Born in 1914 in Connecticut, Graham Peck graduated from Yale University and worked at the U.S. Office of War Information in the 1940s. Peck went to China in 1935 for the first time and stayed for two years, after which he returned to the States and wrote Through China’s Wall. When World War II broke out, he returned to China. From October, 1944 to February, 1945, Peck was a war correspondent in Burma. His reports from this period were translated into Chinese by Chen Hanbo and published in 1945. In 1950, Peck published Two Kinds of Time along with his artwork, which remains an important reference for the study of Chinese history and politics today.

In 1968, Peck also featured China in his memoir China: The Remembered Life. In July of that same year, he died from cancer in Vermont at age 54 and was buried at Oak Cliff Cemetery in Derby, Connecticut.

Originally named Wenjie, Ho Mang Hang was born in Zhongshan, Guangdong. A graduate of Jinling University, Department of Agriculture Economics, his life was closely tied to the tumultuous history of modern China during the Republican era.

As the son-in-law of Wang Jingwei, after the end of the Second World War, Ho served two and a half years at Nanjing Tiger Bridge Prison. Immediately upon his release, he left for Hong Kong in March 1948 and later took up a position as Laboratory Superintendent in the Botany Department at Hong Kong University. Using the penname “江芙” (Jiangfu), Ho translated works of William Somerset Maugham for literary publications in Hong Kong.

After retiring in 1980, he devoted his time to gathering and studying materials and documents written by and related to Wang Jingwei. In 2010, Ho co-founded the Wang Jingwei Irrevocable Trust with his wife. He authored Cloud, Smoke, Scattered Memories, the Memoir of Ho Mang Hang as well as books on the botany of Hong Kong.