Nellie Yu Roung Ling

Nellie Yu Roung Ling (Chinese: 裕容齡; pinyin: Yù Rónglíng; Wade–Giles: Yü Jung-ling; 1882 – 16 January 1973), also spelt Nelly, was a Hanjun Plain White bannerwoman and dancer, who is considered "the first modern dancer of China". She was the younger daughter of Yu Keng and Louisa Pierson, the other one being Lizzie Yu Der Ling. Although not a member of the Qing imperial family, Roung Ling was given the title of "commandery princess" while serving as a lady-in-waiting for Empress Dowager Cixi.:268 She was also known as Yu Roon(g) Ling, especially in the works of her sister Der Ling.:267 She was referred to as Madame Dan Pao Tchao after her marriage to the General Dan Pao Tchao (唐寳潮; 1887–1958), and Princess Shou Shan, a title appeared on the cover of her 1934 historical novella about the Fragrant Concubine (Hsiang Fei), a name Sir Reginald Johnston claimed she never used.:xii

Early life

Born in an upper-class family, to a Chinese father and a Chinese-American mother who was the daughter of an American naval officer. The Yu sisters, like their two brothers Charles Yu Hsingling and John Yu Shuinling, received Western education in American missionary school—then an almost unheard-of proceeding amongst high Manchu officials—and were fluent in English. The British diplomat Sir Robert Hart described them as "a noisy family of English-speaking children, were fluent also in Japanese and French".:52 She was also well versed in poetry, especially E. B. Browning's works.

In 1895, Roung Ling's father Yu Keng was appointed minister to Japan, he later took his family there. It was in Japan she discovered her vocation for dance, where she gave an impromptu performance of a Japanese dance Tsurukame (crane-tortoise) she had learned from a servant, before the assembled Japanese dignitaries.

In 1899, Roung Ling left for France with her father for taking up his new post as minister-plenipotentiary to the French Third Republic. In Paris, she was placed in charge of the sisters of the Sacred Heart Convent School (ancien Couvent du Sacré-Cœur) located at 77 Rue de Varenne.:83

The Yu family quickly adopted Parisian fashion, a media coverage at the time reported that all the children of Minister Yu Keng "wear European costume and follow the fashions closely", and called Roung Ling "a charming Chinese girl who is Parisian in all but name". The New York Times wrote, "[Der Ling and Roung Ling] are adorably pretty, and they dress in the European style with a finish and skill to which something of Oriental charm is added which makes them the cynosure of all eyes when they enter a drawingroom [sic]".