If I want to experience the life of an ordinary person, I cannot do it in Asia.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The position that I take partly as a result of living in Asia is where you stop living according to your expectations and you become available to experience things as they are.
I don't have doctrinaire views about how we should relate to Asia. But novelists reflect the world they live in, and that world propels you, to some extent. I'm a creature of the British Empire, and of the period of transition from the Empire.
I love Southeast Asia. As a child, I lived in that part of the world. My first time in Burma was in 1958 with my parents.
Especially in the West, people want to understand Asia on a deeper level because it's become the engine of the world economy, like it or not.
My career in the movie business began in Hong Kong, my heart has always been tied to Asia, and it is immensely gratifying to see international recognition for Asian cinema as a whole.
In Asia, personal relationships are important, but you cannot personalise diplomacy.
The idea of Asian ascendancy has entered public culture.
Asia has always been a really exciting part of the world for me, personally. And it actually was the first part of the world that bought my brand, strangely enough.
I have spent time in Mongolia, in China.
I've built a career in Asia for 18 years, playing roles that had nothing to do with my race because everybody's Chinese in the films.