ABSTRACT
By 1955 the Japanese economy was recovering to pre-war levels. The shipbuilding industry, for example, which had been crippled by the war, began rapid expansion in 1954 and production reached second place internationally by 1955. The Izu Mission was becoming firmly established, with the Diocese of South Tokyo recognizing it officially as a parish in 1956. There was a regular itinerary for visiting all the cottage churches in rural and coastal villages of the Izu Peninsula. Hong Kong was more crowded than ever, with a restless heavy feeling about its streets and business places. Han Suyin's book Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing reflects so truly the feeling you get in much of the East today, the tenseness and the lack of future for self as divorced from country, the terrible human need for something to prove the worth of the individual.
