Empire of the Sun

It is now 1945. Jim is 14 and has spent over three years at the Lunghua internment camp to the south of Shanghai. The camp is under continual air attack by the United States armed forces, and Jim realizes that the Japanese are losing the war. While Jim is laying pheasant traps on the perimeter of the fence, under the instructions of Basie, a young Japanese private Jim befriended finds a large turtle nearby. The private lets Jim take the turtle back inside the camp, and Jim impresses the younger boys with it.

Jim describes his living arrangements in the camp. He shares a room with a British couple, Mr. and Mrs. Vincent, and their six-year-old son, whom they partition off from Jim so that he is living in a cubicle. Despite Mrs. Vincent’s hostility toward him, “like all the men and older boys in G Block, Jim was attracted to Mrs Vincent” (144). Jim also notes how the Japanese had “celebrated” VE day, the day of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender to the allies, by cutting the already inadequate rations in half.