Though fiction about eighty five percent of the events in this story are based on real happenings which took place in 1949 when the communist took over the tribal areas of Yunan, China. Many on the hunting stories are again based on real events many which were experienced by my father and other family members, but the majority of them took place twenty years earlier when it was still even wilder along the Burma China border. The last major man eating tiger belongs to that era. The story follows a Christian Lahu family at the time the communists take over the area where they are living in 1949 until they flee out into Burma some nine months later and their lives are made much more difficult by the presence of a man eating tiger. The story presents a way of life, tribal beliefs, and folk stories while authentic have already largely disappeared in much of this area due to the onslaught of civilization. Communism wiped away much of the tribal culture, though many elements still remain. For example, the usual home is no longer bamboo with thatched roofs, but cement and tile in the area where the story takes place. Instead of rice for the morning meal, noodles have become the mainstay. Chinese is the main language taught in the schools and many no longer remember many of their own traditions. But some of the tiger stories presented in this book are still told.
About the Author: AUTHOR Philip Young MD was born and raised along the Burma-China border. His grandfather was a pioneer missionary who came to that area in the Shan States of Burma not long after the British had gained control of the territory. He was born in, Kengtung in the Eastern Shan States of Burma, the same town as his father. This was a wild, mountainous, area; an area in the early days filled with leopards, tigers and other big game. As a four year old, he fled Burma, along with his mother, a six year old brother and a new- born sister, from the impending Japanese invasion of World War II. Returning to Burma after the war, the family returned to the village of Bana, a day's walk across the border in China, living there until after the communist took over in 1949, living under the communists for nine months. The family was forced to flee into Burma at the end of the year. A year of school in Thailand and two in South India followed before a return to the U.S. In the United States, Philip completed high school, college (University of Redland) and medical school (University of Nebraska) before a stint in the navy as a doctor on ship board off the coast of Vietnam. After His marriage to Ruth Units, and a year of seminary, the couple became medical missionaries in Palawan in the Philippines where they started a small hospital. Health problems demanded a return to the U.S. where Dr. Young was in practice for twenty years. For the last ten years he has been living in the golden triangle area of Thailand (Where Burma, Laos and Thailand come together) and working with the Lahu people. He brings a myriad of different experiences into his writing.