Eileen Chang

Eileen Chang 張愛玲
Born	September 30 1920(1920-09-30) Shanghai, China
Died	September 8 1995 (aged 74) Los Angeles, California, United States
Pen name	Liang Jing
Occupation	novelist, essayist, screenwriter
Writing period	1932-1995
Genres	Literary fiction
Spouse(s)	Hu Lancheng (1944-1947) Ferdinand Reyer (1956-1967)
Influences	Cao Xueqin
Influenced	Yuan Qiongqiong

Eileen Chang (Traditional Chinese: 張愛玲; Simplified Chinese: 张爱玲; pinyin: zhāng ài líng) (September 30, 1920–September 8, 1995) was a Chinese writer. She also used the pseudonym Liang Jing (梁京), though very rarely. Her works frequently deal with the tensions between men and women in love, and are considered by some scholars to be among the best Chinese literature of the period. Chang's work describing life in 1940s Shanghai and occupied Hong Kong is remarkable in its focus on everyday life and the absence of the political subtext which characterised many other writers of the period. Yuan Qiongqiong was an author in Taiwan that styled her literature exposing feminism after Eileen Chang's. A poet and a professor at University of Southern California, Dominic Cheung, 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".

Early life

Born in Shanghai on September 30, 1920 to a renowned family, Eileen Chang's paternal grandfather Zhang Peilun was a son-in-law to Li Hongzhang, an influential Qing court official. Chang was named Zhang Ying (张瑛) at birth. Her family moved to Tianjin in 1922, where she started school at the age of four.

When Chang was five, her birth mother left for the United Kingdom after her father took in a concubine and later became addicted to opium. Although Chang's mother did return four years later following her husband's promise to quit the drug and split with the concubine, a divorce could not be averted. Chang's unhappy childhood in the broken family was what likely gave her later works their pessimistic overtone.

The family moved back to Shanghai in 1928, and two years later, her parents divorced, and she was renamed Eileen (her Chinese first name, Ailing, was actually a transliteration of Eileen) in preparation for her entry into the Saint Maria Girls' School. By now, Chang had started to read Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. In 1932, she wrote her debut short novel.

Even in secondary school, Chang already displayed great talent in literature. Her writings were published in the school magazine. After a fight with her stepmother and her father, she ran away from home to stay with her mother in 1938. In 1939, Chang received a scholarship to study in the University of London, though the opportunity had to be given up due to the ongoing war in China. She then went on to study literature in the University of Hong Kong instead. Chang met her life-long friend Fatima Mohideen (炎樱) while at University of Hong Kong. Just one semester short of earning her degree, Hong Kong fell to the Empire of Japan on December 25, 1941. The Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong would last until 1945.

Chang had left occupied Hong Kong for her native Shanghai. Her original plan was to finish the degree at Saint John's University, Shanghai, but it lasted for only two months. Lack of money was one factor for her to quit the university. She refused to get a teaching job or to be an editor, but was determined to do what she was best at - writing. In the spring of 1943, Chang made a fateful trip to meet the editor Shoujuan Zhou (周瘦鹃) to give him her writings - the rest was history, as Chang then became the hottest writer in Shanghai in 1943-1944. It was during this period when her most acclaimed works, including Qing Cheng Zhi Lian (倾城之恋) and Jin Suo Ji (金锁记), were penned. Her literary maturity was beyond her age.

First marriage

Chang met her first husband Hu Lancheng (胡兰成) in the winter of 1943 and married him in the following year in a secret ceremony. Fatima Mohideen was the witness. At the time they had a relationship, Hu Lancheng was still married to his third wife. Chang loved him dearly despite of this, as well as being labeled a traitor for collaborating with the Japanese.

After the marriage, Hu Lancheng went to Wuhan to work for a newspaper. When he stayed at a hospital in Wuhan, he seduced a 17-year-old nurse, Zhou Xunde (周训德), who soon moved in with him. When Japan was defeated in 1945, Hu used a fake name and hid in Wenzhou, where he fell in love with yet another countryside woman, Fan Xiumei (范秀美). When Chang traced him to his refuge, she realized she could not salvage the marriage. They finally divorced in 1947.

Life in the United States

In the spring of 1952, Chang migrated back to Hong Kong, where she worked as a translator for the American News Agency for three years. She then left for the United States in the fall of 1955, never to return to Mainland China again.

Second marriage

In MacDowell Colony, Chang met her second husband, the American scriptwriter Ferdinand Reyher, whom she married on August 14, 1956. While they were briefly apart (Chang in New York City, Reyher in Saratoga, New York), Chang wrote that she was pregnant with Reyher's child. Reyher wrote back to propose. Chang did not receive the letter, but she called the next day telling Reyher she was coming over to Saratoga, New York. Reyher got a chance to propose to her in person, but insisted that he did not want the child.

After their marriage, they stayed in New York City until October 1956 before moving back to MacDowell Colony. Chang became a U.S. citizen in July 1960, then went to Taiwan to look for more opportunities (October 1961 - March 1962). Reyher had been hit by strokes from time to time, and eventually became paralyzed. Reyher died on October 8, 1967. After Reyher's death, Chang held short-term jobs at Radcliffe College (1967) and UC Berkeley (1969-1972).

Translation work

Chang relocated to Los Angeles in 1972. Three years later, she completed the English translation of The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (海上花列傳, literally Biographies of Shanghai Flowers, or Courtesans), a celebrated Qing novel in the Wu dialect by Han Bangqing (韓邦慶), (1856-1894). The translated English version was found after her death, among her papers in the University of Southern California, and published. Chang became increasingly reclusive in her later years.

Death

Chang was found dead in her apartment on Rochester Avenue in Westwood, California on September 8, 1995, by her landlord. The fact that she was only found a few days after her death is a testament to her seclusion. Her death certificate states the immediate cause of her death to be Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD). She was survived by her brother Zhang Zijing (张子静) (December 11, 1921- October 12, 1997). Neither Chang nor her brother had any children. Chang's life-long friend Fatima Mohideen died a few month earlier, in June 1995 in New York. According to her will, she was cremated without any open funeral and her ashes were released to the Pacific Ocean.

She asked in her will to give all of her possessions to Stephen Soong (who died December 3, 1996) and his wife Mae Fong Soong in Hong Kong, but copyright was not mentioned in the will.

Bibliography

Main works

• 《秧歌》 (The Rice Sprout Song)
• 《赤地之戀》
• 《流言》 (Written on Water)
• 《怨女》 (The Rouge of the North)
• 《傾城之戀-張愛玲短篇小說集之一》
• 《第一爐香-張愛玲短篇小說集之二》
• 《半生緣》(Eighteen Springs)
• 《張看》
• 《紅樓夢魘》
• 《海上花開-國語海上花列傳一》
• 《海上花落-國語海上花列傳二》
• 《惘然記》
  • 惘然記
  • 色，戒 (Lust, Caution)
  • 浮花浪蕊
  • 相見歡
  • 多少恨
  • 殷寶艷送花樓會
  • 情場如戰場
• 《續集》
• 《餘韻》
• 《對照記》
• 《愛默森選集》 (The Selection of Emerson)
• 《同學少年都不賤》
• 《沉香》
• 《封锁》

Films

Chang wrote several film scripts. Some of her works have been filmed and shown on the silver screen as well.

• Bu Liao Qing (1947) (不了情, modified from novel 多少恨, published as movie script)
• Tai Tai Wan Sui (1947) (太太万岁)
• Ai Le Zhong Nian (1949) (哀乐中年)
• Jin Suo Ji (1950) (金锁记, The Golden Cangue)
• Qing Chang Ru Zhan Chang (1957) (情场如战场, The Battle Of Love, script written in 1956)
• Ren Cai Liang De (unknown) (人财两得, script written in 1956)
• Tao hua yun (1959) (桃花运, The Wayward Husband, script written in 1956)
• Liu yue xin niang (1960) (六月新娘, The June Bride)
• Wen Rou Xiang (1960) (温柔乡)
• Nan Bei Yi Jia Qin (1962) (南北一家亲)
• Xiao er nu (1963) (小儿女, Father takes a Bride)
• Nan Bei Xi Xiang Feng (1964) (南北喜相逢)
• Yi qu nan wang (1964) (一曲难忘, a.k.a. 魂归离恨天)
• Qing Cheng Zhi Lian (1984) (倾城之恋, Love in a Fallen City)
• Yuan Nu (1988) (怨女)
• Gun Gun Hong Chen (1990) (滚滚红尘, Red Dust)
• Hong Meigui Yu Bai Meigui (1994) (红玫瑰与白玫瑰, The Red Rose and the White Rose)
• Ban Sheng Yuan (1997) (半生缘, Half Life of Fate, also known as Eighteen Springs)
• Hai Shang Hua (1998, 海上花, Flowers of Shanghai)
• Lust, Caution (2007) (色，戒)

See also

• Chinese literature

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Works in English translation

• Chang, Eileen, and Tam Pak Shan. 1996. "Special Issue Eileen Chang." Renditions, 45.
• Chang, Eileen. The Dana Home of Lexington: A Historic Rest Home Founded on Community. 2000.
• Chang, Eileen. The Rice-Sprout Song. New York: Scribner, 1955.
• Chang, Eileen. The Rouge of the North. London: Cassell, 1967.
• Zhang, Ailing, and Andrew F. Jones. Written on Water. Weatherhead books on Asia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. ISBN 9780231131391
• Zhang, Ailing, and Eva Hung. Traces of Love and Other Stories. Renditions paperbacks. Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. ISBN 9789627255222
• Zhang, Ailing, and Karen Kingsbury. Love in a Fallen City. New York Review Books classics. New York: New York Review Books, 2007. ISBN 9781590171783
• Zhang, Ailing, Julia Lovell, Ang Lee, and James Schamus. Lust, Caution: The Story. New York: Anchor Books, 2007. ISBN 9780307387448
• Zhang, Ailing, James Schamus, and Huiling Wang. Lust, Caution: The Story, the Screenplay, and the Making of the Film. New York: Pantheon Books, 2007. ISBN 9780375425240
• Zhang, Ailing, Michelle M. Miller, Ailing Zhang, and Ailing Zhang. Love in a fallen city: two short stories by Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang). The translator's thesis (A.B., East Asian Studies)—Harvard University, 1985, 1985.
• Zhang, Ailing. Love in a fallen city and other stories. Modern classics. London: Penguin, 2007. ISBN 9780141189369
• Zhang, Ailing. Naked Earth. Hong Kong: Union Press, 1956.
• Zhang, Ailing. The Rice Sprout Song: A Novel of Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN 9780520210882
• Zhang, Ailing. The Rice Sprout Song: A Novel of Modern China. Hong Kong: Dragonfly Books, 1963.
• Zhang, Ailing. The Rouge of the North. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN 9780520210875

Secondary sources

• Chow, Rey. Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory Reimagining a Field. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000. ISBN 9780822380160
• Hsia, Chih-tsing. A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971. ISBN 9780300014617
• Hsia, Chih-tsing. Twentieth-Century Chinese Stories. Companions to Asian studies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. ISBN 9780231035903
• Hung, Eva. Eileen Chang. [Hong Kong]: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996.
• Lee, Leo Ou-fan. Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930-1945. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 9780674805514
• Trudeau, Lawrence J. Asian American Literature: Reviews and Criticism of Works by American Writers of Asian Descent. Detroit: Gale Research, 1999. ISBN 9780787602963

External links

All links are retrieved December 28, 2008.

• Eileen Chang's Poetics of the Social: Review of Love in a Fallen City, Reviewed by Haiyan Lee.
• Eileen Chang at the Internet Movie Database

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