Thousands of items, including manuscripts and letters, once owned by the celebrated Chinese author Eileen Chang Ai-ling have been donated to a Hong Kong university, with the administrator of her estate choosing the city based on geopolitical considerations.
A household name in the Chinese-speaking world, Shanghai-born Chang’s famed literary works have been adapted for screen numerous times, including Lust, Caution, a wartime spy thriller set in the 1940s that took home the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion for best picture in 2007.
The items donated to Hong Kong Metropolitan University also include those of writer and translator Stephen Soong and his wife Mae Fong Soong, Chang’s lifelong friends, with the trio sharing more than 700 letters over four decades. Chang entrusted her estate with the couple before her death in Los Angeles in 1995 at age 74.
The couple’s son, Dr Roland Soong, an administrator of the Chang and Soong inheritances, said on Wednesday that given the history, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan and the United States were all appropriate options for the donation, which coincided with the 30th anniversary of the author’s death.
“In the end, because of geopolitical issues, I thought Hong Kong was still the best and the freest, without inexplicable problems that could not be dealt with,” Roland Soong said at a panel discussion during the donation ceremony at the university.
Asked why he decided on the institution, given Chang was one of the most famous alumna of the University of Hong Kong, Soong said the selection process commenced more than two decades ago and it was important for him that the place chosen was invested in both sets of inheritances, not just Chang’s.
“The two sets of inheritances are linked, such as the letters,” Soong said, adding that the correspondence needed to be seen physically together to make sense.
“If a library says they could look after Chang’s items, I would ask whether they would take those of the Soongs, too. If the reply was, ‘Those two were not as well-known, we wouldn’t have space’, I would not be able to entrust these to you.”
