The World of Suzie Wong

December 5, 2011
Though 55 years have passed since Mason’s (1919–1997) romantic novel of colonial Hong Kong was first published (spawning a ballet, a play, and a film starring William Holden and Nancy Kwan), the work retains the power to seduce. In the Elizabeth II Coronation Year of 1953, young Englishman Robert Lomax chucks his career at a rubber estate in Malaya to try his hand at painting, “the only part of myself for which I jealously cared,” he notes. Savings take him as far as the Nam Kok hotel in the Wanchai district of Hong Kong, where he may well be the only boarder not paying by the hour. When he meets the beautiful Suzie Wong, despite knowingly having a self-centered “mentality as doomed as the Empire which bred it,” Robert thinks she’s more than just “a dirty little yum-yum girl” and wants to take care of her. Suzie is struggling to support her baby and find “a big heart” in the endless stream of sailors. Although drawn to Robert, Suzie warns, “I told you I would just give you trouble.” Fans of the 1960 film and hopeless romantics of every stripe will forgive the overearnest narration (love and jealousy make for a potent mix) and relish the vicissitudes of a cross-cultural romance as choppy as Kowloon Bay.