Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet Chapter 1

The Panama Hotel (1986)

• At the beginning of the book, an older Chinese-American man named Henry Lee stands outside the Panama Hotel in Seattle.
• He's watching a crowd gather around because something special has been discovered in the hotel—the belongings of thirty-seven Japanese families who were interned during World War II.
• He thinks about his family, especially his wife Ethel who has recently died. Their son is now going to college nearby.
• Henry finds himself staring at the things being brought out and thinking about the past… and the people who owned these objects.