I LEFT MY HEART IN MALAYA

In this memoir, a physician recollects the years he spent as a youngster in Malaya—now Malaysia—and the ways in which that experience shaped the rest of his life.

Hung was born in Hong Kong, but both of his parents landed jobs teaching in Muar, Malaya, in 1957 and remained there until 1961. The author was 10 years old when he first arrived—he was “unruly” and “conceited,” spoke little English, and was a shiftless troublemaker. But by the time he left, at 15, he was more mature and more confident, spoke “decent” English, and had developed a deep religious faith. He credits much of his transformation to Brother Robert, a teacher he once “feared and hated,” an austere disciplinarian who set Hung on a straight and narrow path. When the author’s parents finally lost their jobs and were forced to return to Hong Kong—a prospect that deeply distressed him—Brother Robert used his connections to help Hung find a new school. The author would eventually fulfill his dream to go to medical school, become a doctor, and move to the United States, a set of aspirations he long harbored and the consummation of which he gratefully credits to his experience in Malaya. Hung lucidly conveys an endearing tale of the years he still considers the happiest in his life. With great tenderness, he recounts the beautiful simplicity of that stretch of his youth: “It was an age of innocence for us. Our lives were simple and our pleasures were simple.” But his remembrance is an idiosyncratically personal one—he furnishes the historical backgrounds of multiple families with which he had close relations, information that won’t sustain the attention of readers unacquainted with them. Hung’s devotion to those he met in Malaya—he all but adopted one troubled family as his own—is infinitely noble but not always gripping.

A sweet remembrance sure to please the author’s loved ones and friends.