My Grandma Didn't Let Me See Her Photo Album Before She Passed, And Only Now Did I Find Out About Her Illustrious Life

My grandma passed 3 months ago in Feb, age 93, of natural causes. I spent a lot of time scanning photos she left behind for her funeral and scanned more over quarantine.

My grandma, 梁萍 (Leung Ping / Teresa Leung; sometimes "Liang" instead) was a prominent "shidaiqu" pop singer under EMI/Pathé in Shanghai, who grew up in and witnessed hardships during the Chinese Civil War, Sino-Japanese War/WW2 and Communist Revolution. Upon the latter, shidaiqu was banned, deemed "Yellow Music" (in Chinese, "yellow", 黄, is a pun for "pornographic"). She fled to and continued singing in Hong Kong, then Singapore, before mostly retiring in San Francisco.

She was very private of these photos—I'd never seen them before she passed. My aunt reflected how she once asked her if she could look at them, and she smirked, "You can look at them when I go."

Here's a playlist of her music.

This is a condensed version, so you can visit my original Facebook album to see more.

More info: Facebook