Soo Yong, (Mandarin: Yang Siu; October in Wailuku, Maui â€" October
in Honolulu) was a Chinese-American actress. She acted in twenty-three
Hollywood films and numerous television shows, mostly in supporting
roles. Among them were The Good Earth (), Love Is a Many-Splendored
Thing (), and Sayonara (). In she married C.K. Huang.Soo Yong was
born into a family which had come from Zhongshan, Guangdong, where the
Young clan was one of the largest family organizations. She was known
as Young Hee, or Ahee as a child. Her father was a contract laborer in
the Waikiki sugarcane plantations, then became a taxi driver important
enough in the community to be a friend and frequent host to Sun
Yat-sen. She attended Christian Sunday school even though the family
worshiped Buddha at home. She lost both parents by the time she was ,
and moved to Honolulu, where her earnings from working for white
families paid her school tuition. At some point she picked up
Mandarin.After graduation from Mid-Pacific Institute and then the
University of Hawai'i in , her aim was to go into teaching. She made
the trip to the mainland to enroll at Teachers College, Columbia
University, making her one of only fifty women of Chinese descent
enrolled in an American college. Her M.A. in Education was granted in
June , at which point she changed her name from "Ah Hee" to Soo
Yong.Over the next few years she had roles in several Broadway plays,
the first one starring Katherine Cornell, whose "techniques, certain
postures, and gestures" she said she emulated. In , she married fellow
actor Goo Chang (Peter Chong). The first major advancement of her
career was the opportunity to use her fluency in Mandarin and native
English as onstage translator for Mei Lanfang's Peking Opera, first in
New York and then a tour of North America in . She freely interpreted
the stories and explained the action in terms which American audiences
could understand. The New York Times praised her by name, saying "Miss
Yong speaks English with a clarity of diction rarely encountered among
native American speakers," apparently not realizing that she was in
fact a native American speaker. After the finish of the tour, she and
her husband performed on Broadway together. They went back on the
road, where, however, the marriage ended. After the divorce was
complete in June , she returned to Hawai'i, then later that year to
Los Angeles.
in Honolulu) was a Chinese-American actress. She acted in twenty-three
Hollywood films and numerous television shows, mostly in supporting
roles. Among them were The Good Earth (), Love Is a Many-Splendored
Thing (), and Sayonara (). In she married C.K. Huang.Soo Yong was
born into a family which had come from Zhongshan, Guangdong, where the
Young clan was one of the largest family organizations. She was known
as Young Hee, or Ahee as a child. Her father was a contract laborer in
the Waikiki sugarcane plantations, then became a taxi driver important
enough in the community to be a friend and frequent host to Sun
Yat-sen. She attended Christian Sunday school even though the family
worshiped Buddha at home. She lost both parents by the time she was ,
and moved to Honolulu, where her earnings from working for white
families paid her school tuition. At some point she picked up
Mandarin.After graduation from Mid-Pacific Institute and then the
University of Hawai'i in , her aim was to go into teaching. She made
the trip to the mainland to enroll at Teachers College, Columbia
University, making her one of only fifty women of Chinese descent
enrolled in an American college. Her M.A. in Education was granted in
June , at which point she changed her name from "Ah Hee" to Soo
Yong.Over the next few years she had roles in several Broadway plays,
the first one starring Katherine Cornell, whose "techniques, certain
postures, and gestures" she said she emulated. In , she married fellow
actor Goo Chang (Peter Chong). The first major advancement of her
career was the opportunity to use her fluency in Mandarin and native
English as onstage translator for Mei Lanfang's Peking Opera, first in
New York and then a tour of North America in . She freely interpreted
the stories and explained the action in terms which American audiences
could understand. The New York Times praised her by name, saying "Miss
Yong speaks English with a clarity of diction rarely encountered among
native American speakers," apparently not realizing that she was in
fact a native American speaker. After the finish of the tour, she and
her husband performed on Broadway together. They went back on the
road, where, however, the marriage ended. After the divorce was
complete in June , she returned to Hawai'i, then later that year to
Los Angeles.
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