She was born in China, grew up on the road to escape, and for various reasons, settled in the United States.
After 1980, the world situation tended to be stable, and at that time, she had more opportunities to return to China as early as she had achieved fame on the other side of the ocean.
She met many provincial and municipal leaders and had a deep dialogue with them. She wants to go deep into China and encourage Chinese who are developing, don't worry, take your time, everything will always be better.
She likes to talk to students in schools, telling them to study hard and serve the motherland in the future; she advises them to go to college when they have the opportunity to go to college and cherish the classroom. Chinese too many mouthfuls, eating, wearing, living and traveling are all problems, and if you want to do a good job in these infrastructure construction, you can't complete it overnight.
She has always remembered the Chinese countryside during the war, so poor that it was chilling, but today's Chinese countryside makes her happy, the world has changed dramatically, and people no longer have to worry about food and clothing.
She hopes that Chinese understand that there are also bad habits abroad, and the most critical point in China is to learn from the strengths of foreign countries and learn to distinguish between good and bad, so that China can certainly take one step at a time and realize the beautiful expectation of "the dragon taking off".
She is Chen Xiangmei, a legendary woman who "accompanied 8 US presidents in the eyes of others, but spent her life loving a hero".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" >01, Mei Xiang bitter cold: after her mother left, she knew at the age of 14 that it was difficult to support her family</h1>
Chen Xiangmei was born in Beijing in 1925 by yingrong from her father and Liao Xiangci by her mother. She is the second oldest in the family, with an older sister who is 4 years older than her and four younger sisters below.
Chen Xiangmei was born during the period when her parents had just returned from studying in the United States and went to Beijing to live with her grandfather. The Liao family has a large population, and the Chen family is also a big family that is old-fashioned, so Chen Xiangmei in her childhood is a veritable Miss Qianjin who has no worries about food and clothing.
At that time, she was closer to her grandfather. Whenever there is something unhappy, Chen Xiangmei will always pour out her heart to her grandfather, and her grandfather will gently dry Chen Xiangmei's tears and comfort her: "Don't cry, the baby is the most beautiful." ”
As for parents, they are like a distant term, which has not left any deep mark on Chen Xiangmei's life when she was young.
When she grew up, Chen Xiangmei commented on her feelings for her young self and her parents, saying: "When I was young, my father was like a stranger to me, as if I didn't know him at all; my mother's social activities were very frequent, even though she loved each of her daughters, she still didn't have much time to stay with us for a long time." ”
In 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident occurred, and Chen Xiangmei's life underwent a huge change. The family fled to Hong Kong, where her father left Chen Xiangmei's mother and sisters alone as consul of the Republic of China, citing her studies.
The young Chen Xiangmei gradually spied some of her mother's "secrets" from her mother's increasingly haggard face, and she was uneasy, so she quietly made up her mind that she must study hard, strive to adopt her mother in the future, and resolutely not be a "slave" of money.
But before Chen Xiangmei grew up, bad luck came to the Chen family again. One morning, Chen Xiangmei went to her mother's room as usual to say goodbye to her, but saw her mother packing a box.
Chen Xiangmei realized that she thought that her mother only went to the hospital for one day of examination was just her own speculation, she was very worried, wanted to stay at home to send her mother to the hospital, her mother stopped her, told her to go to the hospital after class.
Chen Xiangmei, who had been in a trance all day, waited until the end of class to ring, and rushed out of the school like crazy to run to the hospital, and saw her mother who was half asleep and half awake in the hospital bed.
Her mother reassured Chen Xiangmei that she was fine, and after a few more days of delay, she could go home, and Chen Xiangmei tried to suppress the inexplicable anxiety in her heart and returned home alone according to her mother's words.
After 6 months, Liao Xiangci reluctantly bid farewell to the world, leaving behind several daughters who had not yet grown up. Chen Xiangmei, 14, grew up with her sister overnight, cooperated to deal with her mother's affairs, and really began to face the difficulties of maintaining the family's livelihood.
Chen Xiangmei said: "After my mother left, I became the head of the family, and I suddenly understood why my mother wanted to sell jewelry. ”
The whole family of 6, relying only on a meager income of 300 yuan, could not survive at all in such an era. Chen Xiangmei had no choice but to obtain her father's consent in 1941 and live with her sisters in the dormitory of The Sacred Lu Women's College.
In early December of the same year, when the Japanese bombed Hong Kong, Chen Xiangmei and her sisters hid in the school's temporary air raid shelter to escape the disaster. More than 20 days later, the Japanese arrogantly occupied the area, and the situation became more serious.
Chen Xiangmei, under the protection of the nuns, held out in fear until the first month of the following year, and successfully contacted her eldest sister. A few months later, they got their departure permits and began their escape.
Soon, the desperate Chen Xiangmei sisters waited in Guilin for Chennault's aide-de-camp who had been entrusted by their father to pick them up.
Under Chennault's arrangement, they planned to fly to Kunming and then travel through India to the United States to meet their father and stepmother, but Chen Xiangmei did not go. She stayed in China and entered Lingnan University.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" >02, Yi Yi wei Junkai: After 19 years of wandering, she finally had a home of her own</h1>
In 1944, Chen Xiangmei, who graduated from school, joined the Central Kunming Branch and became an assistant to the editorial department during the probationary period. Because of her work, she and Chennault had a closer contact and gradually got to know the general who was full of enthusiasm in her eyes.
She said that Chennault was a good man, who had traveled thousands of miles to China to assist the impoverished Chinese Air Force in resisting the Japanese invaders, which made her full of admiration and admiration for this man.
Once, when Chen Xiangmei went to interview Chennault, one of his secretaries who sketched drew a portrait of Chen Xiangmei. But without waiting for Chen Xiangmei to speak, Chennault took the lead in leaving the portrait.
Chen Xiangmei realized that the portrait was not enough to convey the spirit, and invited a photojournalist who happened to be nearby to help her and Chennault take a few photos.
At that time, Chen Xiangmei was still combing two little girls with the most common long braids in old China, standing next to Chennault, but she still collected those photos for many years.
The little girl who had just opened her heart seemed to have a crush on the general who was more than 30 years older than her, but the age gap and the barrier of the family made Chen Xiangmei can only hide that love deeply in her heart and dare not reveal half a point.
In May 1945, as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression drew to a close, Chennault, who was preparing to return to China, personally told Chen Xiangmei that he would return to China. A few months later, Chen Xiangmei left Kunming to work in Shanghai.
Chennault also returned to China during this period, resuming singleness and formally establishing a relationship with Chen Xiangmei.
He has a driver surnamed Wang, every time he picks up Chen Xiangmei, he will always nag Chennault's "good" with Chen Xiangmei, saying that Chennault has a loyal personality, only Chen Xiangmei has a girlfriend, etc., making Chen Xiangmei cry and laugh.
One time, Chen Xiangmei was hospitalized for stomach ulcers, and Chennault asked the driver Lao Wang to send flowers to Chen Xiangmei every day. A few days later, at dusk, the flower basket "filled" the ward, and Chennault smiled and asked Chen Xiangmei: "Who sent so many flowers?" ”
Chen Xiangmei did not blink an eye, smiled and replied: "Your driver, I am not dead, you want to bury me with flowers." ”
Chen Xiangmei was discharged from the hospital after recovering from her illness and went to her grandparents' home to recuperate at the doctor's order. She intended to take the opportunity to make the old man accept a foreign general in his 50s, so she came up with a way to ask Chennault to come to the house to play bridge with her grandparents as her favorite.
Surprisingly, her grandfather admired Chennault very much, and her grandmother did not resist Chen Xiangmei's interaction with Chennault, only worried that Chen Xiangmei would marry far away in the future and could not often come back to visit them.
Instead, Chen Xiangmei's father was bent on breaking up the two of them. In 1947, Chen Xiangmei's father returned to China to report for duty, and at the suggestion of Chen Xiangmei's stepmother Zhang Bixi, he wanted to transfer Chen Xiangmei to his side as a secretary and separate her from Chennault.
Fortunately, after Chennault talked to Chen's father alone, Chen's father gave up the idea of preventing the two from getting married.
At the end of 1947, Chen Xiangmei and Chennault officially held a wedding. On Christmas Eve of the same year, Chennault gave Chen Xiangmei a small box wrapped in pale yellow satin, Chen Xiangmei thought it was jewelry, who knew that when he opened it, it was the key to Meihua New Village.
At that moment, countless complicated emotions emerged in Chen Xiangmei's heart, only to feel that she had been wandering for 19 years, and at this moment, she finally had a home of her own and a house written in her name.
They lived in that house for two years, and then due to the change of the situation, the two left the mainland and flew to Taiwan, during which Chen Xiangmei gave birth to two daughters. When the child grew to be four or five years old, the unexpected storm once again came to Chen Xiangmei's life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" >03, after years of wind and rain: 60 years alone, she has created her own legend</h1>
In the spring of 1956, Chennault's chronic bronchitis became more severe, and severe coughs became frequent. Chen Xiangmei persuaded him to recuperate for a while, but Chennault dragged on until the summer due to busy work before taking the child to Mengluo to rest for a few weeks.
The couple then returned to Taipei with their children, and Chennault went to Washington alone for a physical examination. A few days later, a phone call shattered Chen Xiangmei's peaceful life, and Chennault fell ill with cancer.
The shadow of her mother's death seemed to hang over Chen Xiangmei's world again, but this time, she had daughters who loved her and a strong husband, and she was no longer alone in facing bad luck.
Chennault, who had undergone surgery, accompanied Chen Xiangmei for 2 years in the midst of illness, and died in 1958, when Chen Xiangmei was just a poor woman who had just passed and stood with a pair of daughters under the age of 10.
Because Chennault's career was mostly taken over by others, Chen Xiangmei only received $300 in funeral expenses and $50,000 in inheritance after 5 years.
No one knows how this young woman survived those difficult and desperate years in a foreign land, and people only saw that when Chen Xiangmei returned to the public again, she had transformed into a butterfly and became the first female vice president of American Airlines, shocking the world with amazing achievements.
In the 60 years of solitude, Chen Xiangmei has never lived up to her love for Chennault, even if she is surrounded by countless elite men, her eyes have not fallen on any one. She puts her energy into work and life, wears a cheongsam, drinks green tea, and always stays active and has a great style.
Chen Xiangmei created her own legend and fulfilled her infatuation. In 2018, at the age of 93, she died of illness at her home in Washington, D.C., said goodbye to the world with a smile, and went to another world to reunite with her husband, who she missed for a long time.