1. Jung Chang is best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in the People's Republic of China.
22 Facts About Jung Chang
1. 2.
Jung Chang's parents were both Chinese Communist Party officials, and her father was greatly interested in literature.
3.
Jung Chang's formal ranking was as a "level 10 official", meaning that he was one of 20,000 or so most important cadres, or ganbu, in the country.
4.
When Jung Chang's father criticized Mao by name, Jung Chang writes in Wild Swans that this exposed them to retaliation from Mao's supporters.
5.
Jung Chang wrote that when she heard he had died, she had to bury her head in the shoulder of another student to pretend she was grieving.
6.
Jung Chang explained her change on the stance of Mao with the following comments:.
7.
Jung Chang attended Sichuan University in 1973 and became one of the so-called "Students of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers".
8.
Jung Chang's father's government-sponsored official funeral was held in 1975.
9.
Jung Chang was able to leave China and study in the UK on a Chinese government scholarship in 1978, a year before the post-Mao Reforms began.
10.
Jung Chang left China in 1978 to study in Britain on a government scholarship, staying first in London.
11.
Jung Chang later moved to Yorkshire, studying linguistics at the University of York with a scholarship from the university itself, living in Derwent College, York.
12.
Jung Chang received her PhD in linguistics from York in 1982, becoming the first person from the People's Republic of China to be awarded a PhD from a British university.
13.
Jung Chang has been awarded honorary doctorates from University of Buckingham, University of York, University of Warwick, University of Dundee, the Open University, University of West London, and Bowdoin College.
14.
Jung Chang lectured for some time at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, before leaving in the 1990s to concentrate on her writing.
15.
In 2003, Jung Chang wrote a new foreword to Wild Swans, describing her early life in Britain and explaining why she wrote the book.
16.
Jung Chang took every opportunity to watch Shakespeare's plays in both London and York.
17.
Jung Chang was able to visit mainland China to see her family, with permission from the Chinese authorities, despite the fact that all her books are banned.
18.
Jung Chang became a popular figure for talks about Communist China; and she has travelled across Britain, Europe, America, and many other places in the world.
19.
Jung Chang returned to the University of York on 14 June 2005, to address the university's debating union and spoke to an audience of over 300, most of whom were students.
20.
Jung Chang was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to literature and history.
21.
In October 2013, Jung Chang published a biography of Empress Dowager Cixi, who led China from 1861 until her death in 1908.
22.
Jung Chang portrays her as intelligent, open-minded, and a proto-feminist limited by a xenophobic and deeply conservative imperial bureaucracy.