Demos Chiang at home.

By Wu Ziru

Scrupulously abiding by his father's wish for him to stay away from politics, 34-year-old Demos Chiang, the great grandson of Chiang Kai-shek, former leader of the Kuomintang, has made a name for himself in design and fashion with a new biography revealing the inner world of the son of one of China's most famous families.

Jiang Youbai: Jiang Jia Wang Chao De Ling Yi Zhong Biao Da (Demos Chiang: Another Expression of the Chiang Family) written by Zhou Weijun, was recently published by Jiangsu People's Publishing House and outlines the young Chiang's ups and downs while shedding a new light on the lives of Chiang Kai-shek's family at a time when the family fell from a position of popularity and power.

The work tells the real life of Demos Chiang who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth as the fourth generation of the glorious Chiang family, but grew up in a time when the dynasty gradually lost political control in Taiwan.

After a journey through numerous difficulties and hardships in a quest to find his own place in society, Demos Chiang finally succeeded in business, with his own design company enjoying fame both in and out of Taiwan.

Born in 1976, Demos Chiang is the son of Chiang Hsiao-yung, the third son of Chiang Ching-kuo, who succeeded his father Chiang Kai-shek as leader of the Kuomintang from 1978 until his death in 1988. After Chiang Ching-kuo's death, life for the Chiang family in Taiwan became much harder than before as political disputes within Taiwan erupted. Chiang Hsiao-yung then moved his family to Montreal, Canada, where no one knew who they were.

Born never wanting for anything and surrounded by bodyguards as a child, Demos Chiang found himself at a complete loss in Canada, with the sudden realization that he was simply an ordinary person in a very foreign country, Zhou's book reveals.

He also had difficulties getting along with his classmates and knew little about French. In his book, Zhou details how Chiang entered a solitary world at that time and felt like "someone who was totally forgotten by the world and he was never invited to join a class activity."

However, life in Montreal was not all bad for little Demos as his father became quite kind and patient toward him and his younger brother, completely different from how he had been treated in Taiwan, when his father scolded them harshly and beat them when they misbehaved.

"In the remote land the family became ordinary people, but Demos also thought that he was happier than before," Zhou writes, explaining that like any other ordinary family, they lived happily together, cooking together, cultivating a small garden and enjoying life. "The family found a tranquility he never felt before."

Ten years later, when his father Chiang Hsiao-yung died of cancer, Demos Chiang once again found himself at crossroads in his life.

"When he was a little child, he always thought that he had Aladdin's lamp, which brought him whatever he wanted," Zhou writes, "However, Aladdin disappeared suddenly and it seemed that he was thrown in a desert."

After receiving a bachelor's degree in information management from New York University, Chiang returned to Taiwan to work in the entertainment and fashion industries, founding his own design company, DEM, in 2003. After a shaky beginning, the company is now a successful business and has recently opened a branch in Shanghai.

Demos Chiang visiting  Soong Mei-ling with his father and brother.

In a series of DEM designs, the once serious faces of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Wei-kuo have been turned into cartoon images and decorated with superman costumes. Printed on postcards, T-shirts and various souvenirs, the designs are finding popularity both in Taiwan and elsewhere.

In spite of keeping his distance from Taiwan politics, Demos Chiang has never been far from the spotlight, the media intent on making him a focus of their attentions.

Often referred to as the fourth generation of the Chiang family, Demos Chiang has repeatedly said that he wants to be known as the first generation - the first to find and follow another way of life completely different from his ancestors.

Book tag Jiang Youbai: Jiang Jia Wang Chao De Ling Yi Zhong Biao Da by Zhou Weijun

246pp, Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 28 yuan ($4.10)