Farewell, Faina--Chiang Fang-liang Dies Aged 90

Chiang Fang-liang was born in 1916 in the mountains of Siberia in Russia. Upon the death of both her parents, she was raised by her older sister. In 1935, while working at the Ural Heavy Machinery Plant, she encountered sexual harassment but was rescued by Chiang Ching-kuo. With that fateful meeting commenced a tale of romance that marked an eventful turning point in her life.

In 1937, Chiang Fang-liang boarded a train with Chiang Ching-kuo, leaving Russia behind to travel to Zhejiang, China, never again to return to her homeland. When she first arrived into the Chiang family home in China, this Western daughter-in-law shocked her mother-in-law by donning a swimsuit and jumping into a stream for a swim. Ray S. Cline, former CIA station chief in Taiwan, in Chiang Ching-kuo Remembered: The Man and His Political Legacy, remembers Chiang Fang-liang as an optimistically vibrant, passionate, and gregarious young woman.

However, after marrying into the protocol-laden Chiang family, the young Russian woman began to live the life of a traditional Chinese daughter-in-law, even learning to speak a perfect Ningbo Chinese. Even though she outwardly looked like a Westerner, she followed the ways of a traditional Chinese gentry household, in the process becoming even more silent than the typical Chinese daughter-in-law.

In 1949, Chiang retreated to Taiwan along with the Nationalist government, and her family came to dwell in official quarters on Chang-an East Road in Taipei. In those years, she could be seen treading on her curtains as she washed them, like any other housewife, and the guards likewise remembered her for her frugal, sparing ways. Even though she was brought into the ruling house during an era of authoritian rule, Chiang neither participated in politics nor relished the power and prestige of being First Lady. In this way, she revealed an extraordinary personal nature and further endeared herself to the people.

When Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988, Chiang Fang-liang's sorrowful bearing at the funeral touched a sympathetic chord in the people's hearts. Indeed, during the eight years after her husband passed away, her three sons-Hsiao-wen, Hsiao-wu, and Hsiao-yung-would also precede her in death.

At the memorial shrine to Chiang set up at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, many came to pay their respects, even kneeling and kowtowing to express their deep remembrance of her. One woman remarked sobbingly, "She was unable to return to her homeland and had no family members by her side; I feel so sorrowful for her." Moreover, many female authors have expressed their hopes that the media would stop repeatedly referring to her as a "model woman," because the seeming fairytale of her life was in fact filled with unknown frustrations and sorrows. Would it be fair to crown her with such a title, given the long-suffering, voiceless life she had led?

In the chaos of today's Taiwan, this often-overlooked First Lady lived in silence and loneliness through wave after wave of societal change. She leaves behind recollections of a silent and authentic personality, like the pure and innocent presence of that young Russian woman. In that silence, she leaves behind an even more profound and lasting memory.

Faina Epatcheva Vahaleva, with her shy, warm smile, can be seen in this tender moment with Chiang Ching-kuo at their home in Chongqing in1945..