Re: A world famous Hakka author Han Suyin

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.joinet.net.au>]

Hello Hakka Friends,

This is a message from a Polish Professor about the world famous Hakka 
author Dr Han Suyin. Thank you so much Professor Kowalska for your
kindness for contributing this message to our Forum. If our Hakka
friends have not read any of Dr Han's books I can humbly say that you
don't know what you have missed. 
The famous English philosopher Bertrand Russell commented  
on Dr Han's book "The Crippled Tree":

"This is a most valuable and informative book. During the first of 
many hours that I spent reading it, I learnt more about China than 
I did in a whole year spent in that country."
 

Summary by Teresa Kowalska

  I firmly believe that one of the best things which happened to me
in my life was coming across the books written by Han Suyin, and
specifically across those which introduce the twentieth century China with
its complicated political and social problems. Quite accidentally, the
first book written by Han Suyin that came to my hands was 'Destination
Chunking' and I remember myself avidly reading it day and night with the
face burning of emotions in that remote, but still memorable summer of
1969. In fact, 'Destination Chunking' was my first hanbook of modern
China, and an absolutely fascinating one. The teacher seemed to anticipate
that my understanding of the subject was next to nil, therefore she
purposefully spoke to me in a very encouraging soft tone and
 - what is invaluable indeed - in a comprehensible Western language. Her
logic was very convincing, her sensitivity towards the ordinary human
problems admirable, and then - meditating about the contents of this
first, so very personal and so very authentic, book about China in my
life - in a single flash of mind I grasped the idea of an absolute and
unconditional unity of human race. Since that time Han Suyin has become my
indisputable and ultimate 'guru' in all the matters of modern China. With
particularly great interest I read her books, which tackled the delicate
issue of cultural revolution. (I guess, my greatest favourite is 'Birdless
Summer'). I had to admire her firm but quiet criticism, which was very
intellectual in the best sense of the word and without a pinch of any
violent emotional reaction, without a slightest impatient trace of hatred,
or revenge. In this way she gave me a great lesson of the humain, perhaps
even Christian, political thinking, too difficult for me to master though,
which I humbly need to admit now. And Han Suyin established one more, 
also very important standard for my political thinking, writing her 
'Lhasa - The Open City. A Journey to Tibet'. 

	For me Han Suyin is one of the greatest contemporary writers in
our global village. Sometimes literary critics nickname her the
'Solzhenitsyn of China', meant as a compliment, which I find very unfair
though. After all, Solzhenitsyn depicts some cruel an omalies on the
outskirts of the so-called Western world only, whereas Han Suyin
interprets the great culture of her own nation for use of another distinct
culture, which is an absolutely different challenge and a much more
difficult task, too. She invents her own, incomparable 'translational' 
and esthetic rules. She attempts to build a bridge of understanding 
between the East and West. She graciously presents us, Westerners, with a 
royal gift of her enormous creative achievement. In 'Destination Chunking'
she declares that acting as a midwife among underprivileged of China was
not only a part of her medical profession, but also an ultimate vocation
of her noble heart. In my understanding, even as an artist, she managed to
remain in a sense a midwife, with all her books assisting in a hard 
process of bringing to life our sensitivity to and our understanding of 
the most important - human - problems of the Far East Asia. 

Teresa Kowalska
Katowice (Poland), December 2nd, 1998