Ling Shuhua

Ling Shuhua (March 25, 1900–1990), also known as Su-hua Ling Chen after her marriage, was a Chinese modernist writer and painter whose short stories became popular during the 1920s and 1930s.

Her work is characterized by her use of symbolism and boudoir literature.

Ling Shuhua was born Ling Ruitang on March 25, 1904 in Beijing.

Shuhua was the daughter of the third concubine of a high ranking Qing official, Ling Fupeng, from the southern province of Canton, who later served as the mayor of Beijing.

She had a younger sister, Amy Ling Shuhao, who married K. K. Chen.

She lived in the familial mansion until the age of seven; she then was sent to Kyoto to study.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Chinese female writers wrote within the subjectivism and sentimentalism that was then associated with feminity.

Ling Shuhua thus often used the theme of domesticity.

She is also known as a writer of the new boudoir style.

Feminism is dominant in her creative thinking and writing.

Sensitive social and political issues often arise in her work, denoting the issues of sexism and morality, and also expresses the role and social status that women played in the family at that time.

Ling Shuhua has many famous short stories: The Temple of Flowers, Women, Little Brothers and her collection of essays Love Mountain Dream.

And Ling Shuhua is best known for her autobiography Ancient Melodies.

She was no ordinary writer, and was known abroad as "speaking with clipped tongue ," as she used her "special writing style" in her English work.

In 1922, Ling Shuhua enrolled Yenching (Yanjing) University in Beijing, studied French, English and Japanese.

She went to school alongside the poet and writer Bing Xin.

And in 1924, Ling met Chen Yuan in Beijing.

At the time, Chen Yuan was an English professor at Peking University, an influential literary critic, and also an editor for magazines.

Chen helped Ling published several articles.

However, several of her published articles were accused of plagiarism to foreign articles.

Chen rose to fame in a debate with Lu Xun, a famous Chinese writer, because Chen believed Lu disclosed Ling's plagiarism.

Through Chen Yuan, Ling shuhua got to know many famous writers of the time, such as Shen Congwen.

Ling also practiced calligraphy and was a painter of the scholarly tradition.

She also studied painting at the court of the Empress Dowager Cixi, where she became an apprentice to a teacher.

Some of her Chinese books have been published with her own inked paintings on the cover.

While at Wuhan University, Ling met Julian Bell in 1935 when he was temporarily an English teacher in China.

She also met Yuan Changyin and Su Xuelin.

During Bell's short stay in China (he stayed until the year 1937), they had a love affair while Ling was still married.

The two writers maintained their correspondence between 1938 and 1941.

Woolf agreed to read drafts of the memoirs Ling which had begun writing.

Ling dedicated this work to Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, whom she met in England in the 1940s.

She moved again to London in 1947, where she became a Chinese representative for UNESCO.

This manuscript was published in 1953, with the name Ancient Melodies.

She mostly remained in London except for 1956 when she taught at Nanyang University in Singapore.

She moved back to China shortly before her death.

Shuhua had a daughter named Chen Hsiao-Ying.

In her article Moral Bargain: Reading Three Stories of Ling Shuhua (1988), Zhou Lei mentioned the reasons why Ling chose the subject of moral bargain.

Under the social atmosphere at that time, most women were dominated by patriarchy in the process of growing up, and they needed to obey their fathers' decisions.

In 1999, Hong Ying published K: The Art of Love, a book based on their relationship that was later banned.

Through her connections with Bell, she was able to start a correspondence with Virginia Woolf, Bell's aunt.