Society

Memorial hall honors pioneering female

By Huang feifei and Huang Zhaohua (China Daily Guangxi Bureau)
Updated: 2010-05-20 16:47

Everyone knows the first Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, but his wife, Deng Yingchao, was also a top revolutionary leader and chairwoman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1983 to 1988.

Deng was born on Feb 4, 1904, on the north bank of the Yongjiang River in Nanning, where a memorial hall commemorates her life.

She grew up in a poor family, her father died when she was young and her single mother taught and practiced medicine to support the family.

She was a team leader in the May Fourth Movement in 1919, the pioneering democratic movement in China, where she met Zhou Enlai. They married on Aug 8, 1925, in Tianjin.

Deng and Zhou had no children of their own. However, they adopted several orphans of revolutionary martyrs, including Li Peng, later a premier of China. Deng promoted the abolition of female foot binding.

She died in Beijing of illness at the age of 88.

In order to remember Deng, the old Guangxi Supreme Court near her birthplace was converted into a memorial hall in February 2007.

Some artifacts from her lifetime are on display there.

There are about 300 pictures, items, documents, calligraphy and paintings in the hall, which is divided into eight showrooms.

In the 1960s, she paid a visit to her birthplace, and expressed her deepest regard for her hometown: "I am a daughter of Nanning, and I grew up drinking the water of Yongjiang River."

In 2007, an education base for local teachers and officials to combat corruption was set up at the memorial hall. The hall is free and open to the public, but visitors are advised to register online, as the hall allows only 700 people each day.