Hsieh Ping-ying (1903-), writer and feminist, best known for her Ts'ung-chün jih-chi (Har Diary) which described her experiences with the National Revolutionary Army during the Northern Expedition.

The youngest of six children, Hsieh Ping-ying came from an isolated and backward village in the Hsinhua district of Hunan. Her father, a classical scholar who held the chü-jen degree, was the principal of the Hsinhua Middle School for more than 25 years and was known by his students as the "K'ang-hsi Dictionary" because of his ability to quote classical texts. He gave Hsieh Ping-ying initial instruction in traditional Chinese texts and in poetry. Her mother was a forceful personality who demanded strict obedience from her children. By her own account, Hsieh Ping-ying was a rebellious child who refused to have her feet bound or her ears pierced in accordance with tradition. Her mother made her do both, however and betrothed her when she was still a child. Later, her feet were unbound because of her vigorous protests.

Hsieh Ping-ying succeeded in defying her mother's wishes by entering an old-style school for boys at the age of ten. She then studied at schools for girls in her native district and at the Hsin-yi Girls School, a missionary institution in lyang, Hunan. She organized a student demonstration against Japanese imperialism in May 1922, an act that led to her expulsion from the institution. In the autumn of 1922, she entered the Hunan First Normal School for Girls at Changsha, where her interest in literature developed rapidly. By her own account, she read Chinese translations of works by such European authors as Maupassant, Zola, Dumas, and Dostoyevsky, as well as the traditional Chinese novels, particularly the San-kuo-chih yen-i [romance of the three kingdoms] and the Shui-hu-chuan [water margin]. She also was interested in the works of members of the Creation Society, notably Kuo Mo-jo, Yü Ta-fu (qq.v.), and Ch'eng Fang-wu. She wrote a short story, "A Moment's Impression," which was published in the literary supplement of the Ta Rung Pao.

After graduating from a normal school in Changsha in 1926, Hsieh decided to pursue a literary career and escape from the marriage arranged by her family. Acting on the suggestion of one of her elder brothers, she went to Wuhan in the winter of 1926 and entered the military academy which had been established there after the occupation of the area by the forces of the Northern Expedition. After receiving strict political-military training, she joined the National Revolutionary Army in 1927 and saw service at the front with a corps comprised of some 50 girls. While serving in the army, she wrote Ts'ung-chün jih-chi {War Diary), which was published under her pen name, Ping Ying, in the Chung-yang jih-pao (Central Daily News) in 1928. An English translation, prepared by Lin Yü-t'ang (q.v.), was published simultaneously in the same paper. War Diary later was translated into French, German, Russian, Japanese, and Esperanto, and it attracted the attention of such prominent literary figures as the French Writer Romain Rolland.

After the girls' corps was disbanded, Hsieh Ping-ying returned to Hunan to attempt to break her long-standing engagement. Her parents eventually forced her into marriage, but she left her husband immediately and fled to Shanghai. She lived in poverty, attempting to support herself by selling her writings. She received some financial help from Sun Fu-yuan, the former editor of the Central Daily News in Wuhan. In 1928, with financial assistance from an elder brother, she entered National Normal University for Women at Peiping. She studied Chinese literature until 1931, supporting herself, after her brother's financial support ceased, by teaching part-time at two middle schools in the city. After leaving the university in 1931, Hsieh returned to Shanghai, where she completed two works, Ch'ing-nien Wang Kuo-ts'ai [young Wang Kuots'ai] and Ch'ing-nien shu-hsin [youth's letters], a collection of correspondence. Advance payment for these manuscripts enabled her to make a brief trip to Japan in September 1931, the very month of the Japanese attack at Mukden. After the Japanese advance on Shanghai in January 1932, she returned to China, where she participated actively in a Hsieh Wan-ying variety of efforts to mobilize Chinese women to support the war effort. She then went to Changsha to complete the first volume of her autobiographical work, I-ko nü-ping te tzu-chuan [autobiography of a woman soldier]. In 1935 Hsieh Ping-ying made a second trip to Japan, where she enrolled at Waseda University in Tokyo to study Western literature. While arrangements were being made with a Japanese publisher to bring out a collection of her writings, she was arrested on 12 April 1936 and was imprisoned for three weeks. She returned to China that summer and went to Kweilin, Kwangsi, to rest. In the autumn, she took a teaching position at a middle school in Xanning, but had to resign after a semester because of ill health.

After the Sino-Japanese war began in July 1937, Hsieh Ping-ying again devoted herself to writing and war work. In 1937 she organized a war area service corps for women in Hunan. In December she went to Chungking, where she became editor of the literary supplement of the Hsin-min pao. During 1937 and 1938 she wrote prolifically on the early* stages of the war. In the spring of 1938, she visited the Hsuchow front as a war correspondent attached to the headquarters of the Fifth War Area at Wuhan. She returned to Chungking that autumn and became an editor in the ministry of education of the National Government. The year 1940 was marked by the appearance of an English translation of Hsieh's 1936 work. Girl Rebel: The Autobiography of a Woman Soldier, translated by Adet and Anor Lin (Lin Yü-t'ang's daughters) and published by the John Day Company in New York. From 1940 to 1943 Hsieh edited the Huang-ho [yellow river] monthly at Sian in Shensi province. She then returned to Szechwan, where she spent the remaining war years teaching at Chengtu. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Hsieh went to Hankow, where she edited the literary supplement of the Ho-p'ingjih-pao [peace daily] .

She then moved to Peiping, where she lectured on contemporary Chinese literature at the National Normal College and served as an editor of Wen-i yü sheng-huo [literature and life]. An English translation by Ts'ui Chi of her 1928 book entitled Autobiography of a Chinese Girl appeared in London in 1948. When the Chinese Communists took power, Hsieh went to Taiwan and taught at the Taipei Normal School for Women. Her Wo-tsen-yang hsieh-tso [how I write], was published at Taipei in 1964. As Lin Yü-t'ang pointed out in his introduction to Girl Rebel: Autobiography of a Woman Soldier, Hsieh won prominence by recording her personal experience during a period of social upheaval in China. Her outspoken patriotism, her relentless attack on political corruption, her indomitable struggle against poverty and persecution, and her rebellion against the traditional Chinese discrimination against women typified the social idealism of young China after the May Fourth Movement. Her works constitute an important literary record of the participation of an emancipated Chinese woman in the modern Chinese social revolution.