The Remains of a Spy - Chapter Twenty-four

An Orphan's Tale

Hu continued her story. “Barbara, there is no good way to describe what it was like to be an orphan in Bangkok in the 1960s. In America, the loss of a parent is tragic and certainly there are difficulties. In Asia, the loss of a husband and a father is catastrophic. When my father was alive, we were living in a nice neighborhood, on a Bangkok klong and I could play with other children in middle class families who were Thai, Chinese, and Europeans. Suddenly one day, we could no longer pay our rent, we had to leave our neighborhood and no one would tell me what happened to my father.”