Wang Guangmei, widow of former Chinese President Liu Shaoqi, has died at 85 on October 16, 2006. (File Photo)

 

Oct. 18 - China's most elegant and erudite first lady, Wang Guangmei, who was humiliated by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, has died at the age of 85.

 

The woman who was forced to wear a string of ping-pong balls and face 300,000 people in a “mass struggle” session when she was purged at the height of the Cultural Revolution in 1967, died of heart and kidney failure at a Beijing military hospital last Friday.

 

Photographs of her wearing high heels and a string of ping-pong balls to mock her fondness for pearls forged one of the iconic images of the violence unleashed during the purge of political rivals.

 

She became a scapegoat for her husband, President Liu Shaoqi, who succeeded Mao as President in 1959 after the chairman’s 1958 Great Leap Forward campaign.

 

She was jailed for 12 years. Her husband was purged and died in prison in 1969, but she was not told about his death for several years. After her release, she dedicated her life to alleviating poverty.

 

In 1996, Wang auctioned her private antique collection and used proceeds to help impoverished mothers, initiating "Project Happiness".

 

The collection, consisting of porcelain bowls and plates and a brush holder made of ivory dating back to the Qing (1644-1911) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, were Wang's dowry from her wealthy father.

 

"I would be reluctant to part with what my mother left me without a reason ... (but) my heart aches even more when I see impoverished mothers," Wang said at the time.