Memory of Shanghai VII: Famous Ladies of Old Shanghai

Mention of the famous ladies of China, I think you will think of Soong ching ling immediately. Could you remember others? Hey, the famous ladies of old Shanghai we will talk about in the chapter are famous in China, even in the world.

                                                         Chapter Seven


                        Famous Ladies of Old Shanghai
                   --The Recall of the Talented Beauties

In old Shanghai, the Shanghai ladies showed their special charm to the world wide: they lived in the “melting pot” old Shanghai where they experienced the living style both in Chinese and western and received advanced education to get wide horizon of the life and world. Besides, they are independent and hard-working women who struggle for the life with talents while dressed in cheongsam showing Chinese elegance. 

Among old Shanghai’s ladies, few of them are outstanding and have great impressions not on old Chinese people, but also on the world. Some of them used their pens to write down many impressive works which influence people from generation to generation. Some of them talented in singing and acting whose songs are so melodious that they still be heard on the streets nowadays and their roles are well-figured as deep in people’s memory. 

In people’s mind, Eileen Chang, Ruan Lingyu and Zhou Xuan may be the top lady celebrities in old Shanghai. Have ever read the sentimental novels written by Eileen Chang? Have you ever watch the movies of old Shanghai styles acting by Ruan Lingyu? Have you ever listen to the beautiful songs of Zhou Xuan which have strong figures of old Shanghai?—Never mind, the following are the general descriptions for you.

1. Famous Sentimental Novel Writer—Eileen Chang

Eileen Chang

Eileen Chang (September 30, 1920–September 8, 1995) was a Chinese writer who was born into an illustrious political family in Shanghai. With her prestige family background, she not only inherited the talents of her parents who were well-educated, but also relieved better education than others. However, Chang's unhappy childhood in the broken family probably gave her later works their pessimistic overtone. 

During 1940s were the golden days of Eileen Chang as most of her major works were published in this period, which represented the high point of her writing career. -- 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. 

Actually, she offers essays on art, literature, war, and urban life, as well as autobiographical reflections. She takes in the sights and sounds of wartime Shanghai and Hong Kong, with the tremors of national upheaval and the drone of warplanes in the background, and inventively fuses explorations of urban life, literary trends, domestic habits, and historic events. 

Most importantly, her works vividly capture the sights and sounds of Shanghai, a city defined by its mix of tradition and modernity. She explores the city's food, fashions, shops, cultural life, and social mores; she reveals and upends prevalent attitudes toward women and in the process presents a portrait of a liberated, cosmopolitan woman, enjoying the opportunities, freedoms, and pleasures offered by urban life. 

All in all, Eileen Chang is no doubt the most talented woman writer in the 20th century China. That’s why after more than half a century as she first won fame in Shanghai, Chang still enjoys an enormous popularity among readers, both in China and overseas. 

2. Tragic Goddess-Ruan Lingyu

Ruan Lingyu

Ruan Lingyu (April 26, 1910-March 8, 1935), a silent-film actress still remembered by many, left behind 29 films and the final message, "gossip can kill," when she committed suicide in Shanghai on March 8, 1935.

Her father, a penniless machinist, died when she was just five years old. For a while she went to live with her mother who was working as a housemaid for a rich family. She then went to a girl's school, but as soon as she had finished primary school, she began to look for a job to lighten her mother's load. She saw an advertisement for film actors and then she went for an interview and was given a job.

Her first screen appearance in 1927 was in the film Husband and Wife in Name. In 1935, during the shooting of her last film, a divorce suit and slanderous stories in unscrupulous local newspapers caused her a great deal of mental anguish. She finally decided to take her own life to prove her innocence. After years, in 1982, when a Chinese Film Retrospective was held in Italy, audiences were amazed at Ruan's talent, especially in the film Goddess. They called Ruan "China's Greta Garbo."

In spite of her lack of formal education, Ruan Lingyu was diligent and scrupulous in every detail of her acting. --Ruan's acting was so natural, accurate and graceful that, even after 70 years, her films still seem fresh. She was adept at conveying meaning through her whole body, thus overcoming the limitations of early silent films, unlike some performers today who talk and talk and express nothing through gesture and "body language."

In a word, Ruan Lingyu was a versatile character actress. In her nine-year film career, she played many different roles, such as writer, factory worker, wealthy socialite, prostitute, flower girl, nun and beggar. Her unaffected, sensitive character portrayals contrast with the false, exaggerated performance that predominates in many films today.

3. Golden Voice of China—Zhou Xuan

Zhou Xuan

Zhou Xuan (August 1, 1918-September22, 1957) was a popular Chinese singer and film actress. Zhou was born in Shanghai, but was separated from her natural parents at a young age and raised adoptive parents. She spent her entire life searching for her biological parents but her parentage was never established until her death. At the age of 13, she tool Zhou Xuan as her stage name as -- “xuan” means beautiful jade in Chinese. 

Zhou started acting in 1935, but achieved stardom in 1937 in Street Angel, when director cast her as one of the leads as a singing girl. By the 1940s, she had become one of the seven great singing stars. She is probably the most well-known of the seven as she had a concurrent movie career until 1953. In 1957, she died in Shanghai in a mental asylum at the age of 39 and the possible cause of her death may be encephalitis following a nervous breakdown. 

“Golden Voice” was Zhou’s nickname to commend her singing talents after a singing competition in Shanghai, where she came in second. Zhou rapidly became the most famous and marketable popular singer in the gramophone era up to her death, singing many famous tunes from her own movies. Her frail but eminently musical voice captured the hearts of millions of Chinese of her time.