Asian Descent Archives - Page 26 of 29

Teriitaria II

Teriitaria II became Queen of Tahiti when she and her sister Teremoemoe married their second cousin King Pōmare II and later, she ruled as Queen of Huahine and Maiao in the Society Islands.
In 1815, Teriitaria became the Queen of Huahine and Maiao. The previous ruler, Mahine, had fought alongside her at the Battle of Te Feipī, and formally presented the government of the islands to her while he remained the resident chief until his death in 1838. She ruled as a largely absentee monarch while residing on Tahiti for the first few decades of her reign. Teriitaria had no children with Pōmare II, but Pōmare fathered the next two Tahitian monarchs, King Pōmare III (r. 1821–1827) and Queen Pōmare IV (r. 1827–1877), by Teremoemoe. Pōmare II died in 1821, and Teriitaria and Teremoemoe served as regents for Pōmare III and (after his death in 1827) for Pōmare IV.
Teriitaria was removed from the regency in 1828, but continued to have a significant role in Tahiti, including leading Tahitian forces in the Taiarapu rebellion of 1832. She joined her niece, Pōmare IV, in exile on Raiatea during the Franco-Tahitian War (1844–1847). During that time, she repelled a French invasion force at the 1846 Battle of Maeva, which secured the independence of the Leeward Islands.

Teresa Magbanua

Teresa Magbanua was a Filipino schoolteacher and military leader at the turn of the 20th century. When the 1896 Philippine Revolution against Spain broke out, she joined the Panay-based Visayan branch of the Katipunan, the initially secret revolutionary society headed by Andrés Bonifacio.
Despite opposition from her husband, Magbanua took up arms against the Spaniards, leading troops into combat and winning several battles under the command of General Martin Delgado. She is credited as the only woman to lead troops in the Visayan area during the Revolution. Afterward, Magbanua shifted to fighting American colonial forces during the Philippine–American War.
She is one of the few Filipinos to have participated in all three resistance movements against Spain (in the Philippine Revolution), the United States (in the Philippine-American War), and Japan (in World War II). While not an active fighter during World War II, Magbanua did what she could to resist Japanese forces during their occupation of the Philippines. She sold her personal belongings to purchase food and supplies, which she would then give to the local guerrillas, and sold her property in Iloilo to help finance the fighters.

Ailes Gilmour

Dancer Ailes Gilmour was one of the young pioneers of the American Modern Dance movement of the 1930s and one of the first members of Martha Graham’s dance company.
After graduating from high school in 1929, Gilmour studied dance and performing arts on scholarship at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where she met the young Martha Graham and joined Graham’s new professional dance troupe. In 1932, Gilmour performed at the opening of Radio City Music Hall with Graham’s company. Their work, Choric Patterns, lasted on stage for only a week, leading Gilmour to comment to a friend that Radio City Music Hall could succeed only when it became a movie theater with Rockettes.
In the 1930s, Gilmour performed with dancer-choreographer Bill Matons, the director of the “experimental unit” of the New Dance League, which had evolved from the Workers Dance League between 1931 and 1935. In 1937, Ailes and Matons performed at the Brooklyn Museum in a Works Progress Administration (WPA) recital. In 1939, they perormed in a WPA-sponsored Broadway musical, Adelante.

Dr Yin May

Yin May, the first Burmese obstetrician and gynecologist, founded and ran the country’s main maternity hospital during the Japanese occupation of Burma. She was the first person to perform the Caesarian section in Burma and is known for her research on amoebic vaginitis, also called May’s disease.
While pregnant and separated from her family, Yin May founded the country’s primary maternity hospital during the Japanese occupation (1942–1945), working long hours with staff who had no OB/GYN experience. Burma had lost its main maternity hospital, Lady Dufferin Maternity Hospital, on 25 December 1941 due to Japanese aerial bombing and then the Japanese army commandeered Rangoon General Hospital for their use only. She later co-founded wartime medical and nursing schools (1943–1945). After World Wai II, she ran Lady Dufferin Maternity Hospital from 1946 to 1959, and was head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Faculty of Medicine of Rangoon University from 1947 to 1959. Under her leadership, Dufferin became a maternity hospital recognized by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1957.

Dr Yin Yin Nwe

Dr Yin Yin Nwe is a geologist who has held signficant positions with UNICEF since 1991, and was appointed UNICEF Representative to China on 1 December 2006, retiring in 2011.
Yin Yin Nwe served for 19 years at the Geology Department of Yangon University. Joining UNICEF as an Environment Project Officer in 1991, she served from 1992 to 1994, as UNICEF Programme Officer for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Central Asian Republics and Albania. She then became a regional advisor for western and central Africa in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (1994-1999). In 1999, she was appointed UNICEF Regional Planning Officer for the Middle East and North Africa and in June 2005 was appointed UNICEF Chief of Tsunami Support, working to help victims in Indonesia.
In August 2012, President Thein Sein appointed Dr. Yin Yin Nwe as part of an Inquiry Commission to look into communal violence in Rakhine State. The commission completed its work and submitted a report the following year.
In June 2014, Presidnet Thein Sein appointed Dr. Yin Yin Nwe Chief Education Advisor. She had also previously served as an advisor to the Myanmar Peace Center (MPC), and was a member of the National Economic and Social Advisory Council and a member of the Education Promotion Implementation Committee (EPIC), advocating for education reform.

Zhang

Empress Zhang was the second wife of Emperor Suzong during China’s Tang Dynasty. Through intrigue and plotting, she gained significant power during his reign, thanks in part to her alliance with a eunuch named Li Fuguo. Emperor Suzong elevated her to the status of empress in spring 758. Eventually she and Li Fuguo turned against each other late in the emperor’s reign, as he grew gravely ill. Zhang tried to have Li Fuguo put to death, but instead was captured and killed by her former ally and was posthumously demoted to commoner rank by Emperor Daizong, the stepson whom she had tried to depose as heir and also tried to have killed before he could take the throne.

Pritilata Waddedar

Pritilata Waddedar was a Bengali revolutionary nationalist who was influential in the Indian independence movement.She graduated from Bethune College in Kolkata with a degree in philosophy with distinction and became a teacher.
Pritilata joined a revolutionary group headed by Surya Sen and is known for leading 15 revolutionaries in the 1932 armed attack on the Pahartali European Club, during which one person was killed and 11 injured. The revolutionaries set the club on fire and were later caught by British police. To avoid arrest, Pritilata committed suicide by cyanide poisoning.

Begum Samru

Joanna Nobilis Sombre began her career as a Nautch (dancing) girl in 1700s India, and eventually became the ruler of Sardhana, a small principality near Meerut.

Ching Shih

Considered by many to be the most successful pirate in history, Ching Shih led the Red Flag Fleet of 80,000 pirates and more than 1,800 ships, ruled the Chinese seas for two decades, and managed to retire happily – after extorting a very agreeable pension from the Chinese government.
After working as a prostitute in her early life, Ching Shih married into a pirate family in 1801, becoming an equal partner to her husband, Zheng Yi. Together, they built a massive coalition by unifying small groups of pirates into a federation of 70,000 pirates and 400 junk ships, and by 1804, they led one of the most powerful pirate fleets in all of China. After her husband died in 1807, Ching Shih navigated the politics of such a large force to become sole leader, and by 1809, she commanded over 800 large junks and 1,000 smaller ships. The fleet dominated the coast from Macau to Canton; it is reported that in the coastal Sanshan village, they beheaded 80 men and abducted the women and children and held them for ransom until they were sold in slavery.
The code of laws in the Red Flag Fleet was merciless. Insubordination was punished by immediate beheading. Withholding any goods taken held a severe whipping for a first-time offence, with the death penalty for large amounts, and no stealing was tolerated from either the public fund or villagers who supplied the pirates. Ching Shih’s code had unusual rules for female captives. In general, the pirates made their most beautiful captives their concubines or wives, and if a pirate took a wife he had to be faithful to her. Those deemed unattractive were released and any others were ransomed. Pirates who raped female captives were put to death and if pirates had consensual sex with captives, the pirate was beheaded and the woman he was with had cannonballs attached to her legs and was thrown over the side of the boat. Other violations of different parts of the code were punishable by flogging, clapping in irons, or quartering. Deserters or those who had left without official permission had their ears chopped off and were then paraded around their squadron.
In January 1808, the Chinese government tried to destroy her fleet in a series of fierce battles, but after defeats in which Ching Shih captured and comandeered several of their ships, the government had to revert to using fishing vessels for battle. At the same time, Ching Shih faced a bigger threat from other pirate fleets, including O-po-tae, a former ally who began working with the Qing government. The government also hired European bounty hunters, who were also defeated. She also challenged European power when she captured the East India Company merchantman The Marquis of Ely in 1809.
In September and November 1809, the fleet suffered a series of defeats from the Portuguese Navy at the Battle of the Tiger’s Mouth. In their final battle at Chek Lap Kok in 1810, Ching Shih surrendered to the Portuguese Navy on 21 January. The amnesty agreement the fleet accepted from the Qing Imperial government applied to all pirates who agreed to surrender, ending their career and allowed to keep the loot. It meant that only 60 pirates were banished, 151 exiled, and only 126 put to death out of her whole fleet of 17,318 pirates. The remaining pirates only had to surrender their weapons.
Ching Shih negotiated for Cheung Po, her second husband and second-in-command, to retain several ships, including approximately 120 to be used for employment on the salt trade. She also arranged for many of her pirates in the fleets to be given positions in the Chinese bureaucracy; Cheung Po became a captain in the Qing’s Guangdong navy. Ching Shih was also able to secure official government recognition her as Cheung Po’s wife, despite the restrictions against widows remarrying.
After Cheung Po died at sea in 1822, Ching Shih moved with their children to Macau and opened a gambling house; she was also involved in the salt trade there. In her 60s, she served as an advisor to head of state Lin Zexu during the First Opium War (1839-1842). In 1844, she died in bed surrounded by her family in Macau, at the age of 69.

Ann Hui

Ann Hui On-wah, BBS MBE is a Hong Kong film director, producer, screenwriter and actress and one of the Hong Kong New Wave’s most critically acclaimed filmmakers. She is best known for her films about Hong Kong social issues in Hong Kong, with films ranging from literary adaptation, martial arts masterpieces and thrillers to topics of semi-autobiographical works, female issues, social phenomena, and political changes. She served as president of the Hong Kong Film Director’s Guild from 2004 to 2006.
Hui has won many awards for her films, including three Golden Horse Awards (GHA) for Best Director (1999, 2011, 2014); Best Film at the Asia Pacific Film Festival; and Best Director at the Hong Kong Film Awards six times (1983, 1996, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018).
Only two films have ever earned a Grand Slam (winning best picture, best director, best screenplay, best actor, and best actress) at the Hong Kong Film Awards: Summer Snow and A Simple Life, both of which were directed by Ann Hui. She was honored for her lifetime accomplishments at the 2012 Asian Film Awards, and in 2017, the US’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) invited Hui to become a member.