Eileen Chang: A ‌Life of Fleeting ‍Beauty and Enduring Literature

Regarding Eileen Chang, writer⁢ Ye Zhaoyan said: “Her life was a desolate gesture and a heavy sigh.”

Zhang Ailing is a real rich lady, a person who truly understands blooming‍ and withering. The more‌ brilliant the flower ​is in bloom, the more sad it is when it withers.

Born in 1920, Eileen ‌Chang has seen the pinnacle of all beauty in aristocratic families. Her family background is prominent. Her grandfather⁤ Zhang Peilun was a⁣ famous official ⁣in ‍the​ late Qing Dynasty, and her grandmother Li Juou was the eldest daughter of Li Hongzhang.

Since childhood, she has personally experienced​ the “splendour of the Jia Mansion in “Dream of Red Mansions”, with “boiling oil in raging fire and blooming flowers”.

She received the‌ best education since she was young and was admired ‌as a genius and child⁣ prodigy. She could recite Tang poetry at the age of 3 and⁣ wrote her first novel at the age of 7.

At the age of 19, she published her debut essay “My Dream of Genius”‍ in Shanghai’s “West Wind” magazine. Although it was only 1,333 words long, it still⁣ amazes people today with the last sentence “Life⁢ is a gorgeous‌ robe, crawling with fleas.”

In the next five ‌years,⁢ she would burst into the Shanghai literary world like a dark horse,⁣ swiftly and fiercely, and unstoppably. She successively released almost all the important works of her life.

By the time her collection of novels Legends was published in September‌ 1944, Zhang Ailing, who‍ was only 24 years‍ old, had already reached the pinnacle of the literary world and became the most dazzling star in Shanghai.

However, ⁤that exquisite beauty has never been the main color in Zhang Ailing’s life, but desolation and loneliness. ⁣People only see her rise and splendor, but have never noticed the desolation and loneliness of this talented woman in the Republic of China?

What’s more, she has a father who loves to smoke opium and has accomplished nothing,⁤ and a stepmother who ​also loves to smoke opium and is ‍unreasonable.

Feeling so ashamed of herself, Eileen⁢ Chang made⁤ few friends in middle school, and to outsiders, she seemed a little too eccentric.

Due to an unreasonable stepmother and an unbearable experience of imprisonment, Eileen Chang‍ chose to run away in the middle of the night to live ⁤with her divorced mother, and from then on became the poorest student in her class at the University of Hong Kong.

In December 1941, when Zhang ⁢Ailing was a junior, the war spread, Hong Kong fell, and the University of Hong Kong was closed. She returned ​to Shanghai with ⁤the‌ regret that she was only half a year away from graduation, and wanted to transfer ⁤to St. John’s ⁣University in Shanghai, but she couldn’t even afford the tuition.

Eileen Chang ‍once said that life is absurd and meaningless, and the world is incomprehensible.

During⁤ the most prosperous period​ of her life,‍ Eileen Chang welcomed her love,​ and a man named Hu Lancheng walked into her life.

After two months of passionate⁤ love, Zhang Ailing wrote ⁣the famous words in her essay “Love”:

Meet the person you meet among ⁣thousands‍ of people, in thousands of​ years, in the endless wilderness of time, not ‌a step⁤ earlier, not a step later, just in time, there is nothing else to say, but to ask softly: “Oh,⁤ are you‍ here too?”

This ⁣tragic love affair almost ruined Eileen Chang’s reputation.

From August 1945‌ to April 1947, Zhang Ailing ​suddenly disappeared from the literary world. For nearly two years, ​she did not publish a single line of writing.

Zhang Ailing ⁢resolutely left the man who betrayed her and returned to Hong Kong to make a living.‍ As if she didn’t escape far enough, three​ years later, she set out again and boarded a cruise⁣ ship to another country, the United⁢ States.

This year, she was 35 years old.

In a foreign country, with no one to turn⁤ to​ and no food or clothing to provide, Eileen⁤ Chang lived in friends’ homes ​and in⁢ a Christian women’s dormitory⁤ that provided relief‍ to the poor.

The following ​year,‌ she applied for and accepted a grant for free room and board from the McDowell⁣ Literary Camp,⁤ and traveled to New Hampshire ‍in the northeastern United States.

There, Eileen Chang met the last man in her life – 65-year-old​ American writer Ferdinand Raymond.

However, fate ⁢is so strange that the two hit it​ off right away and felt sorry for not meeting each other earlier. Since they met at the McDowell Art Camp, “they have been enjoying each other’s company every day, talking about literature, culture, life, and experience, and the ⁣more they ⁤talked, ⁣the more they got along. By the beginning of May, they were inseparable…”</