Ying Mei Chun (Chinese: 陳英梅; pinyin: Chén Yīngméi; c. 1890 – August 17, 1938) was a Chinese physical educator, based in Shanghai.

Ying Mei Chun
陳英梅
A young Chinese woman wearing eyeglasses and a high-collared white blouse; her hair is parted center and dressed in an updo
Ying Mei Chun, from the 1913 yearbook of Wellesley College
Bornabout 1890
Hong Kong
DiedAugust 17, 1938
Canton, China
Other namesYing Mei Chen, Ying Mei Lin, Chen Yingmei
OccupationEducator
RelativesMeyer Kupferman (son-in-law)

Early life and education

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Chun was from Hong Kong. She attended the McTyeire School in Shanghai, and graduated from Wellesley College in 1913.[1][2] She took additional certification training in physical education in New York.[3][4] Chun was chair of the woman's department of the Chinese Student Christian Association in North America in 1911.[5] She was secretary of the Wellesley Alumnae Association chapter in Shanghai.[6]

Career

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After graduating from college in the United States, Chun was director of the physical department of the Shanghai YWCA.[7][8] She taught in the physical education program at Ginling College.[9][10] and at "eight or ten girls' schools" in Shanghai,[11] working as co-teacher and translator with American missionary educators Henrietta Thomson and Abby Shaw Mayhew.[12][13] "Never have I seen such a living dynamo of energy as Miss Chun in the class-room," wrote fellow Wellesley College alumna Sophie Chantal Hart in 1919. "Her girls worked so joyously with such concentration and zest that it set your blood racing to watch them."[14] She used dances and games to organize exercise activities, according to former students.[15] She left teaching to marry.[16]

While in the United States for school, Chun attended the Silver Bay conference of the YWCA.[5] In 1915, she attended an international YWCA conference in Los Angeles.[17] Another Wellesley alumna, Edith Stratton Platt, visited Chun and her family in 1922.[18]

Publications

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  • "A Wedding in South China" (1912)[19]

Personal life

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In 1918, Chun married Dao Dan Yang Lin, a forestry professor at Nanking University.[14] They had three children, including daughter Lin Peifen (also known as Peifen Kupferman or Peggy Lin), a choreographer and dance educator who married American composer Meyer Kupferman.[10][20] Chun died in 1938, in Canton, in her late forties.[3]

References

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  1. ^ Wellesley College, Legenda (1913 yearbook): 69.
  2. ^ Ye, Weili (2002-04-01). Seeking Modernity in China's Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900-1927. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-8041-4.
  3. ^ a b Littell-Lamb, Elizabeth A. "Gospel of the Body, Temple of the Nation: The YWCA Movement and Women's Physical Culture in China, 1915-1925" (December 2007): 180.
  4. ^ Liu, Zhiqiang; Zhang, Xiaolin (2023-01-02). "Journey to the West: Research on the Chinese Studying Physical Education in the United States during the Republic of China (1912–1949)". Asian Journal of Sport History & Culture. 2 (1): 86–105. doi:10.1080/27690148.2023.2200754. ISSN 2769-0148. S2CID 259795204.
  5. ^ a b Monthly report of the Chinese Student Christian Association in North America. October 1911. pp. 32, 45–46.
  6. ^ Wellesley College (1916–1917). "Local Associations". Calendar: 190.
  7. ^ "Alumnae Notes". The Wellesley Alumnae Quarterly. 2: 123. 1917.
  8. ^ "Why a Physical Training School in China". Blue Triangle News (78): 2. October 24, 1919.
  9. ^ "Minutes of the Board of Directors of Ginling College" (October 28 and 29, 1932): 29.
  10. ^ a b Feng, Jin (2010-07-02). The Making of a Family Saga: Ginling College. State University of New York Press. pp. 77–78, 95. ISBN 978-1-4384-2914-4.
  11. ^ Montgomery, H. B. (1915). The King's highway. Рипол Классик. p. 167. ISBN 978-5-87083-168-8.
  12. ^ Mayhew, Abby Shaw (December 1916). "Physical Education in China". The Association Monthly. 10 (11): 490–492.
  13. ^ "With Our Secretaries Abroad: From Restless China". The Association Monthly. 10 (7). August 1916.
  14. ^ a b Hart, Sophie C. (July 1919). "Wellesley Women in China". Wellesley Alumnae Quarterly. 3 (4): 293.
  15. ^ Gao, Yunxiang (2013-05-06). Sporting Gender: Women Athletes and Celebrity-Making during China?s National Crisis, 1931-45. UBC Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-7748-2483-5.
  16. ^ Mayhew, Abby Shaw (November 1918). "A Normal School of Physical Education and Hygiene for Chinese Women". American Physical Education Review. 23 (8): 498.
  17. ^ "National Board News". Association Monthly. 8 (6): 224. July 1914.
  18. ^ Platt, Edith Stratton (April 5, 1922). "The Gate Into the City". The Friend: A Religious and Literary Journal. 95: 495.
  19. ^ Chun, Ying-Mei (January 1912). "A Wedding in South China". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 39 (1): 71–73. doi:10.1177/000271621203900108. ISSN 0002-7162. S2CID 144845566.
  20. ^ "Lin Pei-fen (Peggy Lin) smiling happily after the dance recital she both choreographed and directed". Yale University Library. Retrieved 2023-11-10.
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