QUOTE : …this story happened in China to the extent that it was permitted to do so—which is to say very little. ¶ It is a ghetto story, a tale of double exile: exile from our native country (which for me was Japan, since I was convinced that I was Japanese), and exile from China which surrounded us but from which we were cut off, by virtue of our status as profoundly unwanted guests. ¶ Make no mistake, however, in the end, China has the same weight in these pages as the Black Death had in Bocaccio’s Decameron: though hardly mentioned, it RAGES throughout.