Travel: People and places

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Butch Cassidy and UtahFederico Fellini and RomeGeorge Sand and France; George Eliot and EnglandMary Stuart and ScotlandMary Colter and Grand CanyonMao Tse-tung and ChinaDjango Reinhardt and ParisWolfgang Amadeus Mozart and ParisThomas Jefferson and John Adams and EnglandAlan Furst and EuropeTintinMartha GellhornGeorgie White Clark and the Grand CanyonHoly Roman Emperor Frederick II and ItalyVanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury, LondonBarbara CooneyJulia Child and FranceGeorgia O'Keeffe and New MexicoFather Eusebio Kino and the Sonoran desertFrank Lloyd Wright and ArizonaThe Brothers Grimm and GermanySoong Ching-ling and ChinaAbigail Adams and Louisa Catherine and Adams National Historical ParkFanny StevensonColette and Paris

<img height="125" style="padding: 5px 10px 5px 0px;" width="100" align="left" src="http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/photo/2010-06/54393530-17150653.jpg" />Planning a trip to Beijing several months ago, my sister asked me what she should see. The Forbidden City and Great Wall of China came to mind, of course. But then I remembered my favorite place in Beijing. "Above all," I said, "see the home of Soong Ching-ling."<br>
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I discovered it four years ago, without fully comprehending who Soong Ching-ling was or why she is considered the mother of modern China. I was wandering through alleyways, known as hutongs (some so small and maze-like they aren't shown on maps), in the old-fashioned northern lake district of Beijing where princes lived. Ching-ling's low-slung, many-winged house, surrounded by a lush garden, is on the grounds of a mansion owned by the father of the last Qing Dynasty emperor, Pu Yi, who abdicated in 1911.<br>
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-- Susan Spano<br>
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<b>Read more: </b> <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2000/dec/03/travel/tr-60438">In China, getting a history lesson and glimpsing the life of a patriot</a><br>
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<i>Upper photo: Soong Ching-ling's Beijing home</i><br>

Soong Ching-ling and China

( Micki )

Planning a trip to Beijing several months ago, my sister asked me what she should see. The Forbidden City and Great Wall of China came to mind, of course. But then I remembered my favorite place in Beijing. "Above all," I said, "see the home of Soong Ching-ling."

I discovered it four years ago, without fully comprehending who Soong Ching-ling was or why she is considered the mother of modern China. I was wandering through alleyways, known as hutongs (some so small and maze-like they aren't shown on maps), in the old-fashioned northern lake district of Beijing where princes lived. Ching-ling's low-slung, many-winged house, surrounded by a lush garden, is on the grounds of a mansion owned by the father of the last Qing Dynasty emperor, Pu Yi, who abdicated in 1911.

-- Susan Spano

Read more: In China, getting a history lesson and glimpsing the life of a patriot

Upper photo: Soong Ching-ling's Beijing home