Tom Stoppard

But he was in Shanghai, but...

But when I visited the location and saw the little boy's bedroom, it gave me a really spooky feeling because the designers, who must have researched it very thoroughly, they gave him books and things stuck on the walls, which triggered off memories of my own.

I mean, they were my books, and over his bed was a thing called Flags of All Nations, a sort of...

map, a chart of different flags.

And I remembered suddenly having this absolutely the same chart, flags of all nations in my bedroom.

So it was a real time trip.

But as for writing the story, well, listen, I didn't get put in a prisoner of war camp and I wasn't chased around by Japanese soldiers, no.