Book excerpt: In 1944, when Song Nan Zhang was not yet three, he saw a baby tiger outside the hut in the mountains where he and his mother were living. The tiger returned twice before disappearing into the bamboo forest forever. For a child to see a tiger meant luck, but Song Nan Zhang wasn't sure if living in China was lucky or not. Life was so difficult that sometimes he felt like the lost tiger itself, hoping for a home only to be forced back into the dark. In this, his autobiography, Song Nan Zhang paints the dispersal of his family, his development as an artist, the humor that lightened some of the more difficult times, and finally, his journey to Canada.