Choo Waihong

Choo Waihong (died September 2023) was a Singaporean corporate lawyer, feminist and travel writer, known for her book The Kingdom of Women: Life, Love and Death in China’s Hidden Mountains (2017) about the matriarchal Chinese tribe of Mosuo.

Biography

Choo was from a Chinese community in Singapore.^[1] Choo was educated at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.^[2] After graduating, Choo worked at law firms in Singapore^[3][4][5] and California, United States,^[2][6] as a corporate lawyer specialising in fund management law.^[7] She took early retirement from her law career in 2006 in order to travel in China and reconnect with her roots.^[6][8]

Choo began writing about her post-retirement travels for the China Daily newspaper.^[9] Choo then lived among the matriarchal tribe of Mosuo, who live around Lugu Lake in the Yunnan province, for six months a year over seven years. She built a traditional Mosuo house on the land of a friend^[10][11][12] and was the first outsider to move into the heart of the tribe.^[7] She was taught the Mosuo language by a teenage girl named Ladzu.^[8]

Choo wrote the book The Kingdom of Women: Life, Love and Death in China’s Hidden Mountains (2017) about the Mosuo culture.^[13][14] It has been covered by publications including The Guardian,^[8][15] The Diplomat magazine,^[11] Physics World,^[16] South China Morning Post^[17] and Stylist magazine.^[1] As of 2017, foreign-language rights had been sold to Finland, Spain, Japan and Korea^[6] and a copy of Choo's book is held in the History of Medicine collection of the Wellcome Collection in London, England.^[18]

Choo described herself as a feminist^[8] and volunteered as vice-president of the AWARE women’s rights group in Singapore,^[19] serving for two terms (2007 to 2009).^[7][20]

Choo died in September 2023.^[20]