Eileen Chang

Chang was born Zhang Ying (張煐) in Shanghai, China. She was the first child of Zhang Zhiyi (張志沂) (1896–1953) and Huang Suqiong (黃素瓊) (1893–1957). Chang's maternal great-grandfather, Huang Yisheng (黃翼升) (1818–1894), was a prominent naval commander. Chang's paternal grandfather, Zhang Peilun (1848–1903), was son-in-law to Li Hongzhang, who became an influential court official during the Qing Dynasty and married her paternal grandmother, Li Ju'ou (李菊耦) (1866–1916). Her childhood had also been shared with paternal aunt Zhang Maoyuan (張茂淵) (1898–1991).[1]

In 1922, when Chang was two years old, the family relocated to Tianjin. When she was three, her father began to introduce her to Tang poetry. In 1924, her father often brought back prostitutes or concubines and was also addicted to opium. This resulted in fights between Chang's parents. During this time, her mother decided to travel with her aunt to France to study.[1] She returned in 1927, as her husband had promised to end the turmoil with his drug usage and his extramarital affairs, and so the family settled back in Shanghai in 1928. However, her parents eventually divorced in 1930. Chang and her younger brother Zhang Zijing (張子靜) (1921–1997) were raised by their father.

Upon graduation from high school, Chang had a fight with her stepmother and father. Eventually, she contracted dysentery. Instead of obtaining treatment for her, her father beat her and forced her to stay in her bedroom for six months. Chang ran away to live with her mother shortly after her 18th birthday; they remained in a new apartment for nearly two years, until she began to attend university and briefly lived in Hong Kong.[3]

The gate of Eddington House in Shanghai, Eileen Chang lived here in 1942. (Picture taken in June 2013)

Chang started school at age 4. Other than native Chinese, Chang had obtained excellent English skills. Although she said her family was not religious, she graduated from an all-female Christian high school, St. Mary's Hall, Shanghai in 1937.[1] Chang’s mother valued modern education. Under her influence, at an early age, Chang began training in painting, piano and English. [4]

In 1939, Chang was accepted to the University of London on a full scholarship, but because of the war in Europe, she was not able to attend. Instead, she studied English Literature at the University of Hong Kong, where she met her lifelong friend, Fatima Mohideen (炎櫻) (died 1995). When Chang was one semester short of earning her degree in December 1941, Hong Kong fell to the Empire of Japan.

Chang met her first husband Hu Lancheng in 1943, when she was 23 and he was 37. They were married the following year in a private ceremony. Fatima Mohideen was the sole attendee. In the few months that he courted Chang, Hu was still married to his third wife. Despite Hu's being labelled a traitor for collaborating with the Japanese during World War II, Chang continued to remain loyal to Hu. Shortly thereafter, Hu chose to move to Wuhan to work for a newspaper. While staying at a local hospital, he seduced a 17-year-old nurse, Zhou Xunde (周訓德), who soon moved in with him. When Japan was defeated in 1945, Hu used another identity and hid in the nearby city of Wenzhou, where he married Fan Xiumei (范秀美). Chang and Hu divorced in 1947.[2]

While in MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire, Chang met and became involved with the American screenwriter Ferdinand Reyher, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[5]

During the time they were briefly apart in New York (Chang in New York City, Reyher in Saratoga), Chang wrote to Reyher that she was pregnant with his child. Reyher wrote back to propose. Although Chang did not receive the letter, she telephoned the following morning to inform Reyher she was arriving in Saratoga. Reyher had a chance to propose to her in person, but insisted that he did not want the child. Chang had an abortion shortly afterward. On August 14, 1956, the couple married in New York City.[6] After the wedding, the couple moved back to New Hampshire. After suffering a series of strokes, Reyher eventually became paralyzed, before his death on October 8, 1967.

On September 8, 1995, Chang was found dead in her apartment on Rochester Avenue in Westwood, Los Angeles, by her landlord.[7] According to her friends, Chang had died of natural causes several days before her building manager discovered her body after becoming alarmed that she had not answered her telephone, her death certificate states that she died from cardiovascular disease.[7] According to Chang's will, she was cremated without any memorial service, and her ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

At the age of 10, Chang's mother renamed her Ailing, a transliteration of Eileen, in preparation for her entrance into an English school. While in high school, Chang read Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, which would influence her work throughout her career. Chang already displayed great literary talent and her writings were published in the school magazine. The following year, she wrote her debut short novel at the age of 12.[8]

In 1943, Chang was introduced to the prominent editor Zhou Shoujuan, and gave him a few pieces of her writing. With Zhou's backing, Chang soon became the most popular new writer in Shanghai. Within the next two years, she wrote some of her most acclaimed works, including Love in a Fallen City (Qing Cheng Zhi Lian, 傾城之戀) and The Golden Cangue. Several short stories and novellas were collected in Romances (Chuan Qi, 傳奇) (1944). It had instantly become a bestseller in Shanghai. As a result, Chang immediately received attention from Chinese readers and also the literary circle.[9]

A collection of her essays appeared as Written on Water (Liu Yan, 流言) in 1945.[10] Her literary maturity was said to be far beyond her age. "The essay form became a means for Eileen Chang constantly to redefine the boundaries between life and work, the domestic and the historic, and meticulously to weave a rich private life together with the concerns of a public intellectual."[10] In 20th Century China, Chang was one of the few writers who experimented with new literary language. In her essay entitled "writing of One's own," Chang retrospectively remarks on her use of a new fictional language in her novella Lianhuantao Chained Links [10]

In the early days of her career, Chang was famously associated with this comment:

To be famous, I must hurry. If it comes too late, it will not bring me so much happiness ... Hurry, hurry, or it will be too late, too late![11]

In 1945, Chang’s reputation waned due to postwar cultural and political turmoil. The situation worsened after the Communist takeover in 1949. Eventually, Chang left mainland China and went to Hong Kong in 1952, realizing her writing career in Shanghai was over.[10] In Hong Kong, she worked as a translator for the United States Information Service for three years. While there, she wrote The Rice Sprout Song (Yang Ge, 秧歌), her first novel written entirely in English.[2] During her sojourn in Hong Kong, she translated a variety of English books into Chinese. Most notably include books by Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea) and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.[12] She then left for the United States in 1955, never to return to mainland China again.

Chang became a U.S. citizen in 1960 and briefly headed to Taiwan for more opportunities, returning to the U.S. in 1962.

In 1963, Chang finished her English semi-biographical novels, The Fall of the Pagoda and The Book of Change. Both were believed to be her attempts to offer an alternative writing style to mainstream America; she did not succeed. The full-length novels were not published until 2010, 15 years after her death.[13][14][15] In 1967, Chang held a short-term job at Radcliffe College.

In 1969, upon the invitation of Shih-Hsiang Chen (陳世驤), a professor of Oriental Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, Chang became a senior researcher at the Center for Chinese Studies of Berkeley.[16][17] She did research on the special terms used by the Chinese Communists as well as on Dream of the Red Chamber.[16] In 1971, Professor Chen died, and Chang subsequently left her position at Berkeley.[17][18]

In 1972, Chang relocated to Los Angeles. In 1975, she completed the English translation of Shanghai Flowers, a celebrated Qing novel written in Wu Chinese by Han Bangqing. Among her papers retrieved from the University of Southern California, the manuscript for the translated English version was found after her death and published. In 1978, Crown Magazine published "Lust, Caution", “Xiang Jian Huan”(相見歡) and “Fu Hua Lang Rui”(浮花浪蕊), all written by Eileen Chang.[19]

She has been listed as one of China's four women geniuses, together with Lü Bicheng, Xiao Hong and Shi Pingmei.[20]