Tag: Madame Chiang Kai-shek

Survey Says…May-ling Soong Is Officially A Nobody

So yesterday I promised to conduct an informal survey of a few Westerners regarding their recognition of the following terms:

  1. Madame Chiang Kai-shek
  2. May-ling Soong
  3. China's eternal first lady

My hypothesis was that recognition of Term 1 would exceed that of Term 2, which in turn would greatly exceed that of Term 3.

This is in direct contrast with the editors of the China Post, who inexplicably maintain (not as a hypothesis, but as a cold, hard fact!) that Term 3 garners the greatest recognition.

As it turns out, both I and the China Post are incorrect, as the results indicate:

Term Number Of People Who Recognize The Term
"China's eternal first lady" 0
May-ling Soong 0
Madame Chiang Kai-shek 0


The informal survey was conducted among 5 Westerners – three of whom were twentyish in age, and two who were fiftyish. My favorite response came from a fiftysomething, who upon hearing the name, May-ling Soong, asked with a completely straight face, "Is she Korean?"

Ha! Dennis, I love you, man!

So there you have it. In the West – apart from the geriatric wards and a few amateur history buffs like myself - May-ling Soong is an utter non-entity.

A nobody.

And what's more, this applies not only to her, but to her husband as well. For it was a genuine surprise to me that even the fifty-year-olds didn't recognize the name, "Chiang Kai-shek".

But how's that for cosmic justice? Chiang Kai-shek murdered Taiwanese in 1947, and what's history's reward?

Consignment to the same faceless anonymity as his 28,000 victims.

Two broken statue legs stand in a desert, with the statue head nearby. Caption: 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

(Image from A Hot Cup of Pleasure)


Postscript: Of course, a sample size of 5 does not a scientific poll make. But, I wager, that's 5 more than the editors of the China Post ever bothered to ask.

Which is entirely in keeping with the newspaper's slap-dash philosophy: "Why get the facts straight, when you can just make shit up?"

i-1

The China Post And Its Bizarre Delusions

Oh, my goodness! What a strange little paracosm the editors of the China Post dwell in!

Here's the China Post, on how it imagines we foreigners think of Lady Chiang Kai-shek:

On display at the “Forever Madame Chiang” exhibit [at Taiwan's Dead Dictator Memorial Hall] are more than 250 photos and memorabilia of May-ling Soong, better known in the West as China's eternal first lady. [Emphasis added]

Where to begin?

Listen, about the only China-related epithet Westerners are familiar with is "Butcher of Beijing". And that's really about it.

We're not ancient Greeks, given to expressions like "shepherd of the people", "the man of twists and turns", or "rouser of armies".

In fact, the first I'd heard of "China's eternal first lady" was a few months ago, when Beijing's throne-sniffing palace toady, David Kan Ting, mentioned it.

Now in all fairness, there is a book by that name. But since it languishes somewhere around #680,000 on Amazon's best seller's list, we can safely conclude that the phrase is not likely to ever catch on.

As a Westerner, my hypothesis is that in terms of recognition:

Madame Chiang Kai-shek > May-ling Soong >>> "China's eternal first lady"

In the next day or two, I'll poll a few people here in Waiguoren-land, and see how my prediction holds up.

Stay tuned for the results…