Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister

Having interviewed hundreds of Chinese Canadians, I knew that many of Canada’s earliest Chinese migrants met and gave money to Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China, though most were less enthusiastic about Chiang Kai-shek. This book presented a complicated narrative of US-Chinese relations from the perspective of the Soong sisters, who straddled the boundaries of west and east and lived in a world where most Chinese were excluded because of their race. Similar to many of the bachelors in my book, the sisters were also influenced by KMT politics and religion. Both the Soong sisters and the bachelors knew… show more.

The legendary Soong sisters shaped 20th century China and have remained icons for nearly a century—from the time my mother was a girl in 1930s Shanghai, while author Jung Chang (best known for Wild Swans) was growing up in the 1950s, and well after the last sister died in 2003. The three sisters married the most powerful men of the time, leaders of the Republic of China government: Ai-Ling married its finance minister; Ching-ling, its first president; and Mei-ling became the wife of Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic for over 40 years. But Chang focuses on the… show more.