1. Florence Chia-ying Yeh, known as Ye Jiaying, Jialing, and by her married name Chia-ying Yeh Chao, was a Chinese-born Taiwanese-Canadian poet and sinologist.
21 Facts About Chia-ying Yeh
1. 2.
Chia-ying Yeh was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
3.
Chia-ying Yeh's family was from the prominent Manchu clan of Yehe Nara, originally of Tumed Mongol ethnicity.
4.
Chia-ying Yeh's grandfather was a Qing official, and her sinicized family shortened its surname to the Han Chinese Yeh after the fall of the Manchu Qing dynasty in 1911.
5.
Chia-ying Yeh was admitted to the Chinese department of Fu Jen Catholic University in 1941, where she studied under the well known scholar of poetry Gu Sui.
6.
Chia-ying Yeh moved with her husband to Taiwan, and settled in Changhua, where Chia-ying Yeh found a teaching job at a secondary school.
7.
Chia-ying Yeh gave birth to her first daughter Chao Yen-yen in August 1949.
8.
In June 1950, Chia-ying Yeh was herself jailed, together with the principal and six other teachers at her school.
9.
Chia-ying Yeh brought her daughter to the prison as the baby was less than a year old.
10.
Chia-ying Yeh was released soon afterwards, but her husband was imprisoned for more than three years.
11.
Chia-ying Yeh moved to the United States in 1966, and taught at Michigan State University and Harvard University.
12.
Chia-ying Yeh then settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where she taught at the University of British Columbia from 1969 until retiring in 1989.
13.
Chia-ying Yeh composed a long poem to commemorate the visit.
14.
Chia-ying Yeh often paid for her own travel expenses and taught for free.
15.
Chia-ying Yeh said that in mainland China there was a great desire to rediscover classical Chinese literature after the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.
16.
Chia-ying Yeh chose to teach at Nankai University in Tianjin, because her nephew was an alumnus and it was near her hometown Beijing.
17.
Chia-ying Yeh returned to UBC every summer to teach and research.
18.
Chia-ying Yeh turned 100 on July 2,2024, and died on November 24.
19.
Chia-ying Yeh donated half of her pension fund from UBC to establish two scholarships at Nankai University.
20.
Chia-ying Yeh published many scholarly works, almost all in Chinese.
21.
Chia-ying Yeh has been called a modern Li Qingzhao, the famous Song dynasty Chinese poet.