The Soong Sisters – Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China

The US is called mei guo – the Beautiful Country — by the Chinese long before the current trade war and the hostile relationship arising from it that has curtailed social and cultural exchanges between their citizens.

In this 2019 book, Jung Chang tells us how Charlie Soong the father of the three Soong sisters went to Boston at a tender age of 17 to find a better life. He was so well treated by the American Methodist community that he converted to Christianity and had a lifelong affection for America after returning to China. He even sent his 3 daughters to study in America with May Ling only 9 when she went there. {p33}.

The subjects covered in this book are so vast and the famous characters so many that this book gives us only a glimpse into the three sisters. A more thorough treatment can be found in the book The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave published in 1996 though this book does not cover the years from 1996 to 2003.

Sun Yat-Sen is portrayed as conceited and self-centered. Readers interested in a more benevolent view shd read Sun Yat-Sen in Penang by Khoo Salma Nasution which tells us the fund-raising efforts of Sun in Nanyang and Sun Yat-Sen by Marie Claire Bergere who gave us a more nuanced perspective of Sun.

The strength of this book is its many references to books and memoirs published in Mandarin in Taiwan and China. It is also the most recent biography of the Soong Sisters. Readers looking for a more detailed treatment of Soong May Ling / Mrs. Chiang Kai Shek should read these 2 books which are also the most recent biographies on her – Madame Chiang Kai Shek: China’s Eternal First Lady by Laura Tyson Li {2006} and The Last Empress by Hannah Pakula {2009}.

The Soong Sisters, their eldest brother TV Soong, and Chiang Kai Shek have been much maligned in history by historians looking at them and judging them through ethical modern standards. They have been called corrupt and accused of enriching themselves at the expense of the peasants. One must not forget that Chiang Kai Shek besides fighting the Japanese invasion and Mao was also fighting to control the many warlords in China, each with their own private armies. After the end of World War Two Mao only had to defeat Chiang as the warlords and their armies had been obliterated by the Japanese. Chiang was no saint. If he was, he would have been martyred long before he even launched the successful Northern Expedition. The Soong Sisters, Sun Yat-Sen, Charlie Soong, and Chiang Kai Shek did their best to serve China in their own ways. For this reason, I welcome this new biography.

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