A Young Chinese Slave's Fight For Survival

This story is set in China and Singapore during the mid-1920s, in Britain during World War II (1939-1945) and in 1947 post-war Singapore. The story is told by Ching-ling whose mother was abandoned at birth in China at a time when infanticide was widespread. Females were considered 'unlucky' by their impoverished parents. Those that were not killed were exchanged for food at 'sex-slave farms' and later sold to brothels in Southeast Asia. Many became slaves to rich Chinese merchants, as happened to Ching-ling's mother. In Singapore she was raped by her 'foster father.' She escaped with the infant Ching-ling, finding work in a 'death-house' in Chinatown where superstitious Chinese sent their aged or ill relatives to die. Ching-ling became a nurse to an invalid Englishwoman and found herself 'caught up' in the war in England while her mother whom she adored, suffered unspeakable hardships during the Japanese occupation of Singapore.