East of Suez

'East of Suez' is a play by W. Somerset Maugham. The action of the play is set in Peking and it explores the lives of three English men working as expatriates in China. Harold Knox wakes up from his nap to meet his two friends Henry Anderson and George Conway. They discuss among others the cultural divide between the English and the Chinese, and the difficulty of marriage to half caste persons. And then Anderson drops his bombshell. He is to marry the widowed Mrs. Rathbone, a young woman of mixed heritage…