After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945), Madame Soong Ching-ling, wife of Sun Yat-sen, generously donated the house at Rue Moliere (now Xiangshan Lu) as a "Memorial Museum to the Father of the Nation," and rented another house.
In the following years, Soong Ching-ling did not have a decent residence. Finally, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, her brother-in-law, arranged for her to have the villa at 1843 Huaihai Zhonglu in Shanghai.
The boat-fashioned villa was originally built in 1920, and was owned by a German shipbuilding tycoon. It was later sold to a German doctor and then in 1929 to a Chinese businessman.
The villa was first the home of Chiang's second son, Chiang Wei-kou, and later a hostel for a KMT governmental bureau. It was only in March 1948 that Soong Ching-ling moved into the house.
In the sitting room, two pictures hang above the mantelpiece -- one of Sun Yat-sen and the other of Mao Zedong visiting Soong Ching-ling in 1961.
In the sitting room, Soong Ching-ling received many heads of state and top-ranking officials -- Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Kim Il-Sung of North Korea, Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, Sukarno of Indonesia and Sirimavo Bandaranaya of Sri Lanka.
In the dining room, there is an oil painting of Soong's mother and some gifts from foreign state leaders.
To the east of the sitting room is a library, which contained more than 4,000 books in Chinese, English, French and Russian.
The bedroom on the second floor contains a set of teakwood furniture Soong's parents sent her as dowry. On the wall is a wedding picture of Soong and Sun Yat-sen.
The clock, once used by Sun, sits on the mantelpiece and the time is frozen at 8:18pm, the time Soong Ching-ling left the world. Outside the bedroom is a large veranda. Also on the second floor is Soong's study and the bedroom of Soong's nanny Li Yan'e.
In the 1950s, an auxiliary building was added near the villa to accommodate Soong's staff and guards. Many activities of the China Welfare Institution, of which Soong Ching-ling was chairman, were held in the compound.
Soong Ching-ling died on May 29, 1981. Of the three Soong sisters, of whom it is said one loved money, one loved power, and one loved China, only the patriotic Ching-ling died in her own country.
In 1988 the residence was formally opened to the public.
(Shanghai Star June 27, 2002)
