Japanese invaded Hong Kong and Chin's family were interned in a camp....