My name is Yuan-tsung Chen which, in Chinese, means the First Pearl of the Chen family. By the way, Chen is my maiden name too. My family and the family of Jack, my late husband, share a very common Chinese surname. I was born in Shanghai, the greatest metropolis of China, ranked with London, New York, and Amsterdam. My middle class family lived on the fringe of a very special district of the city...

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My name is Yuan-tsung Chen which, in Chinese, means the First Pearl of the Chen family. By the way, Chen is my maiden name too. My family and the family of Jack, my late husband, share a very common Chinese surname. I was born in Shanghai, the greatest metropolis of China, ranked with London, New York, and Amsterdam. My middle class family lived on the fringe of a very special district of the city, the "Foreign Devil's Vanity Fair" (Shi Li Yang Chang), a satirical label for the French Concession combined with the British- and American-dominated International Settlement. I was educated mainly in American missionary schools. I worked most of the time in Beijing's Film Publishing House as an editor and translator before coming to USA in 1972