What do you think enhance a city? What element would exude fragrance and charm? For me, it’s the presence of art, the spirit of a writer who once lived there.

If you were to visit me in England, I would take you to the nearest city Winchester, England’s historic city, adorned with magnificent architectures. It’s where you’ll find the little house where Jane Austen had lived before she died. We would walk along the water meadows, abundant in wild flowers and butterflies.

Before I came to England, in Johor Bahru, the city where I was born in Malaysia (previously Malaya), a lesser known story was developing. HAN Suyin, the Eurasian writer noted for A Many Splendoured Thing in 1952, lived there for about 10 years. This novel was later made into an award winning film, starring Jennifer Jones and William Holden, in 1955, and HAN Suyin instantly became a household name. The novel was based on her love affair in Hong Kong with the war journalist for The Times in London, an Australian named Ian Morrison, who died later reporting in the Korean war.

A Many-Splendoured Thing, by HAN Suyin 韩素音 （image from Amazon)

HAN Suyin 韩素音 was a medical doctor. She was born Elisabeth Chow Kuanghu (Zhou Guang-Hu 周光瑚) in 1917 in Henan, China, to Zhou Yuan Dong and Marguerite Denis, her Flemish-Belgian mother. When she arrived in Johor Bahru, Malaya, in around 1952 with her second husband, Leon F Comber, she practiced in the General Hospital, where I was born less than 20 years later. Later, She ran her own clinic called Chow Dispensary, which was later relocated to Jalan Ibrahim (meaning Ibrahim Road) above Universal Pharmacy. In the 70s, long after the writer had left, the few shops and houses there were destroyed by fire. Now, the place which carried the memories of her has been turned into a car park.

HAN Suyin, image from The Hindu

I remembered this road in Johor Bahru well, of course,  Continue reading →