Discover the Soong Sisters’ Qipaos: an Exhibition of the Soong Family Dresses

It was an absolute pleasure to see Soong Ching-ling, Soong May-ling, Soong Ai-ling (commonly referred to as the Soong sisters) and their families’ qipaos (cheongsams) in an exhibition held in Shanghai. The most prominent family of China in the first half of 20th century, their qipaos represent the finest design and craftsmanship of the era.

The Soong (or Song) family almost requires no introduction. It produced the most famous sister trio in Chinese history: Soong Ai-ling (Song Ailing), Soong Ching-ling (Song Qingling), and Soong May-ling (Song Meiling), each rising to fame with her prominent husband, but was instrumental in keeping him so over decades. They had three brothers, but only one, TV. Soong (short for Soong Tse-ven, also known as Soong Tzu-wen, Song Ziwen), rose to fame with his sisters and held senior ministerial positions in the Republic of China.

This exhibition was to mark the 125^thbirthday of Soong Ching-ling, and showcased almost 30 qipaos collected by Mrs Jeanette Zee, a relative of the Soong family. Co-curated by my friend Tiezhi (one of the most accomplished qipao tailors in Shanghai), it was an intriguing glimpse into the wardrobes of this famous family.

A side note if you are confused about Chinese names

As a side note, you might be feeling overwhelmed with all the name variations above. The differences are mostly due to two romanization systems for mandarin Chinese, used to write Chinese into an alphabet system. The first is pinyin, the official system used in Mainland China since 1979; and the second is Wade-Giles, the de facto system used worldwide in the first half of the 20^thcentury. I will be using Wade-Giles mostly for the remainder of this article, as these were the official names used by the Soong family in their time, and what popular literature and official documents refer to. Please see below the key for interpreting names in this article:

Soong Ching-ling¹(Song Qingling², 宋庆龄³/宋慶齡⁴)

1. Person’s popular name in English, mostly Wade-Giles
2. Person’s pinyin name
3. Person’s Chinese name in simplified characters
4. Person’s Chinese name in traditional characters (omitted if the simplified and traditional characters are the same)

I will also be using a mixture of naming conventions and wanted to explain this briefly. Most Anglicized names write names in the order “Given name- Last name”, but Chinese names are written in the opposite order “Last name-Given name”. I use a mixture below, depending on the mostly commonly used name for each person.

The other thing to explain is the naming convention of women after marriage. Most Chinese women retain their existing name after marriage. For those who also use an English name, they will often change their last name in English, without a corresponding change in Chinese. A few will include their husband’s last name in front of their existing Chinese name, but this tends to be the exception.

The Soong patriarch: Charlie Soong（Song Jiashu 宋嘉澍,宋查理）

It was not until I researched for this article that I discovered the Soongs were not actually Soongs at all, their father Charlie Jones Soong was in fact born with the last name Han, nameChiao-shun (Han Jiaozhun 韩教准/韓教準) in Hainan, south of China around 1665.

He travelled to the US at around 10 years oldto work for his uncle, but later found his way to North Carolina and there converted to Christianity. He was sponsored to attended Duke and Vanderbilt Universities for preparations before being sent back to China as a missionary in 1886. Along with his baptization, he adopted a new Anglicized name – Charlie Jones Soon, which he later changed to Soong. His American education and faith went on to impact his and his childrens’ lives in very defining ways.

He married Ni Kwei-tseng (Ni Guizhen, 倪桂珍), and in the span between 1888 and 1897 had his four eldest, and most famous children. He defied the family norms of the time, and sent all his children, including the three girls, to the US for education from their early teenage years. As a result, all were perfectly bi-lingual, moving fluidly between the Chinese culture they were born into, and the American culture that they grew up in.

Some of you are probably surprised by the Western education of the Soongs, as I was when I first read about it in my early twenties. This surprise turned to great astonishment, and then delight, when I later discovered the cupboards full of English books my own late great-grandfather brought back from his years at Yale. As a current resident of Shanghai, I realize that the China of today is more similar to the China of the Soong siblings’ youth than it has been for over half a century. And the angst that I, and many of you probably feel, being torn between two cultures… well it is nothing new, and if the Soongs are any indication, this same source of angst can be used to great advantage later in life.

Ni Kwei-tseng (Ni Guizhen, 倪桂珍)

Not much is written about the Soong Matriarch Ni Kwei-tseng in popular literature, but I have no doubt that she would have been quite an extraordinary women in her own right.

What I was able to find out is that she was the youngest daughter of an upper-class Chinese family with ancestry dating back to the palace of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). She was highly intelligent and educated, but rather plain looking and not considered very marriage-able. She was also the only Ni daughter allowed to grow up without bound-feet, rendering her even less desirable as a wife.

After successfully marrying off both her older sisters to pedigree families, her parents did not think they had any better alternatives for Kwei-tseng, and settled with the choice of Charlie Soong. In this petite and God-fearing woman, Charlie Soong found a companion who shared his love of music, and who brought him invaluable social connections, as well as a large dowry that enabled him to start his first business.

Soong Ai-ling (Song Ailing 宋蔼龄/宋藹齡/)

Soong Ai-ling was the eldest Soong child, born in 1888. She was the sister least in the public eye, but considered the most business-savvy. As the saying for the three sisters go – “one loved money, one loved power, one loved her country…” – Ai-ling was the one that loved money.

Ai-ling attended Wesleyan College in Georgia from her early teenage years. She returned to her family after graduation, and later married H.H.Kung, son of a wealthy banking family. He went on to become the richest man in China, and also held prominent positions in the Republic of China’s government. Whether this was a direct result of the Soong family connections we will never know, but there can be no doubt that the shrewed Ai-ling played a key hand in building her husband’s empire, and was heavily involved in politics behind-the-scenes. She left China in 1949 when the communists took over and lived out the remainder of her life in New York.

Of the three sisters’ qipaos on display, I have to admit I enjoyed the 2 from Ai-ling the most. Both were very distinct in their Shanghainese-style silhouette, and made from feminine, floral fabrics. In particular I liked the matching black-white detailed pearl pankous on the left one below, which delicately highlights the small white flowers of the qipao.

Soong Ching-ling (Song Qingling 宋庆龄/宋慶齡)

By all public accounts, Soong Ching-ling was the one who “loved her country” – the idealistic sister, the sister revered as a national hero in mainland China today.

Ching-ling was 2 years younger than Ai-ling and the second-born Soong. She was also educated in Wesleyan, and after her return married her father’s close friend Dr Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan, 孙中山/孫中山). The marriage was highly opposed by her parents as Sun Yat-sen was almost twice her age and already married at the time. Yet it was also the event that propelled her to international fame.

Though perhaps more of a figure-head at the time, Sun Yat-sen is today regarded as the founding father of the Republic of China, and the leader of an uprising that overthrew the last Emperor. He was the founder of the political party Kuomingtang (Guoming Dang, 国民党/國民黨). He is one of the few Chinese leaders in modern history held in high regarded across the world, from mainland China to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South East Asia.

Soong Ching-ling and Sun Yat-sen seemed to have had a very close relationship, and when he died in 1925, she became the widow of the founder of the Republic, a title which carried enormous political prestige and legitimacy. Yet she refused to lend this legitimacy to the Government led by her soon to be brother-in-law Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi, 蒋介石/蔣介石, more on him later). In fact, for the remainder of her life she was politically split from her other three famous siblings. She sided with the Communists (共产党/共產黨) when they took over mainland China in 1949, and held numerous important posts within the Communist Government including Honorary Chairman.

Soong Ching-ling has always been portrayed as virtuous and righteous in popular media, and her 2 qipaos on display at the exhibition were also appropriately sensible. Despite the rather sombre colour and cut, I am a big fan of the cut-out details around the neckline and sleeves of the black qipao. It is quite an unusual technique and I’ve never seen it elsewhere on a qipao.

Soong May-ling (Song Meiling, 宋美龄/宋美齡)

Soong May-ling was the forth born Soong child in 1897, 7 years younger than Soong Ching-ling (TV. Soong was born between Soong Ching-ling and Soong May-ling). She was educated mainly in the US, having left China with Ching-ling at 10 and returning only after graduating from Wellesley College 10 years later.

She married Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi 蒋介石/蔣介石) in 1927, and strangely enough, the circumstances surrounding this marriage bore many similarities to Ching-ling: when the two met Chiang was more than 10 years older and had a wife;  the union was vehemently protested by Mrs Soong; and it was by becoming Mrs Chiang that May-ling initially earned her fame. But it was also these two marriages that put the sisters on diametrically opposite sides of politics, a difference they could never reconcile in their life time.

May-ling was the sister who “loved power”, and she certainly never hid her ambitions. After Chiang Kai-shek took hold of Kuomingtang and China following Sun Yat-sen’s death, he needed legitimacy and funds. It was May-ling who helped him with both. Taking full advantage of her American education, she acted as translator, publicist and fund-raiser for him, travelling across the US lobbying for support, and negotiating billions of dollars of loans together with her brother TV. Soong.

She was certainly the most famous sister in the Western world, regularly appearing in Western media including the cover of Time, and becoming the first Chinese person and second woman to ever address both houses of American congress in 1943. In fact, her list of achievements are so stellar on paper that for an immigrant child who also left China at the age of 10, I was in awe of her for a long time. I couldn’t help but connect with her tensions of growing up in two cultures, and really admired the way she was able to use this to her advantage later in life.

Many years later, I read about the allegations of corruption. Her obituary in the New York Times states that hundreds of millions of dollars loaned from the US and intended for the war effort were pocketed by the Chiangs. In fact, it is widely known that Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomingtang were far too busy funnelling money and looking after their own interests rather than fighting the Japanese invasion which May-ling spoke so passionately about in the US. This led to their downfall, and in 1949 when the Communists took over China, they fled to Taiwan, never to return. Soong May-ling lived out the last years of her life in New York.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, today I have very mixed feelings about her – on the one hand, I admire and respect Soong May-ling’s brilliant ability to bridge cultures, and create a truly global conversation; on the other hand, she clearly abused this power. (The world and its people are always so complex…)

There were 4 qipaos on display from Soong May-ling at the exhibition. The three in the first image are simple silk dresses for daily casual wear. You can see that they don’t have much adornment and have no pankous. The black velvet qipao in the last image is for a more formal occasion, and features an embroidered strip of material used on the collar, double-sided front and also used as edging for the sleeves and slits – very tasteful for an older woman.

Laura C. Soong (Zhang Leyi 张乐怡/張樂怡)

Laura Soong (Lo-yi Chang) was the wife of TV. Soong (Song Ziwen, Soong Tse-ven 宋子文), the eldest boy of the Soong family, and third-born, 3 years ahead of Soong May-ling in 1894.

TV. Soong was Harvard educated. And although not particularly notable in his time there, he became widely known in the financial world after his return to China. With Soong May-ling’s marriage to Chiang Kai-shek, TV. Soong was entrusted with a range of senior positions in the Kuomingtang Government, and most prominently was in charge of its financial affairs for many years. He is credited with the institution of many financial reforms, but also accused of siphoning off huge portions of public funds during the process.

TV. Soong and Laura Soong spent long period in the US in the capacity of fund-raising for Chinese war efforts. And Laura owned the most spectacular qipaos for theses wine-ing and dining efforts. The 4 qipaos from her wardrobe on display were just exquisite, and definitely my favourites of the whole exhibition. The pastel pink and pastel blue ones shown below are embellished with amazing beaded-embroidery, but somehow not over the top, and in fact elegant in a very under-stated way.

The white and green lace dresses below are less elaborate, but eye-catching all the same with their use of a sheer lace, half showing off the neck and collar-bone areas. Again understated, but very distinct.

We were told by the organisers of the exhibition that dozens of other qipaos, all as spectacular as these, are still in the possession of Laura’s family today. – No matter what I think of TV. Soong’s moral judgement, I most definitely wish I had his wife’s wardrobe!

The New (Niu 牛) Family

 Ni Kwei-tseng’s older sister Ni Kwei-kyung (Ni Guijin 倪桂金) was married to New Shan-chow (Niu Shangzhou 牛尚周), a friend of Charlie Soong from his US days, and the matchmaker between Soong and Ni.

Although not quite as famous as the Soongs in latter years, the News were a well known family in China at the time. They were very close to the Soongs, and the two lived next door to each other for a period of time in Shanghai. A number of their qipaos were also on display at the exhibition, starting with one from Ni Kwei-kyung.

This navy blue silk-jacquard qipao is almost a century old, and is one of the few in the exhibition which showcases the technique of lining qipaos with fur. As this qipao was probably from the late 20s or early 30s, and worn by an older woman, you can see the shape is a rather conservative A-line (like the traditional Beijing-style qipao). The fur lining also became less and less popular over time due to its cost, and the increasing popularity of wearing western-style coats over qipaos in later years.

Catherine Lau (Liu Yiji 刘义基/劉義基)

Catherine Lau was the wife of Dr Way-ling New (Niu Huilin 牛惠霖), first born of the News. Dr Way-ling New was an accomplished and well renowned medical doctor in China, having studied at both Cambridge in the UK and Harvard in the US. He held key medical posts in the Kuomingtang during the war years.

You can see from the blurb on Catherine that she was also highly educated, and must have been an incredibly strong woman to have brought up four children after her husband’s death. The qipaos on display here from her collection must be from the earlier part of the 20^th century, as they are in the same conservative shape as her mother-in-law’s above. They too must have been worn in the winter, as both are also lined, one with shearling (left), the other with a luxurious mink (right).

But despite the conservative A-line shape, the outer fabric of the two qipaos are brilliant and quite a statement. I love the bold, brightly coloured brocade, and the fancy, scalloped edges. One would imagine that this was a woman with some personality!

Georgeana L. New (Liang Jingxian 梁景贤/梁景賢)

Georgeana New was married to Reverend Abraham New (Niu En’an, 牛恩安), the eldest son of Dr Way-ling New and Catherine Lau.

The family spent most of their lives in the US, but Georgeana seemed to still have a love for qipaos. Her two qipaos on display are spectacular, and in my personal opinion second only to Laura Soong’s collection (I personally prefer the more subdued colours in Laura’s collection).

Dr Lily New (Niu Ende 牛恩德)

Dr Lily New was the younger sister of Reverend Abraham New. She was a renowned musician, pianist and eventual philanthropist for music in China. The three printed silk qipaos from  her wardrobe are her performance qipaos, and very vibrant in pattern and colouring.

The Wen (温) Family

Ni Kwei-tseng’s other older sister Ni Kwei-shu (Ni Guishu 倪桂姝) was married to Wen Bing-chung (WenBingzhong 温秉忠), also a close friend of Charlie Soong from their time in the US. Wen Bing-chung was in fact a younger cousin of New Shan-chow, and after his return from the US spent many years working as a customs official in China. In 1907, it was he who first took Ching-ling and May-ling abroad to the US for their studies abroad.

There was a small selection of qipaos from the Wen family at the exhibition.

Kin-may W. Tang (Wen Jinmei 温金美)

Kin-may Tang was Wen Bing-chung and Ni Kwei-shu’s daughter, and the Soong’s first cousin. She moved to Hong Kong in the 40s, and lived a relatively quiet life there. I am a big fun of this very simple yet elegant black qipao from her collection. It features bell sleeves, a simple, angular front without any pankous, and a narrow, matching black edging. The emphasis of the dress is on the structured silhouette and beautiful lines.

Wen Shihuizhen (温施惠珍)

Wen Shihuizhen was Wen Bing-chung’s daughter-in-law, or more specifically, the wife of his nephew Yu-Ching Wen (Wen Yuqing温毓庆/溫毓慶). Yu-Ching Wen’s father died when he was young, and was raised by Bing-chung like a son. He was extremely bright, went on to obtain a PhD from Harvard, and spent time working in the Jefferson Laboratory in Harvard. In the 1930s, he was instrumental in intercepting and deciphering telegraphs of enemies for the Kuomingtang.

I like Wen Shihuizhen’s qipaos because they are made for a fuller figure. The three dresses you see below are shorter and have a less defined waist compared with a lot of the others at the exhibition. The black one on the right looks relaxed and put-together at the same time. These qipaos demonstrate the versatility of the dresses for a variety of body shapes.

Well, this brings us to the end of this post. It has been a fascinating post to research and write about. So many of the people involved have rich, multi-layered stories that have been the topics of books and studies, so I wanted to include here a few links for you in case you are interested in finding out more. As always, enjoy –

Charlie Soong

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/books/excerpt-last-empress.html?pagewanted=all

Soong May-ling

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/25/world/madame-chiang-kai-shek-a-power-in-husband-s-china-and-abroad-dies-at-105.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/books/excerpt-last-empress.html

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/oct/25/guardianobituaries.china

Soong Ching-ling

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/30/obituaries/soong-ching-ling-dies-in-peking-widow-of-sun-yat-sen-was-90.html

TV. Soong

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/27/archives/t-v-soong-is-dead-at-77-aide-of-nationalist-china-minister-of.html

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1927/5/4/harvard-graduate-is-leading-chinese-revolutionists/