Chiang Fang-liang

On 15 May 1916, Faina was born near Orsha, then part of the Russian Empire (now in Belarus). Faina was orphaned at a young age and raised by her older sister Anna.{{cite news |last1=Tsai |first1=Wen-Ting |last2=Tsai |first2=Julius |date=January 2005 |title=Farewell, Faina — Chiang Fang-liang Dies Aged 90 |url=http://www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/show_issue.php?id=2005019401072e.txt |newspaper=Taiwan Panorama |location=Taipei, Taiwan |access-date=November 3, 2014 |archive-date=September 24, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924112922/http://www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/show_issue.php?id=2005019401072e.txt |url-status=dead }}{{cite news |last=Wu |first=Pei-shih |date=May 18, 2003 |title=Forgotten first lady served as model traditional wife |url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/05/18/0000211042 |newspaper=Taipei Times |location=Taipei, Taiwan |access-date=November 7, 2014 }}

At age 16, as a member of the Soviet Union's Communist Youth League, Faina worked at the Ural Heavy Machinery Plant in Sverdlovsk, Russian SFSR, where she met Chiang Ching-kuo, her supervisor.{{cite news |last=Wen |first=Stephanie |date=December 16, 2004 |title=Chiang Fang-liang remembered |url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2004/12/16/2003215305 |newspaper=Taipei Times |location=Taipei, Taiwan |access-date=November 3, 2014 }}{{cite news |last1=Wang |first1=Jaifeng |last2=Hughes |first2=Christopher |date=January 1998 |title=Cover Story — Love to Fang-Liang – the Chiang Family Album |url=http://www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/show_issue.php?id=199818701038E.TXT |newspaper=Taiwan Panorama |location=Taipei, Taiwan |access-date=November 3, 2014 |archive-date=August 8, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808050742/http://www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/show_issue.php?id=199818701038E.TXT |url-status=dead }} On 15 March 1935, aged 18, Faina married him.

File:Chiang Ching-kuo and Fang-liang in Gannan.jpg and Chiang Hsiao-wen in Gannan Prefecture, where CCK was serving as commissioner (c.1940s)]]

In December 1936, Joseph Stalin granted Chiang's return to China. After the couple was received by Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling in Hangzhou, they traveled to the Chiang home in Xikou, Zhejiang, where they held a second marriage ceremony. Fang-liang stayed behind to live with Chiang Ching-kuo's mother, Mao Fumei. She was assigned a tutor to learn Mandarin Chinese, but she learned the local Ningbo dialect of Wu Chinese instead. She reportedly got along well with Mao Fumei and did her own housework.

When Chiang Ching-kuo became President, Fang-liang rarely performed the traditional roles of First Lady, partly due to her lack of formal education; her husband also encouraged her not to get into politics. She occasionally taught Russian to Kuomintang cadets.{{cite news |author= |title=The lonely widow of Huaihai Rd in sealed memory |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-01/12/content_408126.htm |newspaper=China Daily |location=Beijing |date=January 12, 2005 |access-date=November 4, 2014 }} She largely stayed out of the public spotlight, and little was ever known of her in an anti-communist atmosphere in the government. She never returned to Russia, and traveled abroad only three times in the last 50 years of her life, all to visit her children and their families. In 1992, she received a visit from a Belarusian delegation.{{cite news |last=Yu |first=Susan |date=June 16, 1992 |title=Mensk officials meet Chiang Fang-liang Chiang Ching-kuo's widow breaks precedent to receive countrymen |url=http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=73802&CtNode=451 |newspaper=Taiwan Today (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) |location=Taipei, Taiwan |access-date=November 7, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141107211807/http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=73802&CtNode=451 |archive-date=2014-11-07 }}

On 14 December 1935, their first son Chiang Hsiao-wen was born in the Soviet Union. Each of her three younger children were born in different parts of China, reflecting turbulent years as an official of the country. Faina had four children:

• Chiang Hsiao-wen (b. 1935, Sverdlovsk)
• Chiang Hsiao-chang (b. 1938 in Nanchang)
• Chiang Hsiao-wu (b. 1945 in Chekiang)
• Chiang Hsiao-yung (b. 1948 in Shanghai)

All her children were sent to study in foreign universities - Hsiao-wu to West Germany and the remaining children to the United States. All three sons died shortly after Ching-kuo's death in 1988: Hsiao-wen in 1989, Hsiao-wu in 1991, and Hsiao-yung in 1996. Fang-liang then lived in the suburbs of Taipei. She received occasional visitors, such as some prominent politicians who went to pay their respects every few years. In the Taiwanese media, if she ever received coverage, she was depicted as a virtuous wife who never complained and endured her loneliness with dignity.{{cite news|last=Yiu|first=Cody|date=December 16, 2004|title=A sad life ends for Chiang Fang-liang|newspaper=Taipei Times|location=Taipei, Taiwan|url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/12/16/2003215298|access-date=November 3, 2014}}

Chiang died of respiratory and cardiac failure stemming from lung cancer at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital on 15 December 2004, at the age of 88 (or 89 according to East Asian age reckoning).{{cite news |author= |title=Faina Chiang dies at 88 in Taipei |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/15/content_400400.htm |newspaper=China Daily |location=Beijing |date=December 15, 2004 |access-date=November 4, 2014 }}{{cite news |author= |title=President Chen pays tribute to former first lady Faina Chiang |url=http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/2004/12/17/55704/President-Chen.htm |newspaper=China Post |location=Taipei |date=December 17, 2004 |access-date=November 4, 2014 }}

Chiang's funeral was held on 27 December 2004, with President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu in attendance.{{cite news |author= |title=Nation bids farewell to former first lady Faina Chiang |url=http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/detail.asp?id=56074 |newspaper=China Post |location=Taipei |date=December 27, 2004 |access-date=November 4, 2014 }} Kuomintang politicians Wang Jin-pyng, Lin Cheng-chih, P. K. Chiang, and Ma Ying-jeou draped her casket with the Kuomintang party flag, and Kuomintang party elders Lee Huan, Hau Pei-tsun, Chiu Chuang-huan, and Shih Chi-yang draped her casket with the ROC national flag.{{cite news |last=Chuang |first=Jimmy |date=December 25, 2004 |title=Faina Chiang's funeral will be held on Monday |url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2004/12/25/2003216645 |newspaper=Taipei Times |location=Taipei, Taiwan |access-date=November 4, 2014 }}{{cite news |author= |title=Faina Chiang's funeral held in Taiwan |url=http://english.sina.com/p/1/2004/1227/15416.html |newspaper=sina.com |date=December 27, 2004 |access-date=November 4, 2014 }}

Chiang was cremated and her ashes taken to her husband's temporary mausoleum in Touliao, Taoyuan County (now Taoyuan City). They were buried together in the Wuchih Mountain Military Cemetery.

{{Chiang family tree}}

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{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |author=周玉蔻 [Zhou, Yu-kou] |title=蔣方良與蔣經國 |trans-title=Chiang Fang-liang and Chiang Ching-kuo |date=1993 |publisher=麥田出版有限公司 |location=台北市 |isbn=9789577081070}}
• {{cite book |last=O'Neill |first=Mark |title=China's Russian Princess: The silent wife of Chiang Ching-kuo |date=2020 |publisher=Joint Publishing Company |location=Hong Kong |isbn=978-9620446153 }}

• [http://www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/show_issue.php?id=199818701038E.TXT Love to Fang-liang - the Chiang Family Album] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808050742/http://www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/show_issue.php?id=199818701038E.TXT |date=2014-08-08 }}

{{Commons category|Faina Chiang Fang-liang}}

{{First ladies of the Republic of China}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chiang, Fang-liang}}

Category:1916 births

Category:2004 deaths

Category:People from Orsha district

Category:People from Vitebsk Governorate

Category:Family of Chiang Kai-shek

Category:First ladies of the Republic of China

Category:Soviet emigrants to China

Category:Taiwanese people of Belarusian descent

Category:Deaths from respiratory failure