Soo Yong

Soo Yong, (, originally Young Hee (楊喜); October 31, 1903 – October 29, 1984) was a Chinese-American actress. She acted in 23 Hollywood films and numerous television shows, mostly in supporting roles. Among them were The Good Earth, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), and Sayonara (1957). In 1941 she married C.K. Huang.

Youth and education Soo Yong was born into a family which had come from Zhongshan, Guangdong, where the Young clan was one of the largest family organizations. She was known as Young Hee, or Ahee as a child. Her father was a contract laborer in the Waikiki sugarcane plantations, then became a taxi driver important enough in the community to be a friend and frequent host to Sun Yat-sen. She attended Christian Sunday school even though the family worshiped Buddha at home. She lost both parents by the time she was 15, and moved to Honolulu, where her earnings from working for white families paid her school tuition. At some point she picked up Mandarin. Yet she maintained her poise. A 1937 Los Angeles Times story described her as "alarmingly intellectual, sinfully humorous and highly personable."

Marriage, the death of both spouses, and their legacy estate

In 1941, Soo Yong married C.K. Huang (Huang Chun Ku; ),

Their estate was used to establish the Chun Ku and Soo Yong Huang Foundation, whose direction was transferred in September 1991 to the University of Hawai'i Foundation to be used for grants and graduate scholarships in Chinese culture, theater and drama. The Foundation supported a variety of Chinese theatrical and cultural activities at the University of Hawai'i

Legacy A recent historian concluded that in Soo Yong's career onstage and in film she set out to combine Chinese and western values without becoming the type of westernized "Modern Girl" represented by Anna May Wong. Her roles present a softer Orientalism that allowed ethnic dignity and did not offend her Chinese-American audiences or her Nationalist friends in China. In contrast to Anna May Wong, who was two years younger and appeared more militant, Soo Yong, but she had spent almost no time in China, was able to balance several worlds and to sustain a position as an off-screen, cultural translator.

Filmography