Chiang Fang-liang

Template:Short description Template:Refimprove Template:Family name hatnote Template:Infobox Officeholder Template:Infobox Chinese Faina Chiang Fang-liang (Template:Zh; born Faina Ipatyevna Vakhreva; Template:Langx; Template:Langx; 15 May 1916 – 15 December 2004) was the First Lady of the Republic of China on Taiwan from 1978 to 1988 as the wife of President Chiang Ching-kuo.

Early lifeEdit

On 15 May 1916, Faina was born near Orsha, then part of the Russian Empire (now in Belarus). Faina was orphaned at a young age and raised by her older sister Anna.<ref name=TPTsai>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="TTWu">Template:Cite news</ref>

CareerEdit

At age 16, as a member of the Soviet Union's Communist Youth League, Faina worked at the Ural Heavy Machinery Plant in Sverdlovsk, Russian SFSR, where she met Chiang Ching-kuo, her supervisor.<ref name="TTWen">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=TPWang>Template:Cite news</ref> On 15 March 1935, aged 18, Faina married him.<ref name="TTWu"/><ref name="TTWen"/>

Move to TaiwanEdit

File:Chiang Ching-kuo and Fang-liang in Gannan.jpg

With Chiang Ching-kuo and Chiang Hsiao-wen in Gannan Prefecture, where CCK was serving as commissioner (c.1940s)

In December 1936, Joseph Stalin granted Chiang's return to China.<ref name="TTWu" /> After the couple was received by Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling in Hangzhou, they traveled to the Chiang home in Xikou, Zhejiang, where they held a second marriage ceremony.<ref name="TPWang" /> Fang-liang stayed behind to live with Chiang Ching-kuo's mother, Mao Fumei. She was assigned a tutor to learn Mandarin Chinese, but she learned the local Ningbo dialect of Wu Chinese instead.<ref name="TPTsai" /><ref name="TTWu" /> She reportedly got along well with Mao Fumei and did her own housework.<ref name="TTWu" /><ref name="TPWang" />

As First ladyEdit

When Chiang Ching-kuo became President, Fang-liang rarely performed the traditional roles of First Lady, partly due to her lack of formal education; her husband also encouraged her not to get into politics. She occasionally taught Russian to Kuomintang cadets.<ref name="CD20050112">Template:Cite news</ref> She largely stayed out of the public spotlight,<ref name="TPTsai" /><ref name="TTWen" /> and little was ever known of her in an anti-communist atmosphere in the government. She never returned to Russia, and traveled abroad only three times in the last 50 years of her life, all to visit her children and their families. In 1992, she received a visit from a Belarusian delegation.<ref name="TPWang" /><ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref>

ChildrenEdit

On 14 December 1935, their first son Chiang Hsiao-wen was born in the Soviet Union.<ref name="TTWen" /> Each of her three younger children were born in different parts of China, reflecting turbulent years as an official of the country.<ref name="TPWang" /> Faina had four children:

Chiang Hsiao-wen (b. 1935, Sverdlovsk)<ref name="TTWen" />
Chiang Hsiao-chang (b. 1938 in Nanchang)
Chiang Hsiao-wu (b. 1945 in Chekiang)
Chiang Hsiao-yung (b. 1948 in Shanghai)

All her children were sent to study in foreign universities<ref name="TPWang" /> - Hsiao-wu to West Germany and the remaining children to the United States. All three sons died shortly after Ching-kuo's death in 1988: Hsiao-wen in 1989, Hsiao-wu in 1991, and Hsiao-yung in 1996.<ref name="TTWen" /> Fang-liang then lived in the suburbs of Taipei. She received occasional visitors, such as some prominent politicians who went to pay their respects every few years. In the Taiwanese media, if she ever received coverage, she was depicted as a virtuous wife who never complained and endured her loneliness with dignity.<ref name="TPTsai" /><ref name="TTWu" /><ref name="TTYiu">Template:Cite news</ref>

Death and funeralEdit

Chiang died of respiratory and cardiac failure stemming from lung cancer at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital on 15 December 2004, at the age of 88 (or 89 according to East Asian age reckoning).<ref name=TPTsai /><ref name=TTYiu /><ref name=CD20041215>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=CPost>Template:Cite news</ref>

Chiang's funeral was held on 27 December 2004, with President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu in attendance.<ref name=CPost2>Template:Cite news</ref> Kuomintang politicians Wang Jin-pyng, Lin Cheng-chih, P. K. Chiang, and Ma Ying-jeou draped her casket with the Kuomintang party flag, and Kuomintang party elders Lee Huan, Hau Pei-tsun, Chiu Chuang-huan, and Shih Chi-yang draped her casket with the ROC national flag.<ref name=TTChuang>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Sina>Template:Cite news</ref> Chiang was cremated and her ashes taken to her husband's temporary mausoleum in Touliao, Taoyuan County (now Taoyuan City). They were buried together in the Wuchih Mountain Military Cemetery.<ref name=TPTsai /> Template:Chiang family tree