Chia-ying Yeh, born in July 1924 to an intellectual family in Beijing, is a renowned expert in the study of Chinese classical literature. She is also known by her sobriquet “Jialing”. Currently, she serves as the director of the Institute of Chinese Classical Culture at Nankai University and honorary president of the Chinese Poetry Society. Yeh is a doctoral supervisor and an academician of the Royal Society of Canada.
As a master of Chinese poetry, Chia-ying Yeh has a deep connection with Prince Kung’s Palace, where she spent her school years as a college student of the Chinese Literature Department of the Fu Jen University in the 1940s.
The Rear Building between the mansion and the garden of Prince Kung’s Palace served as the dormitory for female students of Fu Jen University, and Yeh resided in a room on the second floor in the east.
According to Yeh’s recollection, the garden behind the mansion was adorned with flourishing crabapple trees, renowned for their flowers. Each year, around the time of the Qingming Festival, President Chen Yuan’an and faculty members from various departments of literature and history would often gather there, composing and reciting poetry.
Since 2011, Prince Kung’s Palace Museum has resumed the Blossoms of Wisdom. Chia-ying Yeh, a distinguished scholar of classical literature and an alumnus of Fu Jen University, has been invited to participate in the event. In 2013, Yeh celebrated the third anniversary of the Blossoms of Wisdom with a verse titled “Golden Thread Tune”, and for five consecutive years from 2014 to 2018, she attended the gathering, offering tremendous support to the event.
In 2014, when Prince Kung’s Palace Museum learned that Yeh wished to plant crabapple trees in the courtyard of the newly constructed Jialing Academy at Nankai University, two crabapple trees from the palace were transplanted there as a gift. Yeh joyfully described it as a friendship that blossoms in spring and yields fruit in autumn.
In April, 2017, Sun Xuguang, director of Prince Kung’s Palace Museum Management Center presented Yeh with a letter of appointment as the President of the “Crabapple Poetry Society”. The appointment not only reflects the friendship between Yeh and the museum, but also acknowledges her esteemed position in the field of classical literature and poetry.
Chia-ying Yeh attends the 4th Blossoms of Wisdom event and takes a group photo with other guests at the Grand Theatre of Prince Kung’s Palace Museum, April 2014.
Chia-ying Yeh at the Grand Theatre of Prince Kung’s Palace Museum at the 5th Blossoms of Wisdom event, April 2015
The 7th Blossoms of Wisdom event is held at the Jialing Academy at Nankai University. Chia-ying Yeh shares her memory of the crabapple flowers at Prince Kung’s Palace, April 2017.
Sun Xuguang, director of Prince Kung’s Palace Museum Management Center, presents the letter of appointment as the President of the “Crabapple Poetry Society” to Chia-ying Yeh, April 2017.
Chia-ying Yeh with other guests at the 8th Blossoms of Wisdom event, April 2018
