South of the Border, West of the Sun  Alfred A. Knopf  Read the
Review  My birthday's the fourth of January, 1951. The first
week of the first month of the first year of the second half of
the twentieth century. Something to commemorate, I guess, which
is why my parents named me Hajime--"Beginning," in Japanese.
Other than that, a 100 percent average birth. My father worked
in a large brokerage firm, my mother was a typical housewife.
During the war, my father was drafted as a student and sent to
fight in Singapore; after the surrender he spent some time in a
POW camp. My mother's house was burned down in a B-29 raid
during the final year of the war. Their generation suffered most
during the long war.      When I was born, though, you'd never
have known there'd been a war. No more burned-out ruins, no more
occupation army. We lived in a small, quiet town, in a house my
father's company provided. The house was prewar, somewhat old
but roomy enough. Pine trees grew in the garden, and we even had
a small pond an