Cecilia Chiang

Cecilia Sun Yun Chiang (lang-zh|t=江孫芸 Her father, Sun Long Guang, was a railway engineer who was educated in France and her mother, Sun Shueh Yun Hui, was from a wealthy family that owned textile mills and flour mills. As a child, she enjoyed elaborate formal meals prepared by the family's two chefs, although the children were not allowed to cook or go into the kitchen.

She escaped with a sister from the Japanese occupation of China in 1942 by walking for nearly six months to Chongqing, where they settled with a relative. She opened a Chinese restaurant, Forbidden City, which was successful with expatriates and local diners. and agreed to help negotiate their lease. She wrote a deposit check for $10,000 to secure their rent, which the landlord refused to return after her friends backed out of the venture. As she began to understand the preferences of Americans, Chiang pared down the menu over time. A Mandarin speaker, she had trouble communicating with the Cantonese speaking suppliers from Chinatown, who would not extend her credit, and also faced discrimination as a woman business owner. The location had no parking, which Chiang cites as a difficulty, and she could not get an ABC license to serve cocktails because she was not a permanent resident. Waters, Chiang, and Marion Cunningham took a several-month tour of Europe in 1978 to sample as many of the best restaurants as they could. George Chen, a founder of the city's Betelenut and Shanghai 1930 (now closed, as are his other ventures, Long Life Noodle Co. and Xanadu), waited tables for Chiang at the Mandarin in the 1970s. and the food editor of Sunset Magazine. in response to a question from an audience member, Alice Waters said that she wanted her last meal on earth to be shark fin soup cooked by Chiang. The comment became a viral sensation, eventually leading the Humane Society International to obtain a pledge from Waters that she would never again eat the dish.

Honors and recognition In 2013, Chiang won a James Beard Foundation Award for lifetime achievement.

In 2014, filmmaker Wayne Wang's Soul of a Banquet documentary, which looks at Chiang's life as she prepares for her lifelong friend Alice Waters' 40th restaurant anniversary, was released. Wayne Wang first visited The Mandarin in the early '80s.

Personal life Chiang was married to Chiang Liang , a professor of economics and later a successful local businessman, whom she married in Shanghai.

Having lived for many years in San Francisco, she moved to Belvedere in Marin County, after selling her restaurant in 1991.