The family of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, also known as Soong Mayling (
``I'm going to New York to sit down with all the relatives and understand the situation,'' said Chiang Fang Chih-yi (蔣方智怡), widow of Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) grandson, Chiang Hsiao-yung (蔣孝勇).
She said that the family had yet to decide whether to bury Madame Chiang in New York, where she spent most of her time in semi-seclusion since the death of her husband, President Chiang Kai-shek, in 1975.
PHOTO: AP
``After the family makes a decision, we'll be able to proceed,'' she said.
The Presidential Office has set up a committee to assist Chiang's family with the funeral arrangements.
The opinion of the Presidential Office is that since Chiang-Soong was the wife of a former president, and since she has a certain historical standing, it is the government's unshirkable responsibility to handle the funeral arrangements, while also communicating with her family members and respecting their suggestions.
Family members have expressed a wish to have a mourning hall set up at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in central Taipei, and officials say they will comply with their wish and respecting their requests regarding timing, layout arrangements and other details.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), who was originally scheduled to return from his visit to the US today, changed his schedule to travel to New York to extend his condolences to Soong-Chiang's family.
On Lien's return to Taiwan, the KMT is hoping to handle funeral arrangements together with the People First Party (PFP), but since the Presidential Office already has set up a funeral arrangement committee, Chang Che-chen (張哲琛), director general of the KMT's Administration and Management Committee, said that whether the arrangements will be handled by the presidential office, the two parties, or jointly by the three, will have to be decided in consultation with Chiang-Soong's family.
Madame Chiang died Thursday night at her home in New York. She caught a cold and developed pneumonia symptoms one day before her death, Chiang Fang said.
One of Taiwan's biggest Chinese-language dailies reported yesterday that Madame Chiang would be buried in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester County, just north of New York City. The paper provided no sources for its information.
At a women's foundation in Taipei created by Madame Chiang, mourners bowed before a gold-framed portrait of her. The picture -- showing the smiling late first lady in a traditional Chinese dress -- was set on a mantle covered with chrysanthemums and other white flowers.
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