HAN Suyin (pic), the charismatic Eurasian physician-author who recently passed away aged 95, was a prolific writer whose career spanned World War II, China’s revolution, the Korean War, Communism’s rise and the decline of colonialism in East Asia.
Her biographies of Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, set against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution and focusing on, and to an extent lending credence to, why they did what they did at the time they did it, were criticised by the West for not denouncing the Chinese communist regime.
At other times, the Chinese branded her “bourgeoisie” for recalling her part-Western roots and their influences on her.
Typical of her unique style of writing, expressing her independent thinking candidly and passionately, she once commented: “I write as an Asian, with all the pent-up emotions of my people. What I say will annoy many people who prefer the more conventional myths brought back by writers on the Orient.
“All I can say is that I try to tell the truth. Truth, like surgery, may hurt, but it cures.”
I first came to know of Han Suyin and her writings in the late 1950s, when our English Literature teacher wanted students to read works by authors from the East as much as those of the West. So we read the poems of Rabindranath Tagore and Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat (translated).
And then there was Han Suyin’s A Many-Splendoured Thing, a tale of forbidden love, revolution and romance, a blend of East and West, and how different social and political beliefs, ideas and values can complement one another side by side.
Her autobiographical novel captured our emotions and our imagination, more so when we learned that she had married a British officer in the Malayan Special Branch, came with him to then Johore, worked as a doctor at the JB General Hospital and later set up her own clinic there.
In 1955 Han Suyin helped establish Singapore’s Nanyang University and served as its physician. She was offered a post there teaching literature but she declined, indicating her desire “to make a new Asian literature, not teach Dickens”.
Between her first novel, Destination Chungking (1942) and one of her last historical studies, Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China (1994), Han Suyin published almost two dozen novels, non-fiction books and memoirs and contributed countless essays for mainstream newspapers and magazines worldwide, often in the context of historical and generational upheaval in Asia.
Many years after leaving school, some of us heard that A Many-Splendoured Thing had been made into a film, the Academy Award-winning Love Is A Many-Splendoured Thing, and to our great delight it was being screened at the old Rex Theatre in Kuala Lumpur.
What better way to show our appreciation to our former English Literature teacher than to invite him to watch the film — with two erstwhile classmates, Othman, a teacher, and Lee, a hospital assistant. We absolutely enjoyed the show, recalling old times, especially the fun and good fortune we had learning such splendid works by great writers and poets.
RUEBEN DUDLEY
Petaling Jaya
Dramatic Pose for the promotional poster of the film.
Source: Wikipedia
Tuesday November 6, 2012
Splendid memories of Dr Han
By DESIREE TRESA GASPER
desiree@thestar.com.my
JOHOR BARU: Writer Han Suyin (pic) may be known around the world for her novel A Many Splendoured Thing but some folk in Johor still remember her as the doctor at a clinic in Jalan Ibrahim here.
Dr Alice Loh, 84, who took over Han's clinic after she left the country, said the writer had moved to Johor Baru from Hong Kong after marrying Leon F. Comber, who was serving as a British officer in the Malayan Special Branch in 1952.
Han's popularity among her patients shot up shortly after her novel was adapted into an Oscar-winning film, recalled Dr Loh.
“Everyone wanted to be her patient so they could boast about how they were being treated by the famous Dr Han Suyin. Although I did not know her well, I remembered that she had striking features due to her mixed parentage and was popular, especially among the male patients,” she laughed.
The Eurasian writer, whose real name was Elizabeth Comber, died at the age of 95 in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Friday.
Here are some snippets about her life, her book and how she came to Johor Baru and Singapore:
In Hong Kong, she met and fell in love with Ian Morrison, a married Australian war correspondent based in Singapore, who was killed in Korea in 1950.
She portrayed their relationship in the novel A Many-Splendoured Thing (1952) and the factual basis of their relationship is documented in her autobiography My House Has Two Doors (1980).
In 1952, she married Leon Comber, a British officer in the Malayan Special Branch and went with him to Johor, Malaya (present-day Malaysia), where she worked in the Johor Baru Hospital and opened a clinic in Johor Baru and Upper Pickering Street, Singapore.
She portrayed their relationship in the novel A Many-Splendoured Thing (1952) and the factual basis of their relationship is documented in her autobiography My House Has Two Doors (1980).
In 1952, she married Leon Comber, a British officer in the Malayan Special Branch and went with him to Johor, Malaya (present-day Malaysia), where she worked in the Johor Baru Hospital and opened a clinic in Johor Baru and Upper Pickering Street, Singapore.
Han Suyin: Author whose best-selling 'Many-Splendoured Thing' became a Hollywood hit
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing is a 1955 American drama-romance film. Set in 1949-50 Hong Kong, it tells the story of a married, but separated, American reporter Mark Elliot (played by William Holden), who falls in love with a Eurasian doctor Han Suyin originally from China (played by Jennifer Jones), only to encounter prejudice from her family and from Hong Kong society.
The movie was adapted by John Patrick from the 1952 autobiographical novel A Many-Splendoured Thing by Han Suyin. The film was directed byHenry King.
Jennifer Jones as Han Suyin, she complained her make-up made her look old!
Plot:
The widowed Eurasian doctor Han Suyin (Jones) falls in love with the married-but-separated American correspondent Mark Elliott (Holden) in Hong Kong, during the period of China's Civil War in the late 1940s. Although they briefly find happiness together, she is ostracized by the greater Chinese community. After losing her position at the hospital, Suyin and her adopted daughter go to live with a friend while Mark is on an assignment during the Korean War. They write to each other constantly.
However on the same day that Suyin receives a letter from Mark, another friend drops by with a newspaper which says that he has been killed by an aircraft bomb. Distraught, Suyin climbs the hill to the tree where they said their last goodbyes, half hoping to see him there again. When she realizes that he is truly gone, she falls to her knees sobbing. In the final scene, a butterfly, similar to the one seen on Elliot's typewriter while at the front, lands on the tree in front of Suyin. She composes herself and walks away.
The film was shot on location in Hong Kong, which was unusual for its time. It was completed on time within the three months schedule.
Soundtrack:
The sentimental and upbeat theme song, "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" was one of the first songs written for a movie to become no. 1 in the charts in the same year. Written by Sammy Fainand Paul Francis Webster, the song was recorded by The Four Aces and also by Jerry Vale, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra, among others. Italian-language versions were recorded by Nancy Cuomo, Neil Sedaka, and Connie Francis. Francis also recorded the song with its original English lyrics, and a German language version, Sag, weißt du denn, was Liebe ist.
Here's a sample of the song's lyrics:
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- Love is nature's way of giving
- a reason to be living,
- The golden crown that makes a man a king.
In the film, charged romantic moments occur on a high grassy, windswept hill in Hong Kong. In the bittersweet final scene on the hilltop, the song (heard on the sound track) recalls the earlier encounters:
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- Once on a high and windy hill,
- In the morning mist, Two lovers kissed,
- And the world stood still.
The theme song, as recorded by The Four Aces, went to #1 on the charts for four weeks in 1955 (in the midst of the rock-and-roll era) and won the Academy Award for Best Song
NOTE: When we were in our teens, these lyrics were seemed so romantic to us, and we copied them down and quoted them wherever we deemed fit!!! Ha ha ha!!! But I have not seen the film!!! It was made before I was born!!!
Locations
- The building of the Foreign Correspondents' Club, was the former Mok Residence until 1951 when it became the Foreign Correspondents' Club then located at 41A Conduit Road, is portrayed as a hospital. The building is now demolished and Realty Gardens apartment complex has occupied the site since 1970.[
- The former colonial-style Repulse Bay Hotel, demolished in 1982, and now the site of The Repulse Bay apartment building.
- The Tai Pak Floating Restaurant, now part of the Jumbo Kingdom.
- The famous hill-top meeting place where the lovers used to meet was located in rural California and not in Hong Kong.
Source: Wikipedia
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