In the CKS museum there is this photo of him and his wife May-ling Soong, on their wedding day. Which is helpful as I've wanted to talk about his wife for awhile now. I think it's clear that I don't care for CKS very much, but it's a close race with his wife.
While born in China, she spent most of her childhood in America going to various schools. With a large part of her time as southern debutante in Georgia. When I first learned this, it helped everything about her future life to click in to place. It seems like her life is just how a spoiled southern child whom looks down on others, would act if they came into a large amount of power. More on that later.
Awhile after college she came back to china, and was pursued by CKS. The reason is that he wanted to gain more popularity and power so he could take over the chinese nationalist party. May-ling was important because she was the sister of Sun Yet-Sen's wife (SYS was the first president of the chinese nationalist party). She did not want to marry him though, as he was married at the time and not Christian. He soon got a divorce and later converted to Christianity.
It seemed like it was a marriage of convenience as they never had any children, and she was pretty well known for....enchanting foreign dignitaries and and celebrities. She did enjoy the power however, and as time goes on more and more thought is made to the harsh laws in taiwan and treatment of Taiwanese people was part of her influence on both CKS and politics. This seems to make sense when you view her as a person who thought she was above others and looked down on Taiwanese. One of her most famous quotes being "The only thing Asian about me are my eyes."
However this western upbringing and identifying, is also what allowed the chinese nationalist party and the Americans to have such strong ties. It's fascinating as many Americans at the time adored her as almost a toy of what they felt many Chinese people could be. A chinese person who speaks fluent english and more identifies with the west than her own heritage. While on the other side Asians view her as corrupt and power mad. I often wonder how different things could have been if CKS never married her.
After her husband died, his son from his first marriage became the new leader and May-ling retired to America. After the death of CKS's son she came back to Taiwan, but I'm not 100% sure if this was to try and become leader herself or to help hand pick and support the a next one. However it was clear that she was not welcome and quickly returned to America where she lived to be over 100 and spent most of her time painting.
There is some of her art on display in this museum and in their home (which is also open for tourists) in Taipei. It's strange, knowing the person before ever knowing the art, i get the same uncomfortable feeling as when seeing Hitler's art. Of course she can not even be mentioned in the same breath as him, but i just mean it's uncomfortable seeing the art of somebody you know to be a bad person.
Then again it all seems to be up to what you know about first, the art or the person's misdeeds. Cause admittedly I just spent the weekend showing some Woody Allen flicks to some Taiwanese friends.
