Chia-ying Yeh

Florence Chia-ying Yeh (July 2, 1924 – November 24, 2024), also known as Ye Jiaying , Jialing , and by her married name Chia-ying Yeh Chao, was a Chinese-born Taiwanese-Canadian poet and sinologist. She was a scholar of classical Chinese poetry. Yeh taught for 20 years at the University of British Columbia (UBC), and was a professor emerita from her retirement in 1989. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. After retiring from UBC, she taught at Nankai University in Tianjin, where she was the founding Director of the Institute of Chinese Classical Culture.

Early life and education

Chia-ying Yeh was born in Beijing on July 2, 1924. Her family was from the prominent Manchu clan of Yehe Nara, originally of Tümed Mongol ethnicity. The famous Qing dynasty poet Nalan Xingde was from the same clan. Her grandfather was a Qing official, and her sinicized family shortened its surname to the Han Chinese Yeh after the fall of the Manchu Qing dynasty in 1911. After graduating in 1945, she taught in the then capital Nanjing, and married Chao Chung-sun (赵钟荪), a navy employee, in March 1948. By the end of the year, the Kuomintang government was losing the Chinese Civil War and began its retreat to Taiwan. Yeh also moved with her husband to Taiwan, and settled in Changhua, where Yeh found a teaching job at a secondary school. She gave birth to her first daughter Chao Yen-yen (赵言言) in August 1949.

During the White Terror period of Taiwan, numerous intellectuals were suspected of being Communist sympathizers and imprisoned without trial. In December 1949, Yeh's husband Chao Chung-sun was arrested on suspicion of being a Communist spy. In June 1950, Yeh was herself jailed, together with the principal and six other teachers at her school. She brought her daughter to the prison as the baby was less than a year old.

Yeh turned 100 on July 2, 2024, and died on November 24.

Scholarships Yeh donated half of her pension fund from UBC to establish two scholarships at Nankai University.

In 1997, Hebei Education Publishing House published The Collected Works of Jialing in 10 volumes. In 2000, Guiguan Book Company of Taiwan published The Collected Works of Chia-ying Yeh in 24 volumes.