The Sage in the Cathedral of Books. Yang Sun Yang
from afar a lovely hill covered with green foliage. Ancient memories of this city are likely hidden in those thick tangles of banyan roots and trunks.
Unlike the natives of many other inland cities, Fuzhou people are primarily the mixed descendants of migrants from central China and local natives, with minimal regional ethnicities among them. During the Song dynasty, one thousand years ago, Fuzhou was already a well-known open-trading port on the east coast. It was, indeed, from the two harbors in Fuzhou, Mawei and Changle, the famous Admiral Zheng He (He Zheng) embarked on his seven naval expeditions between 1405 and 1433.
Fuzhou later became one of the five designated trade ports in the Sino-British Treaty of Nanjing, following China’s defeat in the Opium War. As a result, countless foreign diplomats, businessmen, missionaries, and adventurers flocked to the southern city. Its residents, therefore, were among the earliest Chinese people to have direct encounters with westerners and western civilization. Meanwhile, along with the introduction of Wuyi tea to the western world, the Fuzhouese started to sail across the ocean and to extend their sojourns abroad.
In 1931, Hwa Wei and his family visited his parents’ home in Fuzhou. Returning on that visit were (front, left to right): two cousins; six-month-old Hwa-Wei; his sister, Hwa-Yu; and his brother, Hwa-Hsin (Min).
In 1932, Hwa-Wei’s family moved to Nanjing. Shown are (left to right): Hwa-Wei’s brother, Hwa-Hsin (Min); his sister, Hwa-Yu; his father, Kan-Chun Lee; and Hwa-Wei.
Hwa-Wei and his mother, Hsiao-Hui Wang, in Nanjing, 1932.
Whereas the ocean brought a yearning for a wandering life to the Fuzhouese, the surrounding mountain terrain cultivated conservative and traditional virtues among them, along with an open-minded nature. This is why overseas Fuzhouese descendants still preserve their traditions of family and homeland patriotism, their persistent ingrained attitudes, as well as their industry and thrift, regardless of their circumstances.
The natural and cultural environment in Fuzhou nourished the older generations of Hwa-Wei’s family. Hwa-Wei’s father, then Sheng-Shu Lee, received his early education in church schools. Later, he went to Yenching University to study theology and education under the guidance of John Leighton Stuart. Originally a missionary in China, Mr. Stuart later switched his focus to academia and became the founding president of Yenching University. His philosophy of academic freedom and openness was carried on through generations, making Yenching a unique institution of higher learning in China.2 As a young student, one from a historic city far to the south, Sheng-Shu Lee was greatly influenced by Mr. Stuart and his philosophy.
Having earned his master’s degree from Yenching University, Sheng-Shu went back to the south and worked as an associate professor and then as a professor at Fujian Christian University. He later served as the principal of Fujian Christian Normal School until he joined the Nationalist Revolutionary Army in 1928 and changed his name to Kan-Chun Lee in accordance with his new career identity.
From a noble family in Fuzhou, Hwa-Wei’s mother, Hsiao-Hui Wang, had two siblings, a younger brother and a younger sister. All three received a good education from church colleges. Hsiao-Hui and her sister, Hsiao-Chu Wang, graduated from Hua-Nan College of Arts and Sciences in Fuzhou. Both were devout Christians.
Hsiao-Hui’s brother, Tiao-Hsin Wang, was a chemistry professor, department chair, and then dean of the School of Science at Fujian Christian University (FCU). In 1948, he came to the United States to further his studies, returning to China in 1949, soon after the Communist Party took over the country, to continue his teaching and research at FCU. He was once the acting university president and also a board member of the Chinese Chemical Society. Unfortunately, he lost his life in the Cultural Revolution due largely to his religious affiliation and Western connection.
Hsiao-Chu Wang (Her English name is Phyllis Wang.), Hwa-Wei’s maternal aunt, went to Beijing to study education at the Graduate School of Yenching University after her graduation from Hua-Nan College. She later relocated from Beijing to Guangzhou, where she worked as the head of cataloging, chief of general affairs, deputy director, and director at the Lingnan University Library. Hsiao-Chu came to the United States in 1948 on a scholarship provided by the board of Christian Higher Education in China and received her Master of Library Science (MLS) degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), two years later. Because of the political situation in China and the closing of her university after 1949, she decided to settle in the United States and worked in several libraries, including the Health Sciences Library at the University of Pittsburgh.
Hwa-Wei could not remember if he ever visited Fuzhou with his parents and siblings in his childhood. However, in a later visit to Fuzhou in search of his family roots, during his first trip back to the mainland since 1949, he spoke with his uncle’s wife, who insisted that the family—Hwa-Wei, his parents, older brother, and sister—had made a trip back home when Hwa-Wei was still a toddler. In spite of a blank spot in his memory involving that visit, he, interestingly enough, still had a lingering memory of the slightly sweet and astringent taste of the locally grown green olives.
On Hwa-Wei’s father’s side, there is only one known relative, his aunt, a medical doctor. Hwa-Wei met her only once in Chongqing and, unfortunately, lost contact with her after the family moved to Taiwan.
3
Living in a turbulent era of domestic turmoil and foreign invasion, Hwa-Wei’s father, young Kan-Chun Lee, aspired to dedicate his life to his country. He was once a devout Christian and worked as the secretary general of the Christian Education Association in Fujian. However, his perception of Christianity gradually changed due to the influence of the popular “May Fourth Movement.” He grew to believe that the spread of Christianity in China was a disguised form of political and cultural invasion by the Western colonial powers. Some aggressive Chinese students and intellectuals at that time even labeled foreign missionaries and their approaches as “mission and missile.”3
He eventually chose to leave his religious work and changed his name from Sheng-Shu, “Holy Gospeller,” to Kan-Chun, “Joining the Army,” indicating his transformed view of the world and his determination for a career change from academia to the military. In August 1928, he resigned from his position as the principal of Fujian Christian Normal School and joined the Nationalist Revolutionary Army. Kan-Chun started with the title of publicity department chief (a lieutenant-colonel ranking) in the Eleventh National Revolutionary Army, and was promoted one year later to director of the Political Training Academy (a colonel ranking) in the Sixty-First Division of the army. He was the governor of Shihui County, Guangdong Province, from 1930 to 1932, then transferred in 1932 to Nanjing, where he became the secretary and, later, chief of the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Interior, while also serving as a lecturer at the Political Training Institute of the National Military Commission. The entire family, including Hwa-Wei, also relocated to Nanjing with Kan-Chun.
Hwa-Wei in Nanjing, 1935
Hwa-Wei and his siblings, Hwa-Ming, Hwa-Hsin, Hwa-Yu, and Hwa-Nin, in Nanjing, 1936. Hwa-Wei is seated fourth from the left.
Hwa-Wei’s father, Kan-Chung Lee, and mother, Hsiao-Hui Wang, in Nanjing.
Hwa-Wei’s paternal grandmother.
Hwa-Wei’s paternal grandfather,