MEMOIRS OF THREE FAMOUS SISTERS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 54, 26 November 1937, Page 15

MEMOIRS OF THREE FAMOUS SISTERS

Mme. Chiang Eai-shek, foriaerly Mayling Soong, is front page news these days — the first lady in China. Her husb,and is China 's Prime Minister and Generalissimo. Many people call her the real ruler of that country. The press, eager for the personalities that always lie behind such a struggle as that now taking place in China, has singled out in particular three women, the famous Soong sisters. I knew Mme. Chiang Kai-shelt before she was married, when she had just returned from' studying at an American college, says a writer in the Queen. She was Mayling Soong then, a charming, beautiful person, always exquisitely dressed. I once went with her to stay in the^home of her sister, Mme. Kung, who had two small daughters, such attraetive little people, the elder of whom used to come in when I was having my breakfast. She understood no . English, and I only a little Mandarin. But we made friends. I called her "Darling," and later she said to her aunt: "Why does the foreign guest call me Charling?" So my name for her became " Charling. " .It was this same girl who came with her father, Dr. H. H. Kung, as China 's representative to the Coronation. I also met the second sister, who married Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, first President of the Chinese Repqblic. Goodlooking and very intelligent, she was then (1923) staying with her husband in the. French concession of Shanghai. But it was the present Mme. Chiang Kai-Shek that I knew best. She and

I became friends after her return irom Wellesley College, U.S.A., and later we were colleagues on the Child La.bour Commission of Shanghai. In this work I had the chance of seeing at close range the power and Capability of this charming girl. We spent many hours together visiting factories, listening to evidence. One night in particular stands out in my memory. Mayling Soong — for that was how I knew her — :called for me in her cut about midnight, and we made a round of tba British, Chinese, and Japanese textilo factories, seeing 'the same dreary picture in each of children (some no more than five years old), looking like little old men and women, working through the night. I can see now the expression of horror and dismay on Mayling 's face; and in the commission 's session the next day I realisad the eflect that this visit had haddon her as she put her questions. She was one of the only two Chinese women on the commission, and she made a de/Jp impression. That was in 1923-24. But that she would go far one always knew. She was an arresting figure in Shanghai life. Sometimes she would di'ess in European clothes, but more often in her beautiful Chinese brocades. She has long since discarded the former. "Number Three, Miss,'' was how my Chinese boy would announce her, when she came in like a whirlwind at all houl's to talk. My last memory of her was when she came to see me off as I left Shanghai. I can picture her now on that wind-swept wharf with a dee"p crimson velvet cloak wrapped round her. And now this famous, the most famous of the Soong sisters, is standing alongside her liusband, liclping him in their country ;s desperate and , agonising sfcrwfglt,