''My father was a storyteller - once debating champion of China, in fact,'' recalls Bette Lord, who came to the United States with her family when she was eight, just before the communist victory and the fall of Chiang Kai-shek. She evokes the pageantry and pain of China's struggles over the centuries and conjures up ghostly processions of ancestors - both her own, which range from scholar-aristocrats to skilled craftsmen, and those equally vivid characters in her best-selling novel, ''Spring Moon'' (New York: Harper & Row. In the understated elegance of her Park Avenue living room, she is all sparkle and snap, punctuating tales of her homeland and her clan with girlish laughter, then turning intense and serious as she relates darker moments of China's recent Cultural Revolution. A quiet aftenoon talk with novelist Bette Bao Lord turns out to be rather more like celebrating the Chinese new year in high-spirited company.
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