Quote by Zhang Ailing: “Even if you dislike a woman, it is still possible to understand her.”

This implies that personal feelings of dislike shouldn't prevent empathy or insight into another person's motivations and experiences. It advocates for seeking understanding beyond initial negative judgments, especially concerning women.

Chang often delved into the complex inner lives of women, presenting their struggles and motivations with a nuanced understanding, even for characters who are morally ambiguous.

Chinese writer and novelist of the mid-twentieth century, considered one of the greatest writers in modern Chinese literature. Born in Shanghai in 1920 to a once-wealthy family in decline, her fiction captured the texture of urban Chinese life under colonial and wartime conditions with psychological precision. Her novella Love in a Fallen City and the novel The Rice-Sprout Song are among her most celebrated works.