[2] She and Cheng-Wu Fei subsequently won British Council grants to study in Britain, both enrolling at the Slade School of Art from 1947 to 1950 and working under Randolph Schwabe and William Coldstream.

[3] Following the communist takeover of China, Chien-Ying Chang and Cheng-Wu Fei decided to make Britain their home, pursuing various interests for some 50 years.

They bought a house in Finchley in north London, filling the garden with oriental plants, while Chien-Ying Chang decorated the inside walls with landscape murals.

Her home cooking skills were taught at Kenneth Lo's Chinese cookery school, and she also appeared on his television programme 'The Taste of China'.

The delicate brush strokes she employed in her paintings came from her skill as a calligrapher, leading to many commissions to illustrate books of poems and several film-sets about China.