Li Xiaqing (Ya-Ching Lee / Li Dan-dan)

Biography

Li Xiaqing, known by her stage name Li Dan-dan, was a silent film actress during the early Republic of China period. She began her film career in the mid-1920s, appearing in films such as "The Romance of the Western Chamber" as Hongniang in 1927 and "Mulan Joins the Army" in 1928, the first historical film about the Hua Mulan story, and was grouped with stars like Hu Die and Ruan Lingyu as one of the "Seven Sisters." When her father's film company was robbed in Shanghai, she overpowered two bandits and pushed their leader into the Huangpu River. In 1933, she obtained a full pilot's license with top marks from a flying school in Geneva, Switzerland, becoming China's first qualified female pilot, and in 1936 received the first civil aviation pilot's license from the Nationalist government, co-founding China's first civil pilot training school in Shanghai and serving as the country's only female civil flight instructor. After the Battle of Shanghai broke out in 1937, she wrote proposals for Chinese aviation reform and campaigned for national salvation through air power; when her request to join combat was denied, she raised funds for the war effort and participated in rescue and refugee camp work, and was even placed on a Japanese bounty list. Between 1939 and 1941, she traveled alone to the United States and flew her personal plane "Spirit of New China" across more than 30 American cities, Peru, and the Caribbean to raise funds and promote China's resistance, once raising 40,000 yuan in a single hour of flying, earning her the titles "Flying Ambassador" and "Oriental Dragonfly." After 1949 she settled in Hong Kong, performing a flight demonstration at the opening of Kai Tak Airport's new runway in 1958, then moved to San Francisco in 1960, and died on January 24, 1998, at the age of 85. Her biography was recorded in the book "Sisters of Heaven" by Canadian author Patti Gully in 2007.