Laura Tyson Li

This is your first book. What drew you to writing a historical biography? Were you more drawn to the woman herself or to the grand theatre of politics in which she took part? How daunting a task was it to write on one of the most significant figures in China’s recent history?

I was initially intrigued by Madame Chiang herself, and wondered how this mysterious woman could be so reviled by some and yet so adored by others. What was she really like? What motivated her? How influential had she been? But once I dug into the research, I became swept up in the history, the dramas, and the personalities that swirled around her throughout her long life – her family, the history of the American missionary movement in China, China’s turbulent domestic politics, all the various wars, relations between the United States and China, the Cold War, the Taiwan story, and so on.

Apart from the Madame, of course, there are so many other incredibly colorful, larger-than-life characters. It may sound strange but in doing archival research, especially looking through original documents, these characters feel so real and so vivid that it seems as though they were alive and talking to us now, even though they were writing forty, eighty, or even a hundred and twenty years ago.

I found it an extremely daunting task to write about her. There were certainly many moments, very often in the dead of night when I was supposed to be sleeping, when I lay awake wondering whether I could do justice to her and to the history. She is such a complicated personality, infused with and subject to so many different influences, and having lived such a long life – and who does not change in one way or another over time? – that initially it was very difficult for me to understand her well enough to write with confidence.

This was exacerbated by the fact that I felt I was having trouble finding enough useful and new research materials. It was also due in part to the fact that I was relatively young when I began, and still had certain notions about people and the world of which I have since been disabused -- not by her but by life, in a positive way – so in a sense I grew into the book as I wrote. And so by the time the book was nearing completion, although obviously I was nowhere near as old as the Madame, I felt that I’d on the one hand lived with her long enough, and on the other hand, lived with myself long enough, to have the capability, or the capacity, to understand her during all phases of her life, not just during her younger days, which I could relate to fairly easily.

As for the history… very early on, someone told me to focus my research efforts on my subject, and that I could fill in the historical context later from secondary sources. I tried to do this, but later realized that because Madame Chiang’s life WAS history, this technique was woefully inadequate. To understand her historical role, and her place in the various dramas unfolding all around her, I really had to understand the history, not just put in a few background paragraphs here and there. Possibly most challenging of all was distilling great swathes of turbulent history in such a way that it would be readily understood not only by China specialists, but also by the general reader.

The several competing narratives of Chinese history, and to this I would add Taiwanese history, in the twentieth century are enormously complex and fascinating and often diametrically opposed. I struggled to weave them all together in a way that would be both accurate and truthful, yet fair to all those who so fervently subscribed (and in many cases still do subscribe) to one or the other of the narratives, and who in many cases suffered terribly for their choices, in one way or another.

You kept the tone of the book objective throughout and refrained from infusing political commentary into the writing. Did you go in writing the book with that goal in mind, or is that something that sort of just happened, maybe a carry-over from your journalistic experience?

Yes, from the outset I decided to try to be as objective as possible (although absolute objectivity is an illusion, of course). As you’ve suggested, there were several reasons for this. First was the fact that most of the things that have been written and said about her, her husband and the Chiang family have been partisan to a greater or lesser degree. I had found that approach rather simplistic and felt that the time had come for a more balanced account, or accounting, as it were, of her life.

It was also the case that some earlier accounts had been criticized for being biased, as well as speculative, and not clearly sourcing their assertions. I wanted to avoid that particular criticism, so I tried to be meticulous about my sources, as you’ll see from the notes.

Also, as you say, coming from a journalistic background, I simply felt more comfortable playing the role of “unbiased observer,” instead of inserting my own opinions, or political and ideological views, into the narrative. I guess I’m the sort of journalist who is far more interested in the story than in any ideology.

Evidently, however, I took it a bit too far, because when I began sending out early drafts of the manuscript for feedback, one of the comments that nearly everyone had ran along the lines of “Well, Laura, all this is great, but what do YOU think? You’re the expert, you’ve got to guide the reader” etc. After much consideration, I eventually decided that I had to write an epilogue to address this problem.

I had a difficult time writing the epilogue because I was forced to venture out of my comfort zone to make judgments, theorize (“speculate”) a bit to try to bridge some gaps in the materials, and draw some conclusions about her as a person as well as her historical role. But I was careful to make clear that that was what I was doing – I didn’t try to present my opinions or theories to the reader as fact.

How did you go about doing research for this book?

When I began my research, in 1997-1998, Madame Chiang was still alive, which presented certain challenges for me. At first, I was hopeful that I might be able to interview her, or at least meet her for tea, but the people around her were very protective and that did not come to pass. One difficulty was that quite a few people who knew her or had had dealings with her were not willing to speak to me because she was still alive. Many of her friends and associates were also of course quite elderly and not well, and some have subsequently passed away. Others were willing to talk, and generously gave of their time. These people were mostly quite supportive of her and had worked for her in some capacity.

Madame Chiang was adamant -- albeit perhaps naďvely so -- that she did not want any biography written about her life; neither would she pen her own memoir. She did not leave her private or official papers, or manuscripts, to any library or archive, to my knowledge. A couple of years ago I read that some of her office papers would be donated by others to the Hoover Archives at Stanford University, but to date those papers have not been opened to researchers. There has been no word on her personal papers or other office papers.

The fact that she hadn’t left a manuscript collection did not make my job easier. Essentially it meant a lot more legwork. I had to find out who all of her many friends and acquaintances were in the United States and elsewhere, and contact or visit all the libraries and archives containing the papers of these people. Fortunately in those pre-email days, she was a prolific correspondent, as were many of her friends. And fortunately many of them donated their papers, in some cases against her wishes. In this way, I was at least able to get one side of the correspondence, i.e., her letters to her friends, and in instances where copies were kept, both sides of the correspondence.

I did research in quite a few archives myself, and in more far-flung places, or those with just a few documents, I asked the archivists to mail me the materials or I hired researchers. I was very fortunate in that early on I received a research grant from the Himalaya Foundation in Taipei, a private, independent organization, for which I am deeply grateful. Without that, the costs would have been prohibitive.

I did quite a bit of traveling. I went to Washington DC, New York, London, Palo Alto, Georgia, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Shanghai as well as quite a few other places to do research. I found that for documentary materials, my best sources were not as might be expected in Asia, but rather in the US and the UK. Unfortunately, probably due to political and cultural factors, in Asia there is no tradition of donating one’s private papers to an institution for research purposes. However, official records from the era of Chiang family rule on Taiwan are becoming more accessible to researchers, and I was able to see new materials at the Academia Historica (Guo Shi Guan), including personal telegrams between Madame Chiang and her husband.

I did poke around in Shanghai a bit, and found old newspaper articles at the municipal library. I went to the Shanghai Archives and to what was formerly called the International Cemetery, where Soong Ching Ling is buried, and to her house.

I didn’t do much research in China, because I’d been told by several Chinese scholars who’d written books about various Soong and Chiang family members that there were very few materials on Madame Chiang in China, given the time elapsed and the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. So reluctantly I came to the decision that given my limited resources and the uncertainties involved, the time was not right to devote much time to doing research in China.

You were given access to previously classified documents, from the CIA and other diplomatic sources. How did you go about obtaining these?

In some cases, I filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. In other cases, various branches of the US government (ditto the Taiwan government) are working to speed up declassification of documents, so more and more were being cleared for research while I was working on the book. I didn’t have any special access that any other researcher would not have been accorded.

Can you share your journey of writing the book, which you call an “odyssey” in the acknowledgments?

I have two daughters and I can honestly tell you that the birth of the book was a more painful experience than childbirth – at any rate, the pain continued for much longer. I am still suffering from post-partum pangs. It has been a roller-coaster ride, at times incredibly exhilarating, at times sheer torture. Over the years I’ve ricocheted back and forth between feeling that it was an utterly thankless task to feeling that it has been the most fascinating, rewarding, and worthwhile thing I’ve ever done.

At the beginning I really had no idea what I was getting myself into, or how long it would take to complete. Since the book was published I’ve been lucky enough to meet several other biographers (there aren’t many of us, doubtless for good reason) and we had a good laugh together, because when we started we all told our publishers that our books would be 350 pages and would be finished in two years. It’s just as well I didn’t know how hard it was, because if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have begun.

Initially I went through a long period of feeling depressed that I didn’t have enough research materials, or at least new materials. This was closely followed by a long period of feeling overwhelmed by the volume of documents that I had to sift through and try to make some sense of, with the conflicting versions of events, inevitable gaps in information, to produce a coherent narrative out of it all. It may sound strange, but the book was researched in the way that most movies are shot – not in sequential (chronological) order, that is -- so I had a hard time visualizing what shape the book was going to take until I’d written most of it.

For example, I knew that many of Madame Chiang’s friends, associates, and family were getting along in years, so at the beginning I felt it was most urgent to try to interview these people first. Since the Madame outlived just about everyone she knew, those who were still alive and whom I could interview could tell me about her later years. But of course I had not yet had a chance to research her early life, or the historical background, in depth. So I did not have as much context or knowledge to interview these people as I ideally should have had. Then I went on to research her family history, early life and so forth. Still there was a great deal of skipping back and forth time-wise depending on which library or archive or collection of papers I was looking at.

What did you find was the most difficult part about researching and writing the book?

Well, first the research, then the writing, and then the editing…. It was all new and hard in various ways. The research was probably the most exciting part, because it involved much detective work and it was so exhilarating to find new materials that shed new light on her. I would have to say the actual writing was the hardest part. Keeping the chaos and distractions of life – not to mention my own demons -- sufficiently at bay so that I could focus on writing was very hard, as any writer knows.

What is your own feeling on Madame Chiang Kai-shek’s character? Would you say she is a figure to admire or criticize?

Here let me point to the epilogue of the book! Not an easy question, obviously. I think the answer would have to be both. I remain deeply ambivalent about her. She had many admirable qualities, but she also had many flaws. She’s the kind of woman my grandfather might have called “one hell of a broad” which is of course both complimentary and pejorative at the same time.

She remains something of an enigma to me, despite all the research, perhaps because I’m so unlike her that I sometimes found it difficult to understand her motivations, and as I often did not have documentation I was left to guess at them. She was a complex, multi-faceted and often contradictory personality -- extremely proud, diva-like, with an inordinate sense of entitlement, yet she could also be self-deprecatingly funny and down-to-earth. I do identify with some aspects of her personality – for instance the New England strain acquired during her years at Wellesley – as well as some of her personal challenges but that is about as far as it goes.

For instance, I had a great deal of difficulty with her religiosity, which intensified over the years. This is first because I’m highly squeamish about organized religion in general and publicly professed (and pushed) religious beliefs in particular, and she was very pushy about it. Second because I was unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the lexicon of her time, which was infused with the language of Christianity and the Bible, much more so than our secular society of today.

I was initially irritated by her frequent religious rhetoric. I’d think, oh no, there she goes again, spouting the Bible, chapter and verse, and as I had no real frame of reference in this regard, I’d tune it out. Over time I was forced to confront my own prejudices and to acknowledge that whether I liked it or not, and whether I agreed with it or not, her religiosity was genuine and greatly influenced her thinking and outlook, and I needed to come to grips with it.

I think she fell into the trap that iconic figures sometimes do, namely becoming a caricature of themselves, or buying into their own self-crafted public image. I think she hardened over the years, having been much more appealing as a personality in her younger-to-middle aged days. But that may be because I feel as though I knew her better when she was younger. Whatever one may think of her politics, she was an amazing woman for her time, and even for our time. Her life serves as both role model and cautionary tale for women, especially those with political ambitions.