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Things That Must Not Be Forgotten - A Childhood in Wartime China

by Michael David Kwan

My father, David Kwan, first published this memoir in 2000 when it won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for Nonfiction. It has since been republished a few times, with the most recent efforts to keep it in print coming from its use as required or recommended reading in university Asian Studies courses in the US. I decided to take on the challenge of building a Google Lit Trip for this piece of nonfiction partly in homage to my father, and partly as a personal journey back through my family history.

In conducting research to find old family documents and photos, I found out a number of interesting facts which have altered my own understanding of my own heritage. As China has changed so much in the last 25 years since Tiananmen in 1989, some of the clues that I have pieced together to build this Google Lit Trip have come from retracing my steps from 1992 when I visited Beijing with my father, and from digging through boxes of old photos that have been stored at my oldest brother's house since my father's passing in 2001. I also lived, worked, and traveled in China for 8 years from 2001-2009 while working in two international schools in Beijing. As a teacher, I have met a number of people in my travels who have read and been forever changed by my father's book. My hope is that this Google Lit Trip will help to enhance the reader's experience and bring greater depth to my father's story of his childhood during the Japanese occupation and China's civil war, through the exploration of historical maps, placemarkers and old family photographs.