The eponymous establishment is the Panama
Hotel in Seattle, located at the juncture of the old Chinatown and Japantown
areas of the city. For Henry Lee,
Chinese American, fifty-six and still grieving his wife’s recent death, it is a
familiar landmark from his childhood, but it has been boarded up for decades.
Now, in 1986, new owners have moved in and
are renovating. They have made a
discovery in the basement – suitcases and boxes of belongings stored there by
families of Japanese heritage who were shipped out of town and interned in the
post-Pearl Harbour panic of 1942. For
Henry it both brings back memories and holds out the prospect of finding a long
lost treasure.
Cue the flashback to 1942 where twelve year
old Henry Lee is the only Chinese kid in a white middle class school. There is one more outsider there, a Japanese
American girl. Henry knows (his father
tells him every day) that China and Japan are implacable enemies at war on the
other side of the Pacific; but here at school Keiko is his only ally, and soon
a friend.
The novel twin tracks Henry’s 1986 search
for his hidden treasure and his 1942 cross cultural experiences, though the
latter increasingly take prominence.
Both trajectories are a little predictable and the characters rather
one-dimensional, but the historical context is interesting and informative.
It is an easy read, quicker than its 450
pages threaten, and it provides the reader with the promised mix of bitter and
sweet. But it is bitterness and
sweetness rather than tragedy and passion, so all a bit restrained; which is
maybe as it should be to reflect the culture of the protagonists.
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