MODERN CHINA'S WORLD-FAMOUS FAMILY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23761, 14 September 1940, Page 1 (Supplement)

MODERN CHINA'S WORLD-FAMOUS FAMILY

IN the latter part of the nineteenth century there was born on the island of Hainan a boy pf humble parentage, Charlie Soong, who was destined to be the father of the most remarkable family in modern Chinese history. Strange that this man, who contributed so much to the growth of modern China, should have been born in the very island from which to-day Japan liienaces Indo-China and seeks to encompass the ruin of Chiang Kai-shek, husband of one of goong's three remarkable daughters. Charlie, in his early years went to work: in Boston for his uncle, a prosperous merchant. There he met Chinese students whose plans of making a new China distracted the boy from the packages of tea and bales of silk which formed his uncle's horizon. Charlie determined to become a student and to absorb the learning of the West. The old uncle despised such dreams and this lad, in a strange, country, with nothing in his pockets, ran away to the wharves of Boston and spent a weary and hopeless day until a kindly skipper gave him p job as a cabin-boy. ' Boyhood of Soong, Senr. Soong dreamed of nothing but his determination to become a -student. Something in him led the boy irresistibly to his goal. That supreme will he gavfe.'his children; if , modern China rises from her sufferings, she will owe it in no. small part to the remarkable resolution of this man and his family: Charlie learned on the boat the art of* making hammocks. With this knowledge and a few hammocks as'his stock-in-trade, die left the boat for the kindly shores of Georgia, in the brave hope that he could push his wares sufficiently to pay college fees. Imagine the boy trudging from village to village, getting more rebuffs than sales, always exquisitely polite in his Chinese fashion and-still as far off as ever from the capital necessary to enable him to study.

By one of these queer chances which change the lives of individuals, and often influence the history of nations, Charlie came to a great plantation and went to the stately, colonial house of its owner, General Carr. The general heard the business of this astonishing boy: "I sell hammocks because I want to go to school, and I must earn money. 1 am from China, but I want the learning of the West 1 am a Christian and my name is Charles Jones Soong." The general bought, but at this first interview, .although greatly impressed, did not offer to help. Charlie continued his wanderings with indifferent success until something took him back to the plantation where he had sold not one, but two, hammocks. He sat dreaming in the southern sun and was disturbed by none other than the general himself. From that meeting with an

.aristocrat of the South, this Chinese boy went to Duke University, his fees provided for him. It was the beginning of a career which was to end bv Soong dying a wealthy man and the otfner at Shanghai of the greatest printing press in the world. Charlie returned to China with a university degree and consumed with the ideal of serving his c-ountry and teaching his people Christianity. China could welcome him with its spirit, "not the prosperity or sophistication of the West, but instead an acceptance, a quietness, an appreciation of small things, a realisation that life consisted of living rather than of achieving." Wo have a restless urge which allows us to think too little of these things. Soong became a teacher. He soon met his future wife, Miss Ni, a lady whose character was as remarkable as his own. Cornelia Spencer, in "Three Sisters," a book just published by flarrap, gives a delightful picture of their courtship, western, because their marriage was not arranged, and yet oriental in its quaint formality. Charlie wrote seeking Miss Ni in marriage and suggested an interview, at which, of course, an elder, one Mr. Liu, would ho present. Miss Ni replied, favourably, yet circumspectly. '.'She would be willing to receive, Mr. Soong and Mr. Liu provided

By JOHN KNOX

it was with the understanding that nothing was involved or. either side." Lawyers are not more cautious. They married, a lovers' match and a happy one. Charlie continued his work as a teacher, travelled over his huge country, extending the organisation of the Y.M.C.A., and finally established a printing press, so that Bibles could be spread over the length and breadth of China. It was the foundation of a mighty enterprise. Yet the fame of Charles Jones Soong lies in his family, the Soong six who would, said the proud father, make Confucius turn in his grave.

These children, the first four of whom are so famous that the family is now known as the Soong Dynasty, are the celebrated T. V., now high in the councils of Chiang Kai-shek, the girls Ailing, Ching-ling and Mei-ling, and two other hoySj T.L., and T.A. There came a great day when the dynasty went in a body to the United States, to prepare for the future when China was to bo re-made. Mr. Charles Soong. who had started life so humbly and retained the humility of a great man, sent T.V. to Harvard, and his daughters to colleges in Georgia. .There Mei-ling, now Madame Chiang Kai-shek. ' became outwardly so much an American that when asked to describe Sherman's march through Georgia, she replied: "I'am a Southerner, and the subject is very painful to me. I should like to omit it."

Three Sisters Who Are National Leaders Belong to the Rema"Soong

THEY PERSONIFY THE NEW SPIRIT OF THEIR COUNTRY

But though America left its mark on them, all four remarkable children were true Chinese—T.V., who attained the highest scholastic distinction but remained very much the man of affairs; Ai-ling, clever, full of life and fun, and mistress of every situation; Ching-ling, intense and filled with the sense of a mission; and Mei-ling, brilliant, vivacious, pretty, vet with all the determination of her father. Ching-ling was almost one apart, constantly under the spell of a child's memories of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and driven by a force she did not yet understand.

Curiously enough in the light of recent history, Dr. Sun Yat-sen lived for some time in Japan, where he pursued his revolutionary activities' in safety. The Japanese little dreamt that they were giving refuge to the spiritual founder of modern China, whose creation they now seek to destroy. Ai-ling, her American education complete, went to Japan and became secretary to the great Chinese revolutionary. It was the commencement of the long association of the Soong children with the history of the Chinese Republic. Jn Japan at the time was a Dr. Ku'tig, a Y.M.C.A. secretary, and destined to be a very successful financier. Somewhat incongruously he was a descendant of Confucius in the seventy-fifth generation. Ai-ling soon abandoned her post with Dr. Sun Yatsen to become the wife of Dr. Kung. Success seemed to come to her as a matter of course. Mistress of a great house in Shanghai, a happy mother and wife of a man who was to be China's Minister of Finance, her life moved in pleasant places. Dr. Sun Yat-sen With Ching-ling it was otherwise. She was oppressed by the misery of the mass of her people. In 1913 she left America and eventually went to Japan, where she met once more the man whose dreams of China had always haunted her—Dr. Sun Yat-sen. She speedily succeeded to her sister's place and became his secretary. He was many years older than she, a visionary—many say a dangerous intriguer, but burning with the desire to help his country. Ching-ling was soon his devoted servant, thought as he thought, and came to love him.

The thought of marriage to a man so much older and so involved in plots vfas a painful shock to Mrs. Soong, who resolutely refused her consent. She had even planned in the old Chinese fashion another marriage for her daughter. But

she met a will as powerful as her own. Ching-ling left lier family and married the man she loved. She accompanied him in all his wanderings, heard him abused, as he is in some quarters to this day, as one of the most fickle and visionary of Chinese politicians, stood loyally by him as he founded a State on the Soviet model in southern China, and then accompanied him in his infirmity to Peking, where he died. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was greater in death than in life. His political testament has become the Bible of the Chinese Nationalists, and his name one to conjure with. His widow continued his influence and unassuming, almost belying her appearance, she has pursued her course, aloof, mysterious, but a factor in China, and an implacable enemy. She has reserved a particular hatred for Chiang Kai-shek, husband of her younger sister, the fascinating Meiling. The Future Ruler

The qualities of Chiang Kai-shek had been discerned at an early stage by Dr. Sun Yat-sen. The future ruler of China was once a military student in Japan, and in 1924 was appointed by Dr. Sun and his Soviet advisers as chief of the Whampoa Military Academy. Meiling, fresh from triumphs in America, soon met the rising officer and was speedily attracted by him. There were difficulties. Miss Soong-was a Christian; Chiang Kai-shek was not. Worse still, Chiang already had two wives. -■ According to one report, Chiang divorced them. According to another, he pensioned tliein off. Eventually he became a Christian and married Meiling, who pledged lier troth, at the civil ceremony, before an alcove in which hung a draped portrait of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Madame Chiang Kai-shek has proved a noble wife for the Generalissimo of China, worthily aiding him in his great struggle for the freedom of his country. For a while the Soong sisters were bound by the ideals of Sun Yat-sen. Chiang Kai-shek swept up from Canton with the armies of the South and established a National Government at Hankow. Then came the break. Although he had owed much of his success to the Soviet technique, he rejected Bolshevism and soon launched a ' merciless war against the Chinese Communists in the mountainous interior of the Kiangsi province. That meant bad blood between him and Ching-ling who remained ever loyal to the memory of her husband and his association with Communism. The widow of Sun Yat-sen nursed a bitter hatred for Chiang Kai-shek; the unity of the Soong family had received a blow.

In spite of all the efforts of the Generalissimo the Communists of Kiangsi never surrendered and finally in one of the most extraordinary and arduous marches in all history these fierce rebels took their forces to Shensi, one of China's northern provinces. Whatever their faults, they were fiercely anti- i Japanese; they cried for a united ■ China to fight Japan and condemned Chiang Kai-shek's policy of non-resis- j tance. Mei-ling's husband was for time. Then occurred one of the most 1 dramatic incidents in Chinese history. 1 Chiang Kai-shek went in person to Sianfu to destroy the Beds.' But even his own army was lukewarm, sick of the strife of Chinese against Chinese < when the enemy of .all China was. daily at the gates. Chiang was kidnapped by some of his northern officers and presented, with the approval of the Communists, with the famous eight points. s Foremost were national unity, the performance of Sun Yat-sen's testament and armed resistance to Japan. In this perilous hour, T.Y.j now head of China's National Economic Council,

flew to Sian and' the wise Mei-ling, who had deprecated armed intervention, came to her husband's side. "Jehovah;" she said, "will now do ,3 new thing and that is, he will woman protect a man." By dint of characteristic Chinese diplomacy and saving of "face," all was arranged. Unity was achieved by mutual concessions although Communism itself was sternly banned, and all agreed to fight the common enemy, Japan. The China incident, the undeclared war which still ravages a vast country, had begun. ' • China has; suffered terribly, but still fights,, her head bloody,- but .unbowed. A.nd the Soong Six personify the resolvt >f their country, to fight on for.ever, ill as Father Soong used to say, ii StjV f - CI"