"Queen of Zitan" Chen Lihua: "If you don't do something in life, it's like coming for nothing"

Ask AI · How did Chen Lihua transform from a sewing worker to a real estate tycoon?

On April 7th, Fuhua International Group issued an obituary, announcing that Ms. Chen Lihua, Honorary Chairwoman of Fuhua International Group and Director of the Chinese Rosewood Museum, passed away due to ineffective medical treatment in Beijing on April 5, 2026, at the age of 85.

“Life is meaningless if you don’t do something.”

Chen Lihua, a descendant of the Yehe Nara clan, the eighth generation, who grew up in the Summer Palace, said this in an interview with Lu Yu, which became a footnote to her life and left behind a legendary story of a fallen noble descendant becoming China’s richest woman.

Her name is closely associated with Chang’an Club, Jinbao Street, and the Chinese Rosewood Museum; her story is a microcosm of an era and a dazzling wave stirred up by a woman under the tide of reform and opening up.

Fuhua International Group Honorary Chairman, Director of the Chinese Rosewood Museum Chen Lihua. Screenshot from the Beijing Chamber of Commerce official website.

A Fallen “Geguo”

Born in 1941 in the Summer Palace in Beijing.

Few people are born directly in the Summer Palace besides “royal relatives.”

According to her own account, Chen Lihua was of Manchu Zhenghuang Banner, Yehe Nara clan, the eighth generation descendant.

However, her noble aristocratic status did not bring her glory or wealth. All that history left her was a sigh.

By then, the Qing Dynasty had long since fallen, and the Yehe Nara family had experienced a decline from prosperity to decline. The branch Chen Lihua belonged to was a very remote side branch of the entire family, almost completely fallen by the time of her parents’ generation. She grew up in a very ordinary family, poor in family conditions, dropping out of high school.

After dropping out, to make a living, Chen Lihua worked at a sewing shop, earning just enough to get by.

After working in the factory for several years, she caught the reform of the sewing shop into a joint public-private enterprise. Relying on her innate business sensitivity, she decisively cooperated with the sewing shop and became an individual entrepreneur.

In 1959, 18-year-old Chen Lihua married Gao Youfa, an executive at Beijing Telecom, and they had three children after marriage.

Many years later, she recalled on the sofa of “Lu Yu You Yue”: as a young woman, she worked tirelessly day and night for a livelihood, sewing clothes for others at night, taking care of children during the day.

Due to livelihood pressures, Chen Lihua began to switch to furniture repair business, even opening a furniture repair shop. Relying on her self-taught skills and integrity, she gained recognition from many customers, and her furniture repair shop expanded into a furniture factory.

Through the furniture factory business, Chen Lihua met many knowledgeable friends, and after some twists and turns, she also became involved with antiques.

In the mid-1980s, Chen Lihua began collecting scattered Ming and Qing rosewood and golden silk nan furniture from Beijing Longshuncheng Chinese-style furniture factory at low prices, laying the foundation for her future wealth.

Hong Kong “Mining”

In 1981, at the age of 40, Chen Lihua made a decision that changed her life—going south to Hong Kong. This decision set her on the path to becoming China’s richest woman.

In the late 1980s, Hong Kong’s real estate market began to recover. From 1985 to 1997, property prices skyrocketed tenfold. During this golden age of real estate, the “Big Five” property tycoons in Hong Kong rose rapidly, with Li Ka-shing earning huge profits through “buy low, sell high.”

Sensing business opportunities, Chen Lihua used her accumulated capital from the furniture business to invest in the booming Hong Kong property market. She purchased 12 villas in the famous Bilya Community in Hong Kong, buying low and selling high, successfully earning her “first pot of gold,” which laid the groundwork for her vast business empire.

In 1988, Chen Lihua officially founded Fuhua International Group in Hong Kong, embarking on systematic real estate investment. By then, she was already a well-known female entrepreneur in Hong Kong’s real estate circle. But she did not follow the trend blindly; instead, she once again keenly captured the opportunities brought by China’s reform and opening up.

Chen Lihua turned again and resolutely returned to the mainland.

A “Female First Rich” Generation

In 1989, Chen Lihua returned from Hong Kong to Beijing—the city that had always been her dreamland.

This return was as precise as her entry into Hong Kong eight years earlier, seizing the wave of reform and opening up. At that time, mainland China was accelerating along the path of reform and opening up, and the real estate industry was undergoing revolutionary changes.

In 1989, the same year Chen Lihua returned, Beijing first publicly sold commercial housing, regarded as the starting point of China’s housing commercialization, marking the beginning of market-oriented real estate.

Since then, the “gear” of China’s real estate industry and Chen Lihua’s fate began to turn in sync.

Chen Lihua acquired a rare plot near Chang’an Avenue, planning to build Chang’an Tower. However, the approval process took four years, and many friends advised her to give up, but she persisted.

Finally, approval was granted. That night, after 11 p.m., Chen Lihua personally led four cars to the construction site, carrying shovels to dig and load soil. Due to the project’s special location, construction could only happen at night. From then on, Chen Lihua worked day and night, even treating herself as a worker.

After the completion of Chang’an Tower, she divided the sixth floor into the Chang’an Club.

The Chang’an Club was Beijing’s first five-star high-end private business club, a top-tier member-only club in China, with notable honorary directors including Li Ka-shing, Zheng Yutong, and Guo Bingxiang.

If the Chang’an Tower made Chen Lihua famous overnight, then Jinbao Street directly established her status as a real estate tycoon.

Jinbao Street, adjacent to Wangfujing Pedestrian Street, was a major renovation project in Beijing, with a total investment of over 4 billion yuan, and actual expenditure exceeding that.

Jinbao Street adopted a pioneering model—investors were responsible for road repairs, and the renovation of dilapidated houses along the street, solving the relocation costs for residents.

However, demolition was a major challenge at the time. With the idea of sacrificing her entire assets, Chen Lihua completed the demolition of 2,100 households within 28 days, becoming a legend in Beijing’s real estate industry.

Looking back now, Jinbao Street preserved the old tiles and beams from the demolition, and collected Cai Yuanpei’s relics, turning his former residence into a museum. It also preserved many traditional Beijing courtyard complexes.

Thus, Jinbao Street exudes an antique charm and a sense of wealth.

In July 2009, the world’s first Bugatti showroom opened on Jinbao Street. At the same time, the largest Lamborghini showroom in Asia and an Aston Martin showroom also opened. Jinbao Street became Beijing’s—and even China’s—most luxurious “car street.”

As its name suggests, Jinbao Street integrates luxury hotels, high-end clubs, luxury car showrooms, jewelry museums, shopping centers, gourmet restaurants, and high-end home furnishings, becoming a classic in China’s new commercial real estate, a symbol of the economic takeoff during the 30th anniversary of reform and opening up, and an international business card representing China’s economic leadership.

With the completion of Chang’an Tower, Jinbao Street, and other projects, Chen Lihua’s real estate career reached its peak. In 2016, she topped the Hurun Women’s Rich List with a wealth of 50.5 billion yuan, becoming China’s richest woman.

Many years later, Chen Lihua said, “My success is primarily due to Deng Xiaoping’s vision and foresight. I am grateful for China’s reform and opening-up policies.”

“Tang Monk” Wife

Besides being the richest woman, another well-known identity of Chen Lihua is “Tang Monk” wife.

After her first marriage ended, Chen Lihua led her three children alone to struggle until she met Chi Chongrui, forming a beautiful love story.

Chi Chongrui is a national first-class actor, who played Tang Monk in the 1983 version of “Journey to the West.” Coming from a Peking Opera family, Chen Lihua was a loyal fan of Peking Opera. The two met through Peking Opera and later married.

In 1990, Chi Chongrui and Chen Lihua registered their marriage. By then, Chen Lihua was already China’s richest woman, with assets exceeding one billion yuan. She was more than ten years older than Chi Chongrui and had three children with her.

Chi Chongrui said, “We don’t need to declare love; time will prove everything.” Subsequently, he declined all social activities, ended his acting career, and moved to Hong Kong with Chen Lihua.

In 2011, after years of silence, Chi Chongrui publicly talked about their marriage, lamenting that “time flies too fast.”

She is the “Tang Monk” wife and also the queen of rosewood. Rosewood was also a shared hobby of the couple.

Chen Lihua was obsessed with rosewood, spending heavily to buy rosewood and teak wood, traveling to tropical rainforests and the “Golden Triangle,” narrowly escaping death several times.

On the eve of National Day in 1999, Chen Lihua invested 200 million yuan to build a Chinese Rosewood Museum in Gaobeidian.

“Talking about rosewood makes me happy,” Chen Lihua told China News Service. She said she wanted to pass on the national intangible cultural heritage “Rosewood Carving Technique” through her efforts and showcase China’s traditional culture.

To let future generations see the disappearing “Old Beijing,” Chen Lihua hired a hundred craftsmen, using precious rosewood and dark wood, to restore sixteen city gates and ten corner towers of Old Beijing at a 1:10 scale. These works were extremely intricate, made without a single nail, entirely using traditional mortise and tenon structures, recreating the ancient capital’s appearance.

In 2021, 80-year-old Chen Lihua expressed in an interview: “I always feel I should leave something behind. Instead of leaving money to future generations, I prefer to leave the cultural treasures our ancestors left us, because this is a kind of inheritance.”

Beijing News Shell Finance Reporter Xu Qian

Editor: Chen Li

Proofreader: Liu Jun