Young Robert Lomax, fed up with working on a rubber plantation in Malaya, takes a year off to live in Hong Kong and paint. He doesn't know if he's got what it takes, but he wants to try. He takes a room at the Nam Kok Hotel - it's cheap, clean and on the waterfront. And it's interesting. He's the only resident who rents his room by the month - the Nam Kok is host to a group of bar girls who ply their trade in rooms rented by the hour. The American sailors, their customers, are their 'boyfriends' who give them 'presents' of money. Suzie's imagination is such that she is sometimes 'Mei-Ling' - a daughter of a very old, very wealthy Chinese family. To have such dreams makes her life tolerable. Robert begins dating an English nurse but finds himself comparing her reserve to Suzie's lively personality and intriguing mix of worldliness and naivety. Suzie, together with the other girls in the bar are his muses but it's Suzie that he loves. However, will love be enough to overcome the prejudice they will encounter in the English and Hong Kong society of the 1950s? A classic modern novel. Cover art of this edition by Harry Toothill.