About
Hello my name is Eileen Chang
I was born September 30, 1920 and died September 8, 1995. I was (Still am by the way) a Chinese writer. You've probably heard of some of my works: Lust, Caution and Love in a Fallen City. Ring any bells?
My books (Still) are considered by some scholars to be among the best Chinese literature of the period. Dominic Cheung, even said that "had it not been for the political division between the Nationalist and Communist Chinese, she would have almost certainly won a Nobel Prize".
Dispirited my fans and popularity, my life was terribly difficult. My life was marred by disappointment, tragedy, increasing reclusiveness, and ultimately her sudden death from cardiovascular disease at age 74.
I was born in Shanghai, China. Her birth name was Zhang Ying. My Parents were Zhang Zhiyin and Huang Suqin. My father's grandfather, Zhang Peilun, was son-in-law to an influential court official, Li Hongzhang, during the Qing Dynasty, who married my father's grandmother, Li Juyu. My mother's grandfather, Huang Yisheng , was a prominent naval commander.
We relocated to Tianjin in 1922, but only a year later, mother left for the United Kingdom after father took in a concubine and became addicted to opium. All this happened at the age of 2. My parents marriage had been arranged, and despite having bound feet, mother managed to ski in the Swiss Alps! Mother returned in 1927, because father promised to end the drug usage and his personal affairs. We settled back to Shanghai in 1928, but this wouldn't last long. In 1930 parents divorced, and my younger brother Zhang Zijing and I were raised father.
When I graduated from high school, I had a terrible fight with my stepmother and father. Unfortunately I contracted dysentery which If left untreated can be fatal (If you don't know what it is Wiki is a great source of info). Anyways, Instead of receiving treatment, father beat me and forced me to stay in my bedroom for six months. I had had enough, so I ran away to live with mother shortly after I turned 18. There is where we remained, in a new apartment for nearly two years, until I began to attend university where I lived in Hong Kong.
I started school at the young age of four. Besides her native Chinese, I also studied and professed a high ability in English. Although my family was not religious, I attended an all-female Christian high school, Saint Maria Girls' School, where I graduated in 1937.
In 1939, I was to attend the University of London on a full scholarship, but I never did due to the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War. So instead I studied English Literature at the University of Hong Kong, where I met my life-long friend, Fatima Mohideen who died the same year I did. When I was one semester short from earning my degree, Hong Kong fell to the Empire of Japan in December 1941 and I made the decision to return to China. My original plan was to finish my bachelor's degree at Saint John's University, but I chose to drop out after several weeks due to financial issues.
At the age of 10, mother renamed her Ailing, a transliteration of Eileen, in preparation for her entrance into an English school. While in high school, I read
Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, which would influence my work throughout my career. I had already displayed great literary talent and my writings were published in the school magazine. The following year, I wrote my debut short novel at the age of 12.
In 1943, I was introduced to a famous editor, Shoujuan Zhou, and I gave him a few pieces of my writing. With Zhou's backing, I soon became the most popular new writer in Shanghai! Within the next two years, I wrote some of my most acclaimed works, including
Qing Cheng Zhi Lian and
Jin Suo Ji. My literary maturity was said to be beyond my age.
In the early days of my career, I was famously associated with this comment:
"To be famous, I must hurry. If it comes too late, it will not bring me so much happiness ... Hurry, hurry, or it will be too late, too late!"
After a while I migrated back to Hong Kong in 1952, where I worked as a translator for the United States Information Service for three years. While in Hong Kong, I wrote
The Rice Sprout Song, which was my first novel written entirely in English. I then left for the United States in 1955, never to return to mainland China again. I became a US citizen in 1960 and briefly headed to Taiwan for more opportunities, returning to the U.S. in 1962.
In 1963, I finished my English semi-biographical novels,
The Fall of the Pagoda and
The Book of Changes. Both were believed to be my attempts to offer an alternative writing style to mainstream America; I didn't succeed. The full-length novels were not published until 2010, 15 years after my passing. In 1967, I held a short-term job at Radcliffe College and would later transfer to UC Berkeley in 1969 before leaving the university in 1972, when I relocated to Los Angeles, California. In 1975, I completed the English translation of
The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai, literally Biographies of Flowers Beside the Sea, which is a celebrated Qing novel in the Wu dialect by Han Bangqing. Among my papers retrieved from the University of Southern California, the manuscript for the translated English version was found after my death and published.
I met my first husband Hu Lancheng in 1943, when I was 23 and he was 37. We were married the following year in a private ceremony. Fatima Mohideen was the sole attendee. In the few months that he courted me, Hu was still married to his third wife. Despite Hu being labelled a traitor for collaborating with the Japanese during the ongoing World War II, I continued to remain loyal to Hu. Shortly thereafter, Hu chose to move to Wuhan to work for a newspaper. While staying at a local hospital, he seduced a 17-year-old nurse, Zhou Xunde, who soon moved in with him. When Japan was defeated in 1945, Hu used another identity and hid in the neighboring Wenzhou, where he remarried to Fan Xiumei. The two of us divorced in 1947.
While in MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire, I met and became involved with the American screenwriter Ferdinand Reyher, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the time we were briefly apart in New York (Me in New York City, Reyher in Saratoga), I wrote to Reyher that I was pregnant with his child. Reyher wrote back to propose. I did not receive the letter. I telephoned the following morning to inform Reyher I was arriving in Saratoga. Reyher had a chance to propose to me in person, but he insisted that he did not want the child. I suffered a miscarriage shortly thereafter....We married on August 14, 1956. After the wedding, we stayed in New York City until 1956, when we moved back to New Hampshire. After suffering a series of strokes, Reyher eventually became paralyzed before his death on October 8, 1967.
On September 8, 1995, I was found dead in my apartment on Rochester Avenue in Westwood, California by my landlord. My death certificate states that I died from cardiovascular disease. In my will, I asked to be cremated without any memorial services and my ashes released into the Pacific Ocean.
I willed all my possessions to Stephen Soong and his wife Mae Fong Soong in Hong Kong, but they later died. Their daughter Elaine and son Roland inherited the estate of my works. Roland, who writes the influential EastSouthWestNorth blog in Hong Kong, has spoken about my works.
My brother, Zijing, died in 1997. Neither he nor I had any children, and so the family had no descendants. My line has ended....
Works in English translation
* Love in a Fallen City (tr. by Karen Kingsbury and me.)
* "The Golden Cangue": found in Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas
* Lust, Caution: Translated by Julia Lovell
* Naked Earth (tr.) Hong Kong: Union Press, 1956.
* The Rice Sprout Song: a Novel of Modern China (tr.)
* The Rouge of the North (tr.)
* Traces of Love and Other Stories
* The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (tr. of Han Bangqing's novel)
* Written on Water (tr. by Andrew Jones)
* Sealed Off
* Jasmine Tea
Films
I wrote several film scripts too. Some of my works have been filmed and shown on the silver screen as well.
The following are the scripts that I wrote as a screenwriter:
* Bu Liao Qing (1947) (modified from novel, published as movie script)
* Tai Tai Wan Sui (1947)
* Ai Le Zhong Nian (1949)
* Jin Suo Ji (1950) (The Golden Cangue)
* Qing Chang Ru Zhan Chang (1957) (The Battle Of Love, written in 1956)
* Ren Cai Liang De (unknown) (script written in 1956)
* Tao hua yun (1959) (The Wayward Husband, script written in 1956)
* Liu yue xin niang (1960) (The June Bride)
* Wen Rou Xiang (1960)
* Nan Bei Yi Jia Qin (1962)
* Xiao er nu (1963) (Father takes a Bride)
* Nan Bei Xi Xiang Feng (1964)
* Yi qu nan wang (1964)
The following are films adapted from my novels:
* Qing Cheng Zhi Lian (1984) (Love in a Fallen City)
* Yuan Nu (198
cool
* Hong Meigui Yu Bai Meigui (1994) (The Red Rose and the White Rose)
* Ban Sheng Yuan (1997) (Eighteen Springs)
* Lust, Caution (2007)
Now you may be wondering how I'm here....I'm a ghost of course! Right now I'm living above a little tea shop and that shop just so happens to be mine!!! I named it "Sakura Dragons" isn't that awesome!! That's a picture of me when I first opened up! Hope you enjoyed a small piece of my history.
**P.S.** I take no credit for the writings of Eileen Chang's history. All Thanks goes to Wikipedia where all this info came from!!! Couldn't have done it without you, all I did was change it to first person!!!
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