Raised in Beijing by famed Kunqu artists Mei Lanfang and Li Guifen, she began opera training as a teen and attended an English-missionary school, gaining fluency in English. Studies at St. John’s and Shanghai Jiao Tong were halted by the civil war, prompting her 1947 move to the United States, where she completed courses in finance, drama, and speech at the University of Hawaiʻi while working in v…
