Sang Ye
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sang Ye (born 1955) is the pen name of Shen Dajun, a Chinese journalist, oral historian, and collector. He is the author of two oral histories, Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China (co-authored with the novelist Zhang Xinxin), and China Candid: The People on the People's Republic. Originally trained as an electrical engineer, following a short course at Beijing Normal University in 1978 he began working as a freelance journalist.[1] Described as a "remarkably gifted interviewer" with a "wholly unexpected, free-and-easy style" by Studs Terkel,[2] Sang Ye has been praised for providing a unique perspective on China in the reform and opening up era, "[bringing] to light the way people make sense of the world through telling themselves stories about their personal journeys."[3]
Sang Ye | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 桑晔 |
| Born | 1955 (age 69–70) Beijing |
| Genre | Oral history |
| Notable works | Chinese Lives, China Candid |
In 1990, his personal archive of monographs, posters, recordings and newspapers from the Cultural Revolution was purchased by the National Library of Australia.[1]
| Sang Ye | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 桑曄 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 桑晔 | ||||||
| |||||||
Sang Ye's paternal grandfather was originally from Zhejiang province, eventually coming to own a curios shop in Beijing. His father, who studied civil law, was an early member of the Chinese Communist Party. Sang Ye's maternal grandfather was a lawyer who worked for the Japanese occupation in Manchuria. After graduating from St. Joan’s Girls College, a French Catholic school founded by the Daughters of Charity, his mother became a physical education teacher.[4][5] Sang Ye's parents divorced in 1971, an event which Nicholas Jose has argued provided a formative experience of "the gulf between noble words and shabby conduct, and the misery caused by double standards and hypocrisy in Chinese society."[5]
