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semperfionaI've been frustrated all day trying to add some more interests to my personal info--the page kept refusing to update. But one of the things I added was "han suyin", which turns out to be a unique interest. She is a Chinese-Belgian doctor and novelist. In googling to find a biography/bibliography page to link here, I found some interesting quotes from her. Unfortunately the quote page did not list the book or speech from which the quotes come.
I first encountered her work by purest chance. At a bookstore in Hong Kong's Kaitak Airport, while waiting for a flight to Shanghai, I bought a book called The Mountain Is Young. It is one of the best love stories I have ever read, beautiful and real and evocative, set in the incredible locale of Kathmandu, Nepal, during the time around the coronation of Nepal's King (1952). I was so floored by this book that after I returned to Japan I made several of my friends read it, and I still reread it regularly.
Since then, and after returning to the US, I've made a project of reading any works by her I could get my hands on. It was difficult to find many; bookstores never seemed to have them, and they often end up misfiled under S instead of H, but I found a number at the University City library. I think I ought to go add any of them I can find to my wishlist at Amazon, or maybe just order them outright.
- . . . love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other.
- Exploitation and oppression is not a matter of race. It is the system, the apparatus of
world-wide brigandage called imperialism, which made the Powers behave the way they did.- There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness.
- Truth, like surgery, may hurt, but it cures.
I first encountered her work by purest chance. At a bookstore in Hong Kong's Kaitak Airport, while waiting for a flight to Shanghai, I bought a book called The Mountain Is Young. It is one of the best love stories I have ever read, beautiful and real and evocative, set in the incredible locale of Kathmandu, Nepal, during the time around the coronation of Nepal's King (1952). I was so floored by this book that after I returned to Japan I made several of my friends read it, and I still reread it regularly.
Since then, and after returning to the US, I've made a project of reading any works by her I could get my hands on. It was difficult to find many; bookstores never seemed to have them, and they often end up misfiled under S instead of H, but I found a number at the University City library. I think I ought to go add any of them I can find to my wishlist at Amazon, or maybe just order them outright.
