I found myself on the trail of Soong Qingling, as the next metro station in towards central Shanghai from here is Songyuan Road. This literally means the Garden of Song road, and gets its name from the Soong Qingling mausoleum built in the gardens of Shanghai’s former International Cemetery, which nestles up to the metro station. I went to investigate who Soong Qingling was. And having discovered who she was, I then went onto visit her former residence in the Old French Concession.
- The Soong Sisters
She was one of the Soong sisters, China’s answer to the Mitford girls. Her elder sister married China’s richest man H H Kung, who became finance minster for China. Her younger sister married Chiang Kai-shek who was leader of the Kuomintang and later became President of the Republic of China. In the 1930s her two sisters were the two richest women in China. Her brothers all became high-level Chinese officials, one, T.V Soong was once finance minister and was twice Premier of the Republic of China, both before and after Chiang Kai-shek. Soong Qingling married Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern of China, as his second wife. Other than being known in the west as Madame Sun Yat-sen I had never heard of her.
Soong Qinqling, was a beautiful, clever and elegant woman.
- Soong Qingling in 1925
- Wedding Dress 1915
- Elegant Qibao & Her Favourite Shoes
- Elegant Handbag
- Evening bag
The memorial hall at Songyuan Road and the guard at her former residence here in Shanghai give some hint at the esteem in which she is held.
- Soong Qingling Memorial Hall
Although I could not photograph inside her elegantly furnished 1950s style house the photographs of her loggia give some idea of how she lived in Shanghai from 1948 to 1963. And all this during Mao's rule of China, but before the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966.
- Front Soong Qing Ling house
- Loggia Soong Qingling's House
Her father was a methodist preacher and she, along with her sisters, had been educated at a methodist college in the USA. She was bilingual. Her cookery notebook is written in both English and Chinese, and her desk had both western and oriental writing implements, testifying to the ease with which she flitted between the two.
- Cookery notebook
- Writing implements
In the garage of her house stand her official cars, a Chinese-made Hongqi and an Soviet-made Jim, presented to her by Stalin in 1952.
- A Hongqi Chinese-made Limousine
- A Soviet-made Jim presented by Stalin in 1952
- Statue of Madame Sun Yat-sen at her house
What is going on here, I wondered, as I pieced together the story of her life. She married Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1915 in Japan, despite the fact that he was 26 years older than her, was a Christian and already married, and her parents opposed the match. He had already briefly been made Provisional President of the Republic of China in 1912 and went on to set up the Kuomintang (KMT) political party in August of the same year, but had fled to Japan when Yuan Shikai had dissolved the KMT in 1914 before declaring himself the new emperor of China in 1915. The couple then went onto Canton in 1917 to try to establish a rival government but ended up in Shanghai and resurrected the KMT. Denied aid from the west, the KMT accepted help from the Soviet Union in 1923 and set up the KMT along Communist Party lines, with Mao Zedong and other early Chinese communist party members also joining the KMT. Sun Yat-sen died in 1925 and Soong was elected onto the KMT Central Executive Committee, but the KMT then split into 2 factions left and right. The ultimate power, however, was held by Chiang Kai-shek who
- A KMT Women's Politcal Training Class 1927 Wuhan
was in control of the military. Whilst Dr. Sun had formed his ideas from a deep understanding of the west, Chiang was deeply rooted in Chinese traditions, rejected communism as the way forward and moved China towards a dictatorship under his command. After the death of her husband, Soong Qingling was active in KMT party matters, here she is involved in setting up a political training class for women in Wuhan in 1927. In the same year the communists were expelled from the KMT and Soong fled to the Soviet Union. Not long after, her younger sister married Chiang.
- Meeting with George Bernard Shaw
However Soong Qingling did return to Shanghai not long after and kept up with her western contacts, and remained in this city until the Japanese invaded China in 1937.
- Foundation of the China Defense League in Hong Kong
She did what she could to help in the war effort against the Japanese invaders and ended up in Chongqing the site of the war government after she founded the China Defense League in Hong Kong and raised money to support the northern communist troops.
- Soong QingLing Climbing the steps of the Tiananmen Gate for the declaration of the founding of the PRC
She always claimed to be part of the legitimate legacy of her husband's revolutionary work and on October 1st 1949 she was a guest as the Communists declared the new People's Republic of China on Tiananmen Gate at the entrance to the Imperial City in Beijing.
- Soong Qingling and some of the women members of the First Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference 19 9 1949
After the Communists came to power in 1949 she held several prominent positions in the new government including Vice President of China. She did not come through the Cultural Revolution unscathed, being heavily denounced like many others. However, just before she died of leukaemia on 29th May 1981, she was made Honorary President of the People's Republic of China.
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