Ping Hsin-tao or Ping Xintao (; 1927 – 23 May 2019) was a Taiwanese publisher and producer. He founded ''Crown Magazine'' and Crown Publishing in 1954, which launched the careers of

Chiung Yao Chiung Yao or Qiong Yao (; born 20 April 1938) is the pen name of Chen Che, a Taiwanese writer and producer who is often regarded as the most popular romance novelist in the Chinese-speaking world. Her novels have been adapted into more than 100 f ...

and San Mao, two of Taiwan's most famous authors. He married Chiung Yao and produced films and television series based on her popular romance novels.

Early life

Ping was born in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

, Republic of China in 1927, with his

ancestral home An ancestral home is the place of origin of one's extended family, particularly the home owned and preserved by the same family for several generations. The term can refer to an individual house or estate, or to a broader geographic area such as a ...

Changshu Changshu (; Suzhounese: /d͡ʐan¹³ ʐoʔ²³/) is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, and is part of the Yangtze River Delta. It borders the prefecture-level city of Nantong to the northeast across the Yangt ...

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...

. Despite his interests in literature and art since childhood, he studied

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

Utopia University Utopia University, known in Chinese as Datong or Tatung University, was a private university in Shanghai. It was established in March 1912 by a group of former Tsinghua faculty members led by Hu Dunfu, and became one of the most reputable privat ...

at the request of his father.

Career

After graduating from university, Ping moved to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

in 1949 when the Communists took over mainland China, and worked for Taiwan Fertilizer. In 1954, he founded ''Crown Magazine'' (皇冠雜誌) and Crown Publishing (皇冠出版社), later known as (皇冠文化). To help cover business expenses, he translated English-language novels into Chinese under the pen name Fei Li (費禮), and worked as a

disk jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile D ...

at a radio station for five years. In June 1963, Ping became editor of ''Lianfu'', the influential literary supplement of the ''

United Daily News ''United Daily News'' (UDN; ) is a newspaper published in Taiwan. It is considered to support the pan-Blue Coalition in its editorials. History UDN was founded in 1951 by Wang Tiwu as a merger of three newspapers, ''Popular Daily'' (全民� ...

'', and held the position until 1976. Unlike his predecessor

Lin Haiyin Lin Haiyin (; 18 March 1918 – 1 December 2001) was a Taiwanese writer. She is best known for her 1960 book '' My Memories of Old Beijing'' (), a novelistic tribute to her childhood reminiscences of Beijing. Biography Lin was born in Osaka, ...

who focused on elitist "pure literature", Ping promoted writers of more commercial literature, notably the romance novelist

. He serialized Chiung Yao's novels in ''Crown Magazine'' before publishing them at Crown Publishing as monographs. He and Chiung Yao adapted many of her novels into television series and films, often serving as

producers Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

s themselves. Chiung Yao became enormously popular throughout the Chinese-speaking world. San Mao, another Taiwanese writer whose influence and popularity rivalled Chiung Yao's, was also made famous by Ping's Crown Publishing and ''Crown Magazine''. Throughout his career, Ping published more than 6,000 books and 784 magazine issues. He also produced sixteen films.

Personal life

Ping's first wife was the painter Lin Wan-zhen. They met when Lin was 19, and married when she was 25. They had three children. Their son, Ping Yun, later succeeded him as head of Crown Publishing. Ping married Chiung Yao in 1979, after an acrimonious divorce with Lin which lasted eight years. In 2018, Lin published a memoir in which she accused Chiung Yao of breaking up her marriage. After Ping suffered a stroke in 2016 and lost nearly all ability to communicate, his children had a falling out with their stepmother, Chiung Yao, over whether to continue his

intubation Intubation (sometimes entubation) is a medical procedure involving the insertion of a tube into the body. Patients are generally anesthetized beforehand. Examples include tracheal intubation, and the balloon tamponade with a Sengstaken-Blakemo ...

. Ping died on 23 May 2019, at the age of 92.

References

External links

Official website of Crown Culture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ping, Hsin-tao 1927 births 2019 deaths Taiwanese publishers (people) Taiwanese film producers Taiwanese television producers Taiwanese people from Shanghai Taiwanese company founders Businesspeople from Shanghai Utopia University alumni Taiwanese translators Taiwanese radio presenters English–Chinese translators 20th-century Taiwanese businesspeople 20th-century publishers (people) 20th-century translators