文昌宋氏祖居 Soong’s Ancestral Residence in Hainan’s Wenchang

The Soong’s Ancestral Residence scenic area is located in Wenchang, Hainan, with a planned area of about 7 hectares. It is the place where Charles Jones Soong (1861-1918) was born, studied and lived as a teenager. Charles Jones Soong is the father of the famous Soong Sisters: Ai-ling (1888-1973), Ching-ling (1893-1981) and Mei-ling (1898-2003). Ching-ling and Mei-ling were once the first ladies of China - the former married Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), known as the Father of Modern China while the latter wedded Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), the former leader of the Kuomintang government and president of the Republic of China. The eldest sibling, Ai-ling, was married to Kung Hsiang-hsi (1881-1967), the richest man in China in the early 1900s.

The Soong’s Ancestral Residence on display today was restored by the then Wenchang County government (now Wenchang City government) in 1985 basically according to the original appearance of the residence. The various items inside the building can reflect Wenchang's economic situation in which Charles Jones Soong lived at that time.