Chinese history brought back to life
By now, many of you may already know about the death last week of Soong Mei-ling, at the ripe old age of 106.
I will not repeat all her personal particulars because you can find them in last Saturday's newspapers. But I would like to invite you to see the film The Soong Sisters, which tells the exhilarating story of Mei-ling, her two older sisters and her family as they lived through one of the most tumultuous periods of Chinese history.
Directed by Mabel Cheung, the film is widely acclaimed as a successful attempt at portraying the human side of history.
Many Hong Kong students do not like studying history because they think it involves memorising lots of facts and data about past events that have no direct relevance to their lives. However, this film may change your opinions of history and help you see it as an interplay of events and human passions.
Mei-ling's father, Charlie Soong, was a businessman who made a fortune printing the Bible in the early years of the 20th century. What made him a player of history was his daring and successful bid to fund Sun Yat-sen's revolution to overthrow the Ching dynasty.
Soong was bold in the way he brought up his children as well, sending his three daughters - Ai-ling, Ching-ling and Mei-ling - to the United States to study when they were still very young.
On their return, the eldest daughter, Ai-ling, married a wealthy businessman, who was to become finance minister and premier of China.
Ching-ling became secretary of Sun, whom she later married. Mei-ling tied the knot with Chiang Kai-shek, who was to dominate Chinese politics for more than four decades as head of the Nationalist Party.
The three women's choices of husband were telling. In the words of the film's narration, 'one loved money, one loved power, and one loved her country'. Their different personalities, political beliefs and careers of their husbands were to drive the sisters in different directions.
A number of key events are covered, including Chiang's attempts to eliminate the communists and the Xian incident, in which Chiang was held hostage by his subordinates until after he agreed to join hands with the communists to fight the Japanese.
In your history textbooks, these events may have appeared to you as boring sets of dates and names. In the film, however, you will see the key players of 'history in action'.
I hope the film will ignite your interest in history. To sustain that interest, I suggest you read biographies of historical figures. That way history will come to life and remembering what happened, and when, will not be so difficult.
C K Lau is Executive Editor, News, of the South China Morning Post
