Chen Jieru

Chen Jieru (Chinese: 陳潔如; 26 August 1906 – 21 January 1971), also romanized Ch'en Chieh-ju, was the second wife of Chiang Kai-shek. She was nicknamed Jennie. Chen's ancestral hometown was Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, but she was born in Shanghai. She wrote a memoir which Chiang successfully suppressed during his lifetime. It was finally published in 1993. In the memoir, Chen details how she and Chiang Kai-shek met at the home of a mutual friend in 1918 and how he pursued her, finally convincing her to marry him on 5 December 1921 by stating that his arranged marriage with Mao Fumei was unhappy and celibate, and his liaison with Yao Yecheng was a social courtesy following her disfigurement. The couple held their wedding at East Hotel in Shanghai. Chiang promised Chen that he was marrying Soong Meiling ("Madame Chiang") for political convenience before a Buddhist shrine, saying "Should I break my promise and fail to take her back, may the Great Buddha smite me and my Nanjing government.", and arranged for her to go to the United States on a five-year "study tour"; after this she was meant to return and married life would resume. However, once there, Chen learned from press articles that Chiang denied their marriage and said that he had paid for a "concubine" to move to the United States, which deeply aggrieved Chen.