China and the West

Maugham, W. Somerset. The painted veil. In : Cosmopolitan ; Nov. 1924-March 1925. (London : Heinemann, 1925).
https://ia600900.us.archive.org/6/items/W.SomersetMaughamThePaintedVeil/W.%20Somerset%20Maugham%20-%20The%20Painted%20Veil.pdf.
Preface : "Of course I saw it as a modern story, and I could not think of a setting in the world of to-day in which such events might plausibly happen. It was not till I made a long journey in China that I found this… I had originally called my hero and heroine Lane, a common enough name, but it appeared that there were people of that name in Hong Kong… and I changed the name to Fane… I changed Hong-Kong to an imaginary colony of Tching-Yen."
Sekundärliteratur
2011
Zhang Yanping : The novel tells a story of adultery and salvation in Hong Kong. Compelled by circumstances, Kitty Fane, a beautiful and superficial British girl from a middle-class family, marries a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong, who she does not like. Accompanying Walter, her husband, to Hong Kong, she falls passionately in love with Charlie Townsend, the dashing assistant colonial secretary. The affair is soon discovered by Walter, and as a punishment, he makes Kitty go with him to a cholera-ridden Chinese town. It leads to his own death rather than his wife's, as he originally intended. At the death of her husband, she feels freed not only from the marital bondage, but also from her desire for Townsend. Upon her return to Hong Kong, she surrenders to Townsend once again. Notwithstanding, the novel ends with a sanguine note : back to London, Kitty sees herself changed and thinks that she is able to live on with 'hope and courage'.
In the preface to The painted veil, Maugham writes that he had brooded over Dante's story in Purgatory for many years before he made his journey to China, where he ultimately found the 'setting in the world of to-day in which such events might plausibly happen'. On a superficial level, what Maugham sees in Hong Kong that qualifies it as the right place for the story to happen may well be its geographical feature, which is analogous to Purgatory.