[bhchao]

I guess this is related to Andrew Yip's thread on the Soong Family, but I thought a poll would make it a little more interesting.

Which one of the three Soong sisters do you like or admire, or find the most intriguing? For me, I pick either Soong Qingling or Soong Meiling. Ailing is probably the most boring character.

[yehzhaofeng]

^ Haha. I admire Song Qingling because she actually told everyone what she thought of Chiang Kai Shek, despite the KMT knocking at your door, and the deaththreats. She even stayed behind when the KMT fled the mainland and was offered the position as a vice-premier.

[bhchao]

Soong Qingling was one tough lady. Despite Chiang's repeated threats warning her to keep quiet, she continued to criticize the KMT regime.

When asked about the Xian Incident, she replied "What Zhang Xueliang did was right. I would have done the same thing if I was in his place. Only that I would have gone farther!"

[General_Zhaoyun]

Song Meiling was actually the english translator for Chiang kai Shek. She made great impact in US congress when she gave a speech about joint-effort of China with US against Japan.

[Tuding Le]

bhchao, on May 2 2005, 06:22 PM, said:

Which one of the three Soong sisters do you like or admire, or find the most intriguing? For me, I pick either Soong Qingling or Soong Meiling. Ailing is probably the most boring character.

Well. if I needed one to co-sign my mortgage, I guess Ai-ling.

If I wanted to have lunch and gossip about Pearl Buck, then it would be Mei-ling.

And if I were in charge of a non-profit agency, I would ask Qing-ling to join the board of Trustees...

[yehzhaofeng]

Yes, it really depends, they're like the Fantastic 3.

[bhchao]

Soong Ailing was actually responsible for arranging Soong Meiling and Chiang Kaishek's marriage.

Ailing was the highly secretive type. Due to her preference for maintaining a low profile , you hardly hear stories of corruption related to H.H. Kung and herself.

[ahbian]

i'm going with the majority Qingling.

[Du Hongyi]

The "One loves money, one loves country, one loves power" quote is a lie by the CCP.

Madame Song Meiling contributed a lot more to the Republic than did her sister Song Qingling. The reason why Qingling was crowned as "the one loves country" is because she turned left and supported the communists and the Soviets.

[adoo]

Du Hongyi, on May 27 2005, 01:31 AM, said:

Song Meiling contributed a lot more to the Republic than did her sister Song Qingling.

Song Meiling

To the legions who revered her, Madame Chiang Kai-shek was the "brains of China", polished, poised and a shining example of the virtues of an American education.

To the considerable number who learned to fear her, however, she was "Madame Dictator," ruthless, corrupt and unmoved by the miseries of the Chinese people.

She was the charismatic wife and emissary of the most powerful man, Generalismo Chiang Kai-shek, in pre-Communist China, but history would judge her harshly for helping to "lose" the country she begged others to save. When the Generalismo die in 1985, he was described in obituaries around the world as the man who lost China by allowing corruption and incompetence on a grand scale.

Quote

Song Meiling was actually the english translator for Chiang kai Shek. She made great impact in US congress when she gave a speech about joint-effort of China with US against Japan.

During the 1930s, Madame Chiang became the Generalismo's voice to the West, giving interviews, authorizing articles and books for American audiences.

She made a triumphal tour of the United States in the 1930s that drew tens of thousands of Americans to rallies and raised millions of dollars for China at a time of great suffering and turmoil in the world. As a guest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she became the first Chinese and second woman to address both houses of Congress. For decades, she appeared on U.S. lists of the world's most admired women.

Behind the scenes, however, Madame Chiang was quickly wearing out her welcome. At the White House, where she stayed for two weeks, the staff experienced the full weight of the imperious Madame. Ignoring the phone and bells, she summoned servants by clapping her hands. She brought her own silk sheets from China and required that they be changed several times a day, even if she went to bed for only 10 or 15 minutes. She was, wrote White House chief butler Alonzo Fields in a memoir, "a most charming lady to those who did not serve her."

At dinner one evening, Roosevelt asked her what she would do about the miners' strike called by John L. Lewis. When "she drew a finger across her throat," Tuchman wrote, "he threw his head back and laughed aloud and called across the table to his wife, 'Eleanor, did you see that?' "

Eleanor Roosevelt would later remark: "She can talk beautifully about democracy but does not know how to live democracy." The president called her "hard as steel."

In 1945, she was agains dispatched to America, under instuction to request $3 billion for the war against the Communists.

This time, Washington did not roll out the red carpet. Roosevelt was dead, and President Harry S. Truman was secretly investigating reports that millions of dollars in American loans to China had wound up in bank accounts of Soong family members in the United States.

Soong Qing-Ling, who married Dr. Sun Yat Sen & Sometimes called the Mother of China, later accused the Generlismo's nationalist government of betraying her husband's principles and transferred her loyalties to the Communists.

the eldest sister had married H. H. Kung, a shrewd banker from a famous pawnbroking family in Shanxi province. he and TV Soong, the Harvard-educated brother, under the auspices of KMT, were in cahoot to wipe out private banking in China, All Chinese banks were looted of real assets, thanks to KMT policies spearheaded by H. H. Kung & TV Soong