麻豆APP

Temporary street sign affixed as part of the 100elles project in Geneva in 2019 By Suzy1919 –

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Lee Ya-Ching

Li Xiaqing or Lee Ya-Ching and who also goes by the stage name Li Dandan was a Chinese film actress, pioneering aviator and a philanthropist. She was born in the province of Canton, China. She grew up to a patriotic and wealthy family. Here are the top interesting facts about Li.

1 An Aviator

Li attended the 麻豆APP Air Show that happened in 1933 and fell in love with flying.  Immediately upon returning to Geneva, she enrolled in flying lessons. One year later, Li made her first solo flight and was the first woman to receive a private pilot鈥檚 license in Geneva. Her reasons for flying were patriotic because she wanted help her country advance through aviation.

She then attended the Boeing School of Aeronautics in Oakland, California for advanced training. Li became a more proficient pilot and mechanic who could dismantle and reassemble a planes鈥� engine by the time she graduated. She was also adept in the fields of aerodynamics, meteorology, aircraft design and radiotelephony.  

2 first Chinese woman granted an aviation license

In 1934, General Chaing Kai-shek authorized private flying in China for the first time. After passing a demanding test, Li was the first woman to be issued a government pilot鈥檚 license, handed to her by General Chaing himself. 

With this honor came responsibility.  She was given the use of a government plane and charged with inspecting all the airfields throughout China. On November 5, 1935, Li was the first woman to graduate from the prestigious Boeing School of aeronautics. With a diploma, private pilot鈥檚 license and impressive experience, she returned to China.  

3 an actress

Cover of the Young Companion issue 7, 1926, featuring actress Li Dandan on the cover By Liangyou Magazine –

During her years at the film industry, she went by the stage name Li Dandan. She was given the nickname 鈥淒andan,鈥� a homophone for the Chinese word for 鈥渂omb,鈥� because her family used her baby carriage to stealthily transport explosives. Lee Ya-Ching is an Anglicized version of her Chinese name. As an actress, she played the title character in Hua Mulan Joins the Army in 1928. This was one of the most famous roles she is known for and to be convincing, Li learned boxing, archery, fencing, horse riding and martial arts. In the basis of the animated movie Mulan, Hua Mulan was the young girl who dressed as a boy to go to war.

In addition, she has done a lot of films and features. Some of the films she is known to have taken part in are; The God of Peace done in 1926, A Poet from the sea in 1927, Five Avenging women in 1928, Don鈥檛 Change Your Husband in 1929 and Disputed Passage in 1939. She stared in Romance of the Western Chamber in 1927.

4 co-founder of first Chinese civilian flying school

Li helped found the Shanghai Municipal Air School. All is attributed to her love for flying and her drive to help her country advance through aviation. While at the school, Li worked as a flight instructor until civilian flights were grounded.

5 surveyed for the government

Right after the advanced training at the Boeing School of Aviation in Oakland, she returned to China later that year. With the flying experience she had gained, the Chinese Government commissioned her to make a 30,000-mile survey of potential air routes.

6 a flight instructor

Back in Asia Li only flew for pleasure and while there, she met international businessman Li GeorgeYixiang (no relation).  Together they shared a love of travel, golf and horseback riding.  They settled in Oakland near where Li had studied at Boeing.

By this time, Li鈥檚 American pilot鈥檚 license had expired, and the Federal Aviation Administration would not recognize her license from Hong Kong.  So, in 1966, at 54 years old, Li began flight instruction to become recertified.   

7 Relationship Life

Li鈥檚 father wanted her to continue her education, so he sent her to Europe.  He was also ready to pass off responsibility for her to a husband.  He changed her name back to Li Xiaqing and hired a matchmaker.  She picked Zheng Baifeng who was educated at the Sorbonne in 麻豆APP and worked for China鈥檚 Foreign Service. This seemed like a match made in heaven, and the couple was married in 1929 and made their first home in Geneva.  Li was 17 years old and Zheng was almost 30. By 1932, Li had become a mother to a son and a daughter.  This new responsibility did not, however, interfere with her love of travel. Li didn鈥檛 really have time for family, and didn鈥檛 live with her husband and children. This independence had consequences.  In 1935 she divorced Zheng under the new constitutional laws which made Zheng lose face.  As a result, Li had to forfeit seeing her children until they were adults.   

Li wasn鈥檛 at a loss for romance, however.  She had met Peter Doo when she was in Europe and they corresponded while she lived in Oakland.  With Li finally a free woman, Doo went to work for her father to encourage a commitment from her.  The most she was willing to commit to was a long distance romance for eight year

8 Member of the Caterpillar Club

Li went through a very harrowing experience to earn her membership in the Caterpillar Club. In 1935, May 15^th, Li went up with instructor LeRoy B. Gregg over San Francisco Bay. When they were about 2,200 feet, Gregg started a barrel roll maneuver and turned the plane upside down. As he looked behind, he saw Li falling out of her seat trying to hang on.

She fell for about 900 feet then pulled the rip cord activating the parachute she was wearing and eased to her touch down into the icy cold bay. She was an experienced swimmer although the freezing water and her water-logged leather suit made it hard for he to move. Gregg dropped life preservers but Li couldn鈥檛 get to them, luckily airmen from the U.S. Naval Reserve Base in Alameda saw her fall.

While on their way to rescue her in a Loening amphibious plane, their pontoons got stuck and Li had to continue to tread the water until a second one could arrive. After twenty minutes in the cold water, she climbed aboard of the rescue aircraft with only two complaints; that she was cold and had lost a shoe. The next day she went up the bay in the same stunt plane, she did this to counter the ordeal she had gone through. All this happened because of a broken seat belt, although she admitted to a reporter many years later that it was possible she had forgotten to fasten it. And so, through all this, Li gets this membership which requires members to have saved their own lives through an emergency parachute exit from an airplane.

9 She鈥檚 a heroine

Li Dandan, Chinese aviator and actress By Unknown author –

Li was learned in martial arts, archery, boxing, horse riding and fencing, skills which were required during the time she was doing a role in the movie 鈥楬ua Mulan Joins the Army鈥�. With this edge, she became heroic one night while on location.

Robbers snuck into the camp and stole the production money. Li got on a horse, pursued them and prevented them from crossing a bridge. After fighting with them for a while, she tossed them over the bridge into the river.

10 Served her country

In 1937 Japan invaded China.  Li saw this as the ultimate opportunity to use her skills to serve her country.  She was crushed when she was told she would no longer be allowed to fly because she was a woman, not even on courier missions. But she found another way to serve, by founding the First Citizens鈥� Emergency Auxiliary and using her own money to convert a hotel into the Red Cross Emergency Hospital. 

She was driven, doing everything from administration work to assisting with surgery to organizing a refugee camp and orphanage to running the radio station that broadcast propaganda. The Japanese were not so appreciative of Li鈥檚 contributions and they put her on their black list, forcing her to leave Shanghai.  She ended up back in San Francisco where she started working on her idea to fly around the United States raising money to support China.