Manila, Goodbye

by Robin Prising

This true story of a boyhood brings to life the elegant Far East of the thirties - and the sharply contrasting years of the Japanese occupation of Manila. Robin, the child, begins his voyages of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395204321
• ISBN13: 9780395204320
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 207 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Robin's book recalls painful memories we share...

Mr. Prising's excellent and absorbing book affected me in many ways for we could have been neighbors inthe city of Manila before, during and after our liberation. I am about three years older than the author and also went through the atrocities, devastation and hunger all of us civilians suffered during the japanese occupation. Like him, our family was fortunate to be repatriated to the US. I, like Mr. Prising recall the heady days of Manila, (the Pearl of the Orient) before WW2, where life was calm and idyllic. Needless to say, all that has changed. SALAMAT Mr. Prising.

Survival Instincts

This book details the childhood of Robin Prising, who at the age of 8, found himself interned in a Japanese prison camp in Manila. Prising, who had been born in Canada and given up at birth, was adopted by a couple in their 50's, Frederic and Marie Prising, and immediately taken to their overseas home. Frederic was a rich American businessman, and Marie, British by birth, had been an actress. Robin's first seven years of life were very luxurious. He had rich foods, servants to wait on him, and preferred the company of adults. When the war came to Manila, all of this changed. He and his parents were carted away to an internment camp. Robin's parents' health deteriorated almost immediately, and they were taken off to the hospital ward. From the small boy's point of view, this constituted abandonment, proof that in the end, they only cared for each other, and not for the small waif they had taken in. Later experiences would show that his parents did indeed care for him, but the scars of this incident persisted. On his own, Robin had to learn how to get along with other children, and how to endear himself to adults who could help him. He learned to tie his own shoes, to make his own deals with the black marketers for food, and how to catch and eat any manner of living critters to stave off certain starvation. He saw his parents beaten, and he saw the fattest man he ever knew slowly starve to death in the camp. Later, he saw people killed. He came down with measles, whooping cough, and pneumonia, and pulled through. What kept him alive was hope. He writes "My early years had been a time of ease and plenty: like a child through is fingers, I had merely peeped at the world outside. This childhood had abruptly ended with the Japanese occupation of Manila when I was nearly nine years old. The fall of Manila forced me into boyhood, three years which even now (1975) seem the longest in my life. This was the time in which I learned to live through hope. The American invasions and the ensuing holocaust had shut my boyhood behind me." The book is a disturbing, yet uplifting story of a struggle against impossible odds, and provides a unique first-hand account of the Japanese occupation of Manila as experienced by Westerners who were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I love this book

The book tells about the story of young Robin Prising growing up in both pre-war and wartime Manila. Prising saw the devastation of his beloved city during World War 2 under the Japanese and the countless tragedies that befell its population. Nonetheless, he also shares his other and numerous experience during the war - some of these are funny, adventurous, exciting, and very memorable. His maturity grew faster beginning at age 8 when war started when compared to boys living in the United States at that time. His observation and memories would stay with him forever. The book is very easy to read and I encourage everyone to read it.