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Faina Chiang's funeral will be held on Monday

Taiwan's Soviet-born former first lady Faina Chiang Fang-liang (蔣方良) funeral services will be held at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital at 7am on Monday, the Ministry of National Defense said.

"When the services are done, the former first lady's body will be cremated in Keelung. After that, her ashes will be located along with former president Chiang Ching-kuo's (蔣經國) coffin in the temporary mausoleum in Touliao, Taoyuan County," said navy Captain Liou Chih-chien (劉志堅), spokesman for the ministry.

"She will be eventually buried with the two former president Chiangs at Wuchih Military Cemetery in the spring," he added.

According to the ministry, at the funeral services Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) heavyweights Lee Huan (李煥), Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), Chiu Chuang-huan (邱創煥) and Shih Chi-yang (施啟揚) will cover the former first lady's coffin with the ROC flag, followed by Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), Lin Cheng-chi (林澄枝), Chiang Bing-kun (江炳坤) and Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) covering it with the KMT flag.

Asked why Faina Chiang would be cremated in Keelung, Liou said that it was a decision made by the Chiang family.

The spokesman said that only the hospital's funeral chapels and the Touliao temporary mausoleum will be open to the public. The rest of the funeral services will be restricted to family members only.

Currently, the embalmed bodies of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo were put in temporary mausoleums in Taoyuan County's Tzuhu (慈湖) and Touliao (頭寮) respectively, originally awaiting proper burial in their hometown in Zhejiang Province in southeastern China once the KMT's forces conquered China, which they were unable to do.

At the family's behest, the ministry will help relocate the coffins to the Wuchih Military Cemetery in March or April.

In the meantime, their tomb designer also prepared another two sites for their wives -- Soong Mayling (蔣宋美齡) and Faina Chiang. However, the Chiangs do not have a plan to use one of the extra sites for Soong since she was buried in Manhattan, New York.
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