Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

Jean, the author, starts the story as a ten-year-old girl living in a city called Hankow in China. She was American, and felt she was living on the wrong side of the world and that she should be in America with her grandmother. Hankow was next to the Yangtse River, and Jean noted that she loved certain aspects of the energy and activity on the river.

Jean attended a British school where the schoolchildren daily sang "God Save the King". Jean, her cultural identity further confused, refused to sing the song after awhile. Her teacher, Miss Williams, noticed and Jean had to confess she didn't want to sing the song as an American who did not pledge allegiance to the British king. At recess, a stout boy named Ian Forbes confronted Jean and demanded she say "God save the king". Ian...