The Soong sisters () were Soong Ai-ling,

Soong Ching-ling Rosamond Soong Ch'ing-ling (27 January 189329 May 1981) was a Chinese political figure. As the third wife of Sun Yat-sen, then Premier of the Kuomintang and President of the Republic of China, she was often referred to as Madame Sun Yat-sen. ...

, and

Soong Mei-ling Soong Mei-ling (also spelled Soong May-ling, ; March 5, 1898 – October 23, 2003), also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Madame Chiang, was a Chinese political figure who was First Lady of the Republic of China, the wife of Generalissimo a ...

, three Shanghainese (of

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

descent) Christian Chinese women who were, along with their husbands, amongst China's most significant political figures of the early 20th century. They each played a major role in influencing their husbands, H. H. Kung, Sun Yat Sen (both also Christians) and Chiang Kai-shek, who, along with their own positions of power, ultimately changed the course of Chinese history. Their father was American-educated

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

minister Charlie Soong, who made a fortune in banking and printing. Their mother was Ni Kwei-tseng (倪桂珍 ''Ní Guìzhēn''), also a Methodist who came from an Episcopalian family. All three sisters attended

Wesleyan College Wesleyan College is a private, liberal arts women's college in Macon, Georgia. Founded in 1836, Wesleyan was the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women. History The school was chartered on December 23, 1836, as the Ge ...

in Macon, Georgia, United States. Mei-ling, however, left Wesleyan and eventually graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Their three brothers were all high-ranking officials in the Republic of China government, one of whom was

T. V. Soong Soong Tse-vung, more commonly romanized as Soong Tse-ven or Soong Tzu-wen (; 4 December 1894 – 25 April 1971), was a prominent businessman and politician in the early 20th-century Republic of China, who served as Premier. His father was Char ...

History

Throughout their lifetimes, each one of the sisters followed her own beliefs in terms of supporting the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

(KMT; Nationalists) or the

Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

(CPC). In the 1930s, Soong Ai-ling and Mei-ling were the two richest women in China;Peterson, Barbara Bennett (ed.). (2000). ''Notable Women of China: Shang Dynasty to the Early 20th century''. M.E. Sharp publishing. . both of them supported the Nationalists. In 1937, when the

Second Sino-Japanese war The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

broke out, all three of them got together after a 10-year separation in an effort to unite the KMT and CPC against the

Imperial Japanese army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

. Soong Ai-ling devoted herself to social work such as helping wounded soldiers, refugees and orphans. She donated five ambulances and 37 trucks to the army in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

and the air force, along with 500 leather uniforms. When the Japanese occupied

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

and

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city an ...

, the three sisters moved to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. In 1940, they returned to Chongqing and established the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, which opened job opportunities for people through weaving, sewing and other crafts. The sisters frequently visited schools, hospitals, orphanages, air raid shelters and aided war torn communities along the way.

Three sisters

Their marriages and alleged motivations have been summarized in the Maoist saying "One loved money, one loved power, one loved her country" () referring to Ai-ling, Mei-ling, and Ching-ling in that order.

Cultural materials

* ''

The Soong Sisters The Soong sisters () were Soong Ai-ling, Soong Ching-ling, and Soong Mei-ling, three Shanghainese (of Hakka descent) Christian Chinese women who were, along with their husbands, amongst China's most significant political figures of the early 20 ...

'', the award-winning 1997

film depicting the lives of the sisters * ''The Soong Sisters'', a 1941 book by

Emily Hahn Emily "Mickey" Hahn (, January 14, 1905 – February 18, 1997) was an American journalist and writer. Considered an early feminist and called "a forgotten American literary treasure" by ''The New Yorker'' magazine, she was the author of 54 books a ...

* ''The Soong Dynasty'', a 1985 book by

Sterling Seagrave Sterling Seagrave (April 15, 1937 – May 1, 2017) was an American historian. He was the author of numerous books which address unofficial and clandestine aspects of the 20th-century political history of countries in the Far East. Personal life Bo ...

, * ''Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister'', a 2019 book by

Jung Chang Jung Chang (, , born 25 March 1952) is a Chinese-British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography ''Wild Swans'', selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in the People's Republic of China. Her 832-page ...

References

Bibliography

*''Soong Dynasty'' by Sterling Seagrave, Sidg. & J, 1985,

External links

Soong Sisters
at the