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Kang-i Sun Chang

Kang-i Sun Chang
Native name 孫康宜
Born (1944-02-21) 21 February 1944 (age 72)
Beijing, Republic of China
Other names Kang-i Sun, Sun Kangyi
Fields Classical Chinese literature, comparative literature
Institutions Yale University
Alma mater
Academic advisors Yu-kung Kao, Andrew H. Plaks, F. W. Mote, Earl Miner, Ralph Freedman
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 孫康宜
Simplified Chinese 孙康宜

Kang-i Sun Chang (born Sun K'ang-i, Chinese: 孫康宜; 21 February 1944), is a Chinese-born American scholar of classical Chinese literature. She is the inaugural Malcolm G. Chace Professor, and former chairperson of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University.

Sun K'ang-i was born on 21 February 1944 in Beijing. Her father Sun Yü-kuang (孫裕光) was from Tianjin, and her mother Ch'en Yü-chen (陳玉真) was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The couple met when they were both studying in Japan, and they later moved to Beijing, where Sun taught at Peking University.

In 1946, Peking University was unable to pay its employees due to hyperinflation. Influenced by his close friend Chang Wo-chün (張我軍), a leading literary figure in Taiwan and the father of the future archaeologist Kwang-chih Chang (張光直), Sun Yü-kuang decided to follow Chang and move to Taiwan; Kang-i was two years old at the time. In 1950, Sun was arrested by the Kuomintang (Nationalists) during the White Terror period of Taiwan, and imprisoned for ten years. Kang-i was six years old at the time of her father's arrest. According to her own account, she was traumatized by the event and suddenly lost the ability to speak Mandarin within a few days. From then on she was only able to speak Taiwanese, and had to relearn Mandarin in school. Throughout her school years she was often laughed at for speaking Mandarin with a heavy Taiwanese accent.

Chang returned to mainland China for the first time in 1979, and learned that while her father was imprisoned by the Kuomintang in Taiwan, her grandfather Sun Lisheng (孫勵生), who had remained in China, was persecuted by the Communists for his Taiwanese connection, and committed suicide in 1953.


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