Ruan Lingyu Biography,
Ruan Lingyu’s life was the topic of many books, films, TV series in China and Hong Kong. It is difficult, however, to distinguish between facts and myth. Few sources are still available from the time she was alive and most of the documents we have are second hands material that may not be entirely reliable. This biography is a very simple biography based on the few facts we are sure of. The topic of our project was not to examine Ruan Lingyu’s real life. For those interested to know more about the actress, please check the bibliography.
Birth & education
Ruan Lingyu was born Ruan Fenggen in Shanghai on April 26, 1910, in the southern part of the Hongkou district. Her family was from Cantonese origins, the father was a worker at the Asia oil factory, a company implanted in Pudong. The family was very modest, the living conditions difficult. Ruan Fenggen caught a typhoid fever when she was a baby and her older sister died in 1911, age three. Few years later, in 1915, Ruan Fenggen’s father died of tuberculosis, leaving behind him the mother and child alone.
The mother had to work to survive and this is how she became a servant in a well-to-do Cantonese family, the Zhang. For a while, both the mother and the daughter lived at the Zhang’s mansion, Ruan Fenggen helping her mother in her daily task. However, in 1918, Ruan’s mother, He Aying, probably eager to give her daughter a better future, was able to send her in a private school, the Chongde girl’s school (Can: Shung Tak Girls High School). It was a missionary school founded by Cantonese rich families. Ruan Fenggen discovered there an entirely new world. The school was probably providing both traditional and western education. Sports, dance and performance were part of the training. To hide her modest origins, she changed her name, and was then known as Ruan Yuying. At the Chongde school, she became good friend with two girls from good literati background Tan Ruizhen and Liang Biru. Ruan Lingyu studied at the Chongde School for eight years and she was closed to graduation when she suddenly left school for good in 1926 and started her career as an actress. What happened is not certain. From what can be gathered, she met around that time one of the son of the Zhang’s, Zhang Damin. Then, her mother was chased away from the Zhang’s and Damin installed the two women in a home and started to live with them, as if he and Ruan were married. Did he rape her, like some later revealed, forcing Ruan and her mother into an unwanted relationship? Did the young master only take advantage of Ruan’s naivety? Did this young man from a well-to-do background attract her? Whatever happened, the two lived more or less together, with Ruan’s mother, between 1926 and 1933 but never got married.
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu’s life was the topic of many books, films, TV series in China and Hong Kong. It is difficult, however, to distinguish between facts and myth. Few sources are still available from the time she was alive and most of the documents we have are second hands material that may not be entirely reliable. This biography is a very simple biography based on the few facts we are sure of. The topic of our project was not to examine Ruan Lingyu’s real life. For those interested to know more about the actress, please check the bibliography.
Birth & education
Ruan Lingyu was born Ruan Fenggen in Shanghai on April 26, 1910, in the southern part of the Hongkou district. Her family was from Cantonese origins, the father was a worker at the Asia oil factory, a company implanted in Pudong. The family was very modest, the living conditions difficult. Ruan Fenggen caught a typhoid fever when she was a baby and her older sister died in 1911, age three. Few years later, in 1915, Ruan Fenggen’s father died of tuberculosis, leaving behind him the mother and child alone.
The mother had to work to survive and this is how she became a servant in a well-to-do Cantonese family, the Zhang. For a while, both the mother and the daughter lived at the Zhang’s mansion, Ruan Fenggen helping her mother in her daily task. However, in 1918, Ruan’s mother, He Aying, probably eager to give her daughter a better future, was able to send her in a private school, the Chongde girl’s school (Can: Shung Tak Girls High School). It was a missionary school founded by Cantonese rich families. Ruan Fenggen discovered there an entirely new world. The school was probably providing both traditional and western education. Sports, dance and performance were part of the training. To hide her modest origins, she changed her name, and was then known as Ruan Yuying. At the Chongde school, she became good friend with two girls from good literati background Tan Ruizhen and Liang Biru. Ruan Lingyu studied at the Chongde School for eight years and she was closed to graduation when she suddenly left school for good in 1926 and started her career as an actress. What happened is not certain. From what can be gathered, she met around that time one of the son of the Zhang’s, Zhang Damin. Then, her mother was chased away from the Zhang’s and Damin installed the two women in a home and started to live with them, as if he and Ruan were married. Did he rape her, like some later revealed, forcing Ruan and her mother into an unwanted relationship? Did the young master only take advantage of Ruan’s naivety? Did this young man from a well-to-do background attract her? Whatever happened, the two lived more or less together, with Ruan’s mother, between 1926 and 1933 but never got married.
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu
周璇 Zhou Xuan, 阮玲玉 Ruan Lingyu - 夜上海 Ye Shang Hai (Nightlife in Shanghai)
Little Toys 1933 Chinese Silent Film Ruan Ling Yu & Li-Li Li
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