A Many Splendored Thing – Part 2

Han Suyin

A Many- Splendoured Thing by Dr. Han Su Yin was published in 1952 to great acclaim.

A place that featured prominently in her memoir is what Han Su Yin calls the Hospital. She never identified this Hospital.

A blog said it’s Queen Victoria Hospital. I think the hospital is the Queen Mary Hospital at No 102 Pok Fu Lam Road. It began operation in 1937. In her memoir, Han Su Yin “wrongly” calls it Pokfulum Road. This is where Mark Elliott (the alias she gave Ian Morrison) would pick her up at the end of her shift or on her off day which was Wednesday. (p 80).

Su Yin graduated in medicine from the UK. She returned to Hong Kong to practice with a view to finally returning to her homeland to serve her people.

In this memoir, she has given us evocative descriptions of Hong Kong of 1949, the exodus of bewildered Western missionaries from China to HK, the poor refugees living next to the rich who had fled Shanghai, of parties and swims in Repulse Bay and Deep Water Bay. (p 75).

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