Dr Han Suyin Talks About Love

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32281, 27 April 1970, Page 2

Dr Han Suyin Talks About Love

If a man and woman prefer, for their own good reasons, a long-lasting love affair to marriage then they have Dr Han Suyin’s blessing.

“I am all for it,” the international lecturer, writer and author of “A Many Splendoured Thing,” said in Christchurch recently. But, she emphasised, an affair should never be started without love.

Dr Han firmly believes that marriage is still a very important institution in society and will be for a very long time. But it is not for everyone, she says. Ceriain people of independent character, especially women who were economically independent, did not feel that marriage was what they wanted, she said. For them, a long-lasting love relationship could be more satisfactory than marriage when it was based on mutual respect, understanding, tolerance of each other’s defects, and a caring for one another.

Love was a continuing process through life by learning and adapting, she said. “It is not just something that comes by sitting back and expecting it to bring happiness,’’ she said. "You have to work at it and this Is something that is not explained often enough to people. So many get disappointed quickly over small things. This makes for instability." The first thing to realise was that love is much more than “just a feeling.” “This feeling has to be built Into something that is mutual, a give-and-take attitude with generosity, with or without marriage." she said. No Promiscuity Dr Han Is strongly opposed to promiscuity. In this age of sexual permissiveness she believes promiscuity is stifling love and has become a new kind of bondage.

“It is a bondage to the animal senses, what the French call 'the itch.’ It is just as bad a bondage as narcotic drugs—a bad habit that loses self-respect and respect for others," she said.

Love could not be learned by having many sex experiences.

“You do not improve with practice by sleeping with many different people,” she said. “Casual affairs spoil love.

“When you feel love for a person you must cherish it like a tender plant, giving It the care you would to anything that is precious. This does not come with promiscuity."

Dr Han has been married three times. Her first busband, a Chinese army general, died. Her second was an Englishman, but this marriage did not work out “But we have remained the best of friends,” she said. Her present busband, who Is travelling with her. is Colonel V. Ruthnaswamy, an officer in the Indian Army and a Senator In the Upper House of the Indian Government. A tall, handsome man, he towers above his small, agile wife of Chinese-Belgian narentage. Both he and Dr Han are Roman Catholics.

Love For Humanity Discussing love’ in its broadest sense love for humanity—Dr Han said this must be based on unselfishness to the utmost degree. “When Jesus Christ said: ’Love thy neighbour as thyself' he did not make any limitations." she said. “I think this kind of love must be based on social justice. You cannot say: ‘I just love my servants.’ That is not enough: that is not love of humanity. “The world cannot boast of love until there is complete and total disappearance of any kind of human oppression and exploitation, of thinking that one can step on other people’s faces Io get somewhere, of thriving cheerfully on the blood, sweat and tears of others." Love - for humanity was more than merely giving away one’s surpluses. “Christ said: ‘Give all thou hast.' Not many people can do that," she said. “It is much more difficult to do than giving away what you do not need.” There were, however, many who would fight for justice and sacrifice a great deal for others.

“The thing that has struck me so much on my visits to China is the emphasis put on destroying one’s own selfishness, by becoming aware that selfishness is the root of all evil,” she said. “This is

strongly realised in China today. although it is very hard to put into practice.” After qualifying in London. Dr Han practised medicine in Hong Kong. Malaya and Singapore for 15 years, but gave up in 1965 to spend all her time lecturing, writing and travelling. Requests to lecture in many parts of the world on her views on China are increasing to such an extent that Dr Han, now in her early fifties, feels she will have to give up in a year or two. She and her husband feel it is becoming too exhausting for her.

A warm-hearted woman with a compassionate understanding of people, Dr Han came to New Zealand to lecture at the invitation of the New Zealand-C hi n a Society. Her aim is to try to help others understand modern China and life there. She speaks from her own personal experiences, not as a representative of the country. Dr Han Is not a Communist. She is a woman with a double heritage of East and West—a natural, complex woman with a deep social conscience.

Her book, “China In The Year 2001" is regarded as one of tbe best brief interpretations of China today. I Her home is in Paris, where 16 of her works have ibeen published, but she spends only about two months a year there. The rest of her time is taken up In travelling, in ■ lecturing and gathering facts and experiences firsthand of people, the way they live and how they think.