Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Henry Lee attends a gathering in 1986 outside the Panama Hotel, which served as the entryway to Japantown in Seattle. After decades of being boarded up, the new owner has found items that belonged to Japanese family who were interned during World War II. Chinese American Henry recalls a little Japanese American girl from his boyhood in the 1940s named Keiko Okabe, with whom he developed a relationship of friendship and naive love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World forefathers, while the owner exhibits and unfolds a Japanese parasol. Keiko and Henry could only hope that their vow to one another would be maintained once Keiko and her family were transported to the internment camps. Forty years later, Henry searches the hotel's basement for items formerly owned by the Okabe family as well as for a long-lost item whose worth he is unable to even begin to approximate. He will go back in time to examine the sacrifices he made for his family, his love, and his nation as a result of his quest.