The story of Love & duty and her author Stephanie Rosen-Hoa has attracted the attention of Shanghai based media That’s Shanghai. They published an article about it in today’s weekend edition.
Full article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VXC9WTfOOSccSfeKn9kC4g
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Although Shanghai was the largest city in Asia in the 1930s, the area covered by Old Shanghai was much smaller than today’s city. I mostly write about central Shanghai, but suburbs that were not part of Old Shanghai are also of interest. Recently, I headed to Si Jing Ancient Town / 泗泾古镇.
Si Jing town has long been an important city close to the major town of Huating in Jiangsu province. This area was attached to Shanghai in 1958, becoming the district of Song Jiang. A few streets next to a canal have been kept and are now a pedestrian street. Although it is not the biggest old town around Shanghai, it is much quieter than superstars Zhujiajiao / 朱家角 or Qibao old town 七宝镇, a perfect half-day trip during national holidays.
Sijing’s main attraction is surely Anfang Pagoda 安方塔 and the old streets around. A number of shops have opened there, but the atmosphere is still quiet. Of the nice spot is the One Step coffee, located in a renovated mansion. It is part of the chain of coffee shops and restaurants that are all located into scenic and atmospheric locations (more info on: https://jaapgrolleman.com/one-step-garden/).
I was not expecting more than a pleasant stroll when I ran into the birthplace of Joseph Ma, turned into a museum. Joseph Ma / Ma Xiang Bo / 马相伯 was a very important person for Shanghai and the development of education in China. Studying at Xu Jia Hui’s Saint Ignace college, he became an astronomy and mathematic teacher as well as a priest in 1870. He took part the foundation of the bibliotheca Zikawei, now the Xu Jia Hui library.
After travelling in France, Europe and Corea, looking for modern teachings way to implement in China, he took part to creation of the Université Aurore in 1903, the Catholic university in Shanghai run by the Jesuits. Aurora University was split between several universities in the 1950s, but its main campus on Avenue Dubail (Chongqing nan Lu) is still standing, now part of Jiaotong university.
Parting from the Jesuits, he created his own university University, Fudan in 1905. Now located close to Jiangwan district, it is still one of the top university in China.
Together with Cai Yuanpei, the dean of Beijing University, he co-founded Fu Jen Catholic University (辅仁大学) in Beijing in 1925. Given Cai Yuanpei’s connection with Stephanie Rosen-Hoa and Hua Nan Gui as well as their common interest in education and french language, it is very likely that they all met in Beijing.
Ma Xiang Bo was not the only member of his family to be important for education in China. His brother became the first Chinese to graduate with Baccalaureate from the French education system.
Too bad the museum’s explanation are only in Chinese. It’s probably difficult to appreciate it without a good knowledge of the topic.
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I have been researching the story of the book and movie “Love and duty” / 恋爱与义务 since more than 3 years. This movie was lost in the 1930s and found again in Uruguay in the 1990s. How did this happen?
The movie “Love and duty” was out in 1932, a few years after the book publication in 1924. Like the book, the movie was a great success. The story of the fight between tradition and modernity, as well as the melodramatic theme of the movie attracted the public attention. At the same time, the amazing performance of leading actress Ruan Lingyu helped to turn the movie into a block buster.
As a silent movie, it contained some written dialogues both in Chinese and in English, showing an interest for non Chinese audiences and export outside of China. The Lianhua movie company was registered in Hong Kong and Malaysia-Singapore was an easy target for export. Although I did not find proofs that “Love and Duty” was shown there, it is highly plausible as Chinese was spoken by many people and the link between mainland China and South-East China has long been very strong.(see post “Xiamen, the South East Asia connection”). The movie was shown at the Sino-International Library in Geneva. It is possible that it was also shown in other places in Europe or the USA, but no trace of this has been found either. So how did a copy end up in Uruguay?
Physical films used in the 1920s to make movies were very fragile and many movies were lost during this period. Using highly flammable nitrate-based material, the movie sometimes burned down during processing or projection. The actual film could also lose its images when not properly stored. It is estimated that 75% of all silent movies were lost. Love and Duty was lost, no copy of the movie was known to have survived.
This all changed when a nearly full copy of the movie was found in 1993, in Montevideo in Uruguay. This small country of South America, crushed between Brazil and Argentina, was the probably the least predictable place where to find a lost Chinese movie from half of a century ago.
The main character of this story is another Chinese who spent time in France is the early 1900. Born in 1871, Li Shizeng / 李石曾 was an educator and a politician. He moved to France in 1902 to study French intensely before studying in 1903, at agricultural school Ecole Pratique d’Agriculture du Chesnoy, south from Paris. After graduation three years later (1906), he went to study botanics at Sorbonne University. He focused the properties of soy, surely crossing the path of Stephanie Rosen-Hoa who also studied botanics at Sorbonne University around the same years. (see post “Stephanie Rosen-Hoa at Sorbonne University” for more details).
Li Shizeng also took part of the publication of a magazine in Chinese and esperanto, like Hau Nan Gui and Stephanie Rosen-Hoa. As Chinese students in Paris were few, it is highly probable that he was friend with them during Sorbonne time, as they shared a passion for changing Chinese society and politics as well as for esperanto.
He created a soy processing and tofu factory in La Garenne-Colombes, in Paris suburb, in 1908. Called “Usine de la Caseo-Sojaïne), it was visited by Sun Yat Sen in 1909. Li Shizeng came back to China in 1911, before the revolution. He and initiated the work-study program along with Cai Yuan Pei and returned to France in 1913 to organise it from Montargy. This program would later enrol many high profile Chinese youth, including Deng Xiaoping and Zhu Enlai.
Li Shizeng returned to China in 1919 to teach at Peking University and at the Sino-French University, the sister institution of Institut Franco-Chinois in Lyon. As a French and esperanto speaker in education circle, he was surely in touch with Hua Nan Gui and Stephanie Rosen-Hoa, forming part of their litterary circle, along with Cai Yuan Pei. (see post Horose litterary circle for more information). In 1924, he was appointed manager of the Palace Musuem in Beijing, the former emperor’s forbidden city.
One of the main figure of education in China, Li Shizeng also created the “Bibliothèque Sino-Internationale” (BSI) or Sino-International Library in Geneva in 1932 during a stay in Switzerland. The organisation was designed to promote Chinese culture around the World, it was funded by the Nationalist goverment. It was a tool of promotion of China to Europe, in particular to the League of nations also located in Geneva. In 1932, the library moved to the Chateau de Montagère.
The movie Love and duty was shown at the Geneva branch of the BSI on 7th October 1935. As Li Shizeng was a friend of Hua Nangui and Stephanie Rosen-Hoa, he included a copy of the 1931 movie in the collection. A Shanghai branch (Section de Shanghai) of the BSI was located at Route Fergusson 393 in the former French Concession, and a New York branch was planned but was never created.
Li Shizeng spent much of WW2 in the USA with some trips to Chongqin. In 1948, he returned to Geneva, as the communist troops where approaching Beijing. In 1950, Switzerland became one of the first country in Europe to recognise the new People’s Republic of China. Li Shizeng moved along with the 200.000 books of the Sino-International Library to Montevideo in Uruguay. The collection was hosted by the Uruguayan National Library. Li Shizen moved to Taipei in 1954 and died there in 1973. The collection Library stayed in Montevideo.
In 1993, the core content of the library was brought to the National Central Library in Taipei. It contained approximately 100.000 books, including ancient Chinese books. It also contained the 6000 volumes of the Gujin Tushu Jicheng (古今圖書集成), the Chinese encyclopedia from the QIng dynasty, newspaper and magazines from the library, and 3000 photographs. A copy of the movie “Love and duty” was also discovered among those documents. The lost movie was found back.
Restoration was done by Cineteca di Bologna’s L’immagine Ritrovato laboratory in 2013. The movie shown along with the Godess, another Ruan Lingyu major movie, at the 2014 Shanghai Film Festival. This marked the return of the movie to Shanghai, nearly 80 years after being filmed in the city.
No other movies seem to have been included in the library. Due to his connection with the couple Hua Nan Gui – Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa, it was probably Li Shizeng’s personal decision to take a copy of the movie with him, probably as a showcase of Chinese modernity in the 1930s, as the film was a major block buster then.
Researching this article, I found that a similar story happened to one of my favorite movie. Art Deco masterpiece, Metropolis from Fritz Lang, had a 25 minutes section lost… that was retrieved in 2008 in Argentina.
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On 16th April 2026, I had the pleasure to give my presentation about Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa / Horose at the Qingpu Campus the Shanghai French School. A similar conference took place in 2025 for the French people in China’s historic society. This presentation was part of a series of conferences for high school students and parents.
The story and live of Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa (aka Horose, aka 罗琛华) and her husband Hua Nangui / 华南圭, one of the early French-Chinese family was highly relevant for students. Many of them being from French-chinese families themselves, they could easily relate to the topic.
The success of Horose book “Love and duty” / 恋爱与义务 published in Chinese, then in English and becoming a bestseller and turned into a movie was an inspiration for students.
The presentation taking place in Shanghai, participants were particularly interested in film sets locations in the Former French Concession.
The conference took place at the Shanghai French School Qingpu campus. The same conference is planned at the Shanghai French School Yangpu on 14th May.
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The story of Stephanie Rosen-Hoa, aka Horose who wrote the China best seller “恋爱与义务” , later published as Love & Duty in Shanghai has been a field of my research for a while (see post “The story of Horose or S. Rosen-Hoa” to the original post on this topic). Information has been difficult to find, but a breakthrough has recently come up with some surprises.
We know that Stephanie Rosen-Hoa studied at Sorbonne University, as she published her thesis there. The thesis was about germination and anatomical structure of plantago (also called Plantin). This plant has been long used to make remeades.
The thesis is dated from 1910. At that time, Sorbonne University offered two different tracks on scientific studies. One was focused on mathematics (differential and integral calculation, mechanics and astronomy), the other one on physics (phyics, chemistry, mineralogy-geology, botanics and zoology). Stephanie Rosen-Hoa clearly attended the physics track, focusing on botanics. Her thesis director was M Louis Matruchot, a French specialist of mushrooms who was a conference master at Sorbonne University.
Although Stephanie Rosen-Hoa went to Sorbonne University a long time ago, I have asked the French national archives to extract the student records. It took a while to come, but it was worth the wait as in brought some surprises.
First of all, I only got the student record for year 1910. The name used in the record is “Madame Rosen-Hoa”, as Stephanie Rosen-Hoa was already married to Hua Nan Gui since 1908. The first surprise is that Stephanie Rosen-Hoa is noted as born in “Wielun, Russie”. This is a different city from Kalisz, where the Rosenthal family was supposed to be. Wielun is about 80 km from Kalisz, which at that time probably took one to two days. Wielun was a smaller city than Kalisz, with about 8.000 inhabitants, when Kalisz has more than 20.000 then. Both cities were located in the Russian part after the split of Poland in 1793, although Kalisz was much closer to the border with Prussia.
Both city had a substantial jewish population, with the jews making the majority of the artisans. Archives of jewish families in Wielun show 512 record for the family name Rosenthal, making it quite a common name. The family of Stephanie Rosenthal must have moved to Kalisz sometimes after her birth, as Stephanie always mentioned Kalisz as the city where she grew up.
The other important information from this record is the actual birthdate of Stephanie Rosen-Hoa. It is indicated as 21st October 1883, which is slightly different as the one from her death certificate (27th September 1883).
Stephanie Rosen-Hoa was registered as studying for the “diplôme d’étude”. This must be the “Diplôme d’étude supérieur” , a diploma requiring one year of study after the license diploma which itself took two years to complete. From that, I can assume that Stephanie Rosen-Hoa spent at least 3 years at Sorbonne University, entering the university in 1907, possibly earlier. It is probable that she actually came to France a few years before, probably around 1900-1905, but I have found no proof so far.
The other part of the records focuses on lab attendance. As Stephanie Rosen-Hoa was researching botanics, she had to do some lab work. Those experiments were not free as show by below records, counting the payments for using the “Laboratory of Mr Bonnier”, the president of the jury for Stephanie Rosen-Hoa thesis.
Thanks to Sorbonne records, I was able to get more information about the studies of Stephanie Rosen-Hoa at Sorbonne university.
Chinese politician Li Shizeng also studied in Sorbonne university around the same years. He joined Sorbonne University in 1906, also in botanics, studying the properties of soya and ended up creating the first tofu factory in Europe. With a Chinese connection on the top of the university connection, it is clear that Li Shizeng, Ha Nangui and Stephanie Rosen-Hoa knew each other during study times. Li Shizeng was also very close to Cai Yuan Pei, who wrote the foreword for the book version of Love & Duty.
The search continues for more details about the life of this fascinating lady and her French/Polish-Chinese family. For more posts on this topic, please follow this link.
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On the Monday 7th April, I was invited to make a presentation for the “Société d’histoire des Français de Chine” (French in China historical society). The presentation was the closing event for the annual French language month, or “Mois de la francophonie”. It took place in the presence of the Consul General of France in Shanghai, Joan Valadou.
This beautiful building was originally the French Club in Shanghai. From 1924, the French Club moved to the new location Route P`ere Robert and the building became the “Coll“ege Municipal Français”, the main French school in Old Shanghai. Children of the French community studied in there, among them Rena Kraszno and Liliane Willens. Before the presentation, we took a tour of this beautiful building.
The presentation focused on the life and work of Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa. I have written a number of articles on the topic as well as the Shanghai movie “Love and duty” that was made after one of her novel. The presentation was in French. The video recording will be available in a few months on the website of the Société d’Histoire des Français de Chine. I will share the link here when available.
French polish author Horose (aka Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa or 羅琛華) lived in Beijing with her Chinese husband Hua Nangui / 华南圭 from 1910 to 1937. The couple had a rich cultural life, both of them publishing books that became highly influential in China. While Hua Nangui published books helping develop and implement technology in China, Horose wrote numerous novel focused on observation of changes in the Chinese society at the time. (see post “The story of Horose or S. Rosen-Hoa” for more details about her story).
As a writer couple in Beijing, they had a large circle of literary friends. They were definitely supportive and involved in the nationalist and literary movement that became known as the May 4th movement and had links with some of its prime members.
Horose main book was “Love and duty“, also known as “恋爱与义务”. The novel was written in French, and translated into Chinese by Zhao Zun Xin / 赵祖欣. Later welknown as Zhao Shaohou / 赵少侯, he graduated from the French department of Beijing University in 1919. He was a teacher and director of the Literature and Art Department of Sino-French University, a lecturer of the French Department of Peking University, and an editor of the People’s Literature Publishing House. He began to publish his works in 1932. His translation of Moli`ere’s “The Hypocrite” (Tartuffe), “The Misanthrope” (Le misanthrope) and “The Miser” (L’avare) are still authoritative today. He also was a major translator of Maupassant’s “Boule de Suif”, and “The Necklace” (La parure). As “Love and duty” was published in 1921, it was probably one of his first French book translation.
Foreword for the book version of “Love and Duty” was written by Chinese philosopher and politician Cai YuanPei / 蔡元培. Having studied in Leipzig University until 1907, he became minister of Education in 1912 then President of Beijing University in 1917. Supporter of usage of common language or “Baihua” in litterature, he was an inspiration for the May 4th movement.
Finally, the proof reader of the book was none else than famous Shanghainese writer Hu Shih / 胡适 who was also Chinese ambassador to the US. He also advocated the usage of “Baihua” in litterature and was an inspirer for the May 4th movement.
Although difficult to prove, it can be assumed that Horose organized a cultural and literary salon at her home in Beijing. This kind of salon was very common in Jewish communities in Central Europe and Horose being originally from Poland surely had heard or seen some. This is somewhat similar to Hungarian Jewish Bernardine Szold Fritz , whose salon that took place in Shanghai in the 1930s (see post Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon).
Bernardine Szold Fritz also had connection with Chinese cultural and literary people, in particular with writer 胡适 / Hu Shih who did proofreading for Horose’s “Love and duty” . Maybe they met through him, maybe Horose even took part to Bernardine’s salon during one of her many trips to Shanghai (see post “Horose in Shanghai” for more details). In any case, both women were central to cultural life, one in Shanghai, the other one in Beijing.
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After having looked into the Ruan Lingyu movie “Love and duty“, I discovered that the movie was made from a book also called “Love and duty” written first in French by a French-Polish author living in Beijing, and then translated into Chinese. (See post “The story of Horose or Stephanie Rosen-Hoa” for more details). While Horose was mostly living in Beijing, and sometimes Paris, this article focuses on her relationship with Shanghai.
The book “Love and duty“, by Horose or Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa was a bestseller in China. It was first published as a 8 parts series in the literary magazine of Shanghai based Commercial press 小说世界 (The World of novels) in 1921 with 羅琛華 as the author. Commercial Press then published a book version as “恋爱与义务” in 1924, which was a great success. The English version was also published by Commercial Press in 1926 (for more details, see post: “Love & duty, the book“).
During all that time, Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa was living in Beijing with her husband Hua Nangui / 华南圭 who was originally from Wuxi and her two children. Hua Nangui designed and built their house in Beijing in 1914, using a combination of Chinese and Western style.
Commercial Press was headquartered in Shanghai, so she must have to down South from Beijing to negotiate the publication of her books. At that time, trips from Beijing to Shanghai took either the boat from Tianjin harbour, or the Peking Express. Although there are no real traces from those travels, one can assume that Horose would come to Shanghai once or twice a year.
Below picture is an advertising for Commercial Press books, published in JB Powell’s China Weekly Review on 12th Feb 1927. One can assume that the books listed were the best sellers of Commercial Press at the time. It is amazing to see Love and Duty juste next to Lu Xun’s “The true story of Ah Q”, of which English translation was published in 1927.
As mentioned by Kristine Harris in her article : “Ombres Chinoises, split screens and parallel lives in Love and Duty”, “By 1930, the novel had gained broader name recognition among urban audiences, the Commercial Press had already issued three impressions of the English version and four of the Chinese version.” Lou Mingyou, the future director of the movie, read the book and contacted the author. Horose was hired as a consultant for the movie that was released in 1931. During that time, she probably spent much more time in Shanghai, as the movie studio were located in the city. I did not find traces of contacts between Horose and the French community. Probably they were few, with the French community kept away by the language barrier from the Chinese and English literary success that was Love & Duty, as well as lack of interest into “Chinese things” from the French community in general.
The only link with the French Concession that I found is that most of the outdoor sets for the movie Love and Duty where located in the French Concession. They were all located around freshly built properties of the FONCIM (Société Foncière et Immobilière), the real estate subsidiary of the French run International Saving Society, the highly successful life insurance company headquartered in Shanghai. Although it may be random, one can also assume that Horose got somehow in touch with FONCIM management to use those locations and feature them in the movie.
As Horose fame grew in China, she started to give talks that were advertised. A few of them were mentioned in the Shanghai English press. The North China Daily news in the 10th December 1933 edition published a short article mentioning that Horose was in Shanghai on that date, presenting her new book “Double Chains” in Chinese. It also mentions that “she is later to collect material in Nanking for another book. This is expected to be called “Through the Great Wall” and will be published in Paris.” That book was actually published under the name “La muraille de Pékin `a Paris”, in 1929 in Paris.
The last article found was published in the China Press, on 2nd June 1936. It mentions the conference given by “Mme Kuai”, further named as “Mme L Rosen-Hoa Nan Kuai” to the WCTU (Women Christian Temperance Union). Horose is introduced as “the author of He & She, Double Chains, Love & duty and book of essays. Her husband who is an engineer translates them into Chinese.”
Horose went back to France in 1937 and only came back to China in 1966, before passing away in Beijing in 1970. For more details about her life, please go to post “The Story of Horose, or S. Rosen-Hoa“.
The starting point of this thread was silent movie “Love & Duty” with Old Shanghai superstar Ruan Lingyu/ 阮玲玉. It continued with the discovery of the movie original plot was from a book actually written by a Horose i.e. Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa. She was an unusual character, being a Polish lady married with famous Chinese engineer and writer Hua Nangui / 华南圭. The couple met in Paris were both were studying, but the book was written while the couple lived in Beijing in the 1920s. Then fate put me in touch with their grand daughter (Catherine Hoa / 华新民) who still lives in Beijing.
Catherine Hoa / 华新民 was born in Beijing in 1954. Her father was Léon Hoa / 华揽洪 (1912 – 2012) who was the son of Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa and Hua Nangui / 华南圭. Léon Hoa was a French-Chinese architect who was educated in France and had a successful architecture career in France in the 1930s and 40s, then in China in the 1950s. Horose’s book “Love and duty” is dedicated to him. Catherine Hoa / 华新民 ‘s mother was Irene a French lady. The couple got married in France in the 1930s. In 1951, they decided to come back to China together to help build the new People’s Republic. They lived in the family house in Beijing that was built in 1914 by Hua Nangui / 华南圭. This is also where Catherine Hoa / 华新民 grew up.
Catherine speaks perfect French as she grew up in a French family in China. “My siblings were born in France, they always felt more French. I was born in China and I feel more Chinese.” she said during our conversation. “Life in Beijing was sometimes difficult as I have blue eyes and I stood out among other Chinese people then. It’s only when I went to France that I could find real anonymity.” The family went through a lot of trouble in the 1950s and 1960s during political trouble that were targeting intellectuals. Catherine Hoa / Hua Xinmin only went first to France in 1961 when she took a trip to France with her mother and sister. The whole family moved back to France in 1976, taking the trans Siberian train through USSR.
Talking with her, I could get a lot more personal information on her grand-parents. “My grand mother and grand father spoke French together since they met in Paris. Horose spoke French and English so she wrote the English and French version of Love & Duty and other books. Her work was translated by my grand father and other people.” The tradition continued as Catherine’s mother spoke no Chinese before coming to China. “I was always called Catherine in the family, never by my Chinese name”.
My grand-mother was friend with many interesting people including André Gide who was her neighbor in France. She also befriended Alexandra David-Néel, the first foreign lady to enter Lhassa, who stayed with her in Beijing (probably in her 1937 trip to China). Moving from France to China in the 1910s was very tough. Fortunately, my grand father had an important job in Beijing, so they never had to live together with his family. At that time, China was very traditional, this would have been a great shock for her.
“My Grand-father is quite well known in China.” She actually published a collection of Hua Nangui writings a few years ago in China. “I have been searching for my Grand Mother story, but we don’t have much information about her time in Poland or how and why she came to Paris. We only know that she had several sisters and one of them moved to Israel after she returned in 1946.” She has very strong willpower and a very close link with my father Leon. She left China in 1939, and only came back to spend her last years with him in 1966. At that time, her beloved husband was already buried in Beijing. They could never meet again after he returned to China in the late 1940s.” Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa passed away in 1970. She is also buried in Beijing.
Research about Stephanie Rosen-Hoa in China continues in post “Horose in Shanghai” and “Horose litterary circle“. For more information about Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa and her books, please go to original post “The Story of Horose or S. Rosen-Hoa“.
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The post is the second part focused on author Horose or Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa. To access Part 1, follow this link.
Stéphanie Rosen-Hoa, also known as Horose or 羅琛華, settled back in Paris in 1926 with her two children, Leon and Simone Hoa. During her stay, her first book in French “La muraille de Pékin à Paris” (The Beijing Great Wall in Paris) in 1929 by Argo, a small publishing house. She managed to get noticed by several newspapers. An article from local paper “l’Avenir de la Touraine” from 11 November 1929 explains that author is a French/Polish lady who married a Chinese and went to live in China. It adds that the book offers a true and interesting picture of the real China including many anecdotes. A few lines with similar comments were also published in in the “Le Bien Public” (Dijon daily), on first Octobre 1929, as well as in “Les dimanches de la femme” (Women Sundays) on 23rd feb 1930.
She returned to China in 1928, leaving her children to be educated in France. In the same year, she published novel “Him and her” in Chinese.
“La symphonie des ombres chinoises” is the French version of Love and Duty. (see “Love and Duty, the book” for more details about the various editions and translation of this particular book). It was published by edition de la Madeleine in 1932, 11 rue Tronchet, a different publishing house from the previous book. I found a copy in an olnine bookstore.
The book forewords end with “Written in Beijing, reviewed in Paris and finished in Geneva” 1932. S Rosen-Hoa definitely took a trip back to Europe in 1932, publishing an article about “Chinese women” in June 1932 in the montly magazine “L’ Egyptienne” and giving a conference about the condition of women in China at the same period at the Lyceum theater in Paris. She is mentioned by the magazine as “famous novelist Horose”. She also was still in Paris on 16th February 1933 as she was a speaker in a conference about China and Japan.
Her son being educated in France came back to China for a visit in 1934. She published the novel “Double practice” in Chinese in the same year.
In 1937, as Japan was invading part of China including Beijing, S. Rosen-Hoa went back to France, probably to escape the war. Hua Nangui followed her in 1939. We have very little information about their life in occupied France, but the refuge from the war that they were probably seeking did not last long. Jews in France were also persecuted and many died in Nazis concentration camp, but S. Rosen-Hoa seemed to have escaped it.
She was still living in Paris in 1947, as she wrote a congratulations letter to novelist André Gide who had just received the Nobel price for literature. It is clearly stated that she was living in the same building as André Gide, 1Bis Rus Vaneau in Paris 7th district, near Invalides.
Her husband Hua Nangui returned to China after the war, along with her son Leon who had become a famous architect in France along with his French wife. S. Rosen-Hoa published one last book in France, “Nos sangs mélés” in 1957. Hua Nangui passed away in Beijing in 1961, not having met his wife since his return to China.
S. Rosen-Hoa went back to Beijing in 1966 to a China very different from the one she had left nearly 30 years earlier, as the communist party had taken power in 1949 and applied many changes to society. She passed away in Beijing in 1970. Her grand daughter 华新民, still lives in Beijing. I had the opportunity to meet her while she was on a trip to Shanghai. This is related in post “Meeting with Horose grand daughter“.
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