Shooting the War

EVERYONE HEARS about “The Three Graces” immediately upon reaching China. However, it is only slangy Americans who would dream of calling them that. To the rest of the world they are the Soong sisters: from eldest to youngest, Madame Kung, Madame Sun Yat-sen, and Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
The names of all three of their dazzlingly eminent husbands are treated with deserved and justifiable reverence throughout China. This does not prevent some of the resident Americans, who admire the ladies but still are not easily overawed, from referring to the two younger sisters as, respectively, the widow of God and the bride of Christ.
Madame Kung, the eldest of the three, is the wife of Dr. H. H. Kung, Minister of Finance and Executive Vice-President of the Bank of China. Madame Kung is said to keep a guiding iron hand on the finances of her wealthy family. Her understanding of industry is rather remarkable, and she holds the position of Adviser of the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives. The second sister, Madame Sun Yat-sen, is head of the China Defense League. Although both these ladies are very active, their executive positions had an absentee character until the fall of Hong Kong sent them on to Chungking. During our visit to Hong Kong, they had residences there, where they held in effect the odd position of refugee guests of the British government.
Madame Kung is self-effacing almost to the point of invisibility. She is rarely seen and almost never photographed. When I heard that the last time she had consented to sit for a portrait was twenty years ago, I was especially eager to make a new portrait of her.
It was through Madame Sun Yat-sen that I finally reached her. Madame Sun is not very accessible either, but her interest in her China Defense League made her listen to my arguments that submitting to have her portrait taken was the best way to publicize her cause in America, since Americans take such an interest in personalities. I found her plump, jolly, and gracious, and so shy that I think the very fact that she had overcome her timidity sufficiently to be photographed made her willing to talk her elder sister into doing the same thing. The next day, Erskine and I received an invitation to dine at the home of Madame Kung. Madame Sun would also be a guest, and I was allowed to bring my camera.
I had heard various guesses as to the age of the eldest Soong sister, ranging from fifty to a little over sixty. When I saw her, I thought she looked hardly forty. She had that smooth, enameled slimness which makes many Chinese women ageless. She wore the typical dress which the women of China wear like a uniform—a straight-cut tube, slit up the side, of identical cut for rich and poor, and made of fabrics ranging from the faded blue cotton of the coolies to heavy black silk embroidered in pearls. Madame’s was embroidered in pearls. As she walked into the room I was startled to observe that even this modest lady’s dress showed the expanse of well-shaped slender leg, from ankle to a bit above the knee, that flashes out through slit skirts all over China.
During the portrait, she was so bashful that all the servants and even my husband were sent from the room. I was grateful that she allowed her sister to stay, for I needed someone to help me hold reflectors, a job which Madame Sun Yat-sen performed with evident pleasure at the novelty of the operation and with many exclamations over the miraculous quickness of flash bulbs. Madame Sun powdered her sister’s nose at intervals and straightened her coiffure, although it was already as sleek as polished bakelite. When I had finished, the two promised to write letters to “little sister Mei,” so that on arrival in Chungking I should be able to make portraits of her and of her husband, the Generalissimo.
Then Erskine was permitted to return, and we were led in to what appeared to me, in my inexperience, to be an unusually well-loaded table. As we took our seats, Madame Kung expressed regret for the inadequacy of the meal.

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