Great Nanjingers

Yang Hongnian (杨鸿年) won more awards in international choral competitions than any other Chinese conductor, leading the Beijing Philharmonic Choir ensemble around the world for more than 30 years. Born in Nanjing in 1934, Yang first worked as conductor for...

Wang Ping (王苹) was PRC’s first female film director and an ambassador for the communist movement’s empowering of gender equality, utilising film as a propaganda art form that would see Wang reach her zenith with 1965’s “The East is...

Cao Xueqin (曹雪芹) was a free-spirited individual with a fondness for the bottle. But he was also a visionary with a keen eye for the human condition, largely the result of his family’s fall from grace in the eyes...

Zu Chongzhi (祖冲之) had a thing for circles. In fact, he knew his way around an ellipse better possibly than gravity itself. Such was the extent of Zu’s influence, this Great Nanjinger had parks, roads and schools named after him....