Eileen Chang was a Chinese writer with a large number of novels, essays and translation works. 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. Chang's work describing life in 1940s Shanghai and occupied Hong Kong is remarkable in its focus on everyday life and the absence of the political subtext which characterised many other writers of the period. Yuan Qiongqiong was an author in Taiwan that styled her literature exposing feminism after Eileen Chang's. A poet and a professor at University of Southern California, Dominic Cheung, said that "had it not been for the political division between the Nationalist and Communist Chinese, she would have almost certainly won a Nobel Prize".
Chang was born in Shanghai to a renowned family. Her paternal grandfather, Zhang Peilun, was a son-in-law to Li Hongzhang, an influential Qing court official. Her family moved in 1922 to Tianjin, where she started school at the age of four.Even in secondary school, Chang already displayed great talent in literature. Her writings were published in the school magazine. After a fight with her stepmother and her father, she ran away from home to stay with her mother in 1938. In 1939, Chang received a scholarship to study in the University of London, though the opportunity had to be given up because of the ongoing war in China. She then went on to study literature at the University of Hong Kong instead.
In the spring of 1952, Chang migrated back to Hong Kong, where she worked as a translator for the American News Agency for three years. She then left for the United States in the fall of 1955, never to return to Mainland China again.
The former residence of Eileen Chang is located on Changde Road, Shanghai. It is obviously a building designed for female—light pink wall decorated with dark brown strips. The color of the building looks dark and nostalgic, like the rouge on women’s face. A row of wutong trees in front of the apartment are quite lively and lush.
Situated in one of the busiest districts of Shanghai, the former name of the apartment is Edinburgh House. In 1939, Eileen Chang lived here with her mother and aunt in Room 51, and then moved to Room 65 in 1942 and continued her life until 1948. Her famous essay of Interesting Things in Apartment described the life in this apartment.
After her divorce with Hu Lancheng, a dissipated man, Eileen Chang was drowned into the memories with her former husband and enveloped with deep sorrow. She once said:”I’m a withering flower.” Nowadays, we can only admire her talent and sense her breath in memory, as well as the marvelous works left.
Sixth Floor, the Place of Love and Hate
.jpg)
Why the sixth floor of the building is so important? It is the place where the miserable love affairs between Eileen Chang and Hu Lancheng began. In the year of 1944, Hu Lancheng went to Eileen Chang’s home, knocked the door but got no answer. He plugged a piece of paper into the crack, and from then on, the love and hate between them commenced. Eileen Chang loved Hu deeply, but Hu deserted her in the end. Their short marriage greatly influenced the life of Eileen Chang.
This Apartment in Chang’s Work
Eileen Chang wrote an essay, which records the interesting and relaxed life in this apartment. One paragraph described the mosquitoes:”On the sixth floor, there are few mosquitoes. If they fly at the side of the window and look down, they would go faint because of the height”. At present, walking in the house, it seems that we can still feel the laughs and tears of this legendary woman.
Present Situation
Because of the apartment was the residence of Eileen Chang, it has attracted many readers to came here and want to have a look at the house. However, there are local residents lived in the room at present, and it is not opened to the public. Although many people suggested to develop the former residence into a bookstore or memorial hall of Eileen Chang, the Shanghai Municipal Government hasn’t announce an official decision.