Jiang Ying (; August 11, 1919 – February 5, 2012) was a Chinese

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

singer and music teacher. She was the wife of Chinese

rocket scientist Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

Qian Xuesen, to whom she was married from 1947 until 2009 (his death).

Early life

On 11 Aug 1919, Jiang was born in

Haining () is a county-level city in Zhejiang Province, China, and under the jurisdiction of Jiaxing. It is in the south side of Yangtze River Delta, and in the north of Zhejiang. It is to the southwest of central Shanghai, and east of Hangzhou, the p ...

Jiaxing Jiaxing (), alternately romanized as Kashing, is a prefecture-level city in northern Zhejiang province, China. Lying on the Grand Canal of China, Jiaxing borders Hangzhou to the southwest, Huzhou to the west, Shanghai to the northeast, and the p ...

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , Chinese postal romanization, also romanized as Chekiang) is an East China, eastern, coastal Provinces of China, province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable citie ...

province. Jiang was of mixed Chinese and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

descent. She was the third daughter of Jiang Baili, a leading military strategist of Chiang Kai-shek, and his Japanese wife, . She was a distant relative of the

wuxia ( ), which literally means "martial heroes", is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Although is traditionally a form of historical fiction, its popularity has caused it to be adapted ...

novelist

Louis Cha Louis Cha Leung-yung (; 10 March 1924 – 30 October 2018), better known by his pen name Jin Yong (), pronounced "Gum Yoong" in Cantonese, was a Chinese wuxia ("martial arts and chivalry") novelist and essayist who co-founded the Hong Kong dail ...

Education

In 1936 Jiang went to Europe with her father and studied music in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. Jiang graduated from Universität der Künste Berlin in 1941. When

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

broke out in Europe, Jiang had to move and further studied opera in Switzerland. Jiang graduated from Musikhochschule Luzern in 1944.

Career

Jiang went back to China (at that time the Republic of China). On 31 May 1947, as a Chinese opera singer, Jiang first performed 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 flowin ...

. In 1947, Jiang moved to the United States. In 1955, when her husband Qian was deported by the United States government, Jiang went to the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

together with him. Qian and Jiang entered China through Kowloon,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. Jiang became a professor of music and opera, and head of the department of Western Vocal Music at the

Central Conservatory of Music The Central Conservatory of Music () is a prestigious leading public music school of China and a member of Double First Class University Plan and former Project 211. Its campus is in the Xicheng District of Beijing, China, near Fuxingmen Statio ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

Personal

In 1947 in

, Jiang married Qian Xuesen. He was a

and engineer who co-founded the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

and later led the

space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually cons ...

program of the

. Jiang died on 5 February 2012 in

, China.

References

External links

Memory of Jiang Yin and Tsien Hsue-sen
(from

Sohu Sohu, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet company headquartered in the Sohu Internet Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing. Sohu and its subsidiaries offer advertising, a search engine (Sogou.com), on-line multiplayer gaming (ChangYou.com) and other se ...

)
Famous singer and professor: Jiang Yin
(from www.gmw.cn) {{DEFAULTSORT:Jiang, Ying 1919 births 2012 deaths 20th-century Chinese women opera singers Chinese people of Japanese descent Musicians from Jiaxing Singers from Zhejiang Tsien family Educators from Jiaxing