Love is a Many-Splendored Thing

Post 12 When you are rich in love, you are poor in hatred.

A Many-Splendored Thing is a novel written by Han Suyin in 1952. She is a well-known Chinese- Eurasian author born in China in 1917. The novel was made into the 1955 film Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, the song of which is an evergreen. Music lovers in their 50s and 60s onwards will no doubt have a feeling of nostalgia for their younger days whenever they hear this song being played.

The novel tells of a British reporter who falls in love with a Eurasian doctor originally from China only to become victims of class struggle and race prejudice in Hong Kong in the 1950s. Class consciousness and racial prejudice are just as relevant today as they were then. Nations are against nations; and civil wars abound in many continents.

Love and hatred know no barriers and they transcend national differences. It is only when love abounds that hatred, which is the result of pride and prejudice, will leave our heart.

In 1631, the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan's second and favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died while giving birth to their fourteenth child. She uttered a dying wish to Jahan that a monument be built to manifest their love. Jahan then took more than two decades to build the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. This architecture is now one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is also a symbol of love and passion.

Indeed, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing.

22 September 2009