The Sage in the Cathedral of Books. Yang Sun Yang
conference in Montreal, Canada. We have kept in touch for the almost thirty years since then. It is our librarianship and our friendship that keep us connected.
The past thirty years have witnessed the economic reform and the rapid advancement in librarianship in China, along with the tireless effort and active involvement of Hwa-Wei in helping us to modernize Chinese librarianship. Owing largely to the international exchanges, especially with our American counterparts who have been flagships in the field, Chinese librarianship has made great progress in that short span of just thirty years, grown from being extremely backward at the beginning to now rising to a global standard level.
With the Sino-U.S. exchange, we have been fortunate to have as a human resource a group of diligent, dedicated, and knowledgeable Chinese American librarians who have served as ambassadors and human bridges between the two countries. Their persistent efforts have ensured the effectiveness and efficiency of the intercontinental communications: Hwa-Wei has been the most outstanding among them.
An active and well-accomplished library professional in the U.S. for decades, Hwa-Wei has worked in many important positions and has held various titles including library director, dean, professor, and consultant. However, he also has an important permanent job, one with no official title—ambassador of Sino-U.S. Cultural Exchange. As ambassador, Hwa-Wei has no assigned tasks and does not get paid. Yet, at this titleless position, he has devoted thirty years of his time and effort on a voluntary basis and with a sincere heart.
As ambassador, Hwa-Wei has made numerous trips to China from the U.S., leaving his footprint in major cities in China, even after his official retirement and despite physical health problems. As ambassador, he has also been involved in numerous programs and projects ranging from the cooperation and exchange between two national libraries, to librarian training in remote areas. To my knowledge, Hwa-Wei is without a doubt the leading person in the area of Sino-U.S. library exchange. He has devoted the largest amount of time and effort, and has made the longest, broadest, and greatest contribution to Chinese librarianship of anyone in that field.
This statement of mine has been showcased particularly in one chapter of the book, Library Cooperation between China and the United States. However, what has been covered in that chapter only represents the tip of the iceberg of Hwa-Wei’s achievements. Knowing of the range of his contributions, we must reach one important conclusion: Hwa-Wei’s remarkable work throughout the years has made him a historical figure; his name will be deeply inscribed in the history of Sino-U.S. cultural exchange, and in the history of Chinese librarianship. Hwa-Wei will be forever remembered by history. Hwa-Wei’s biography is full of excellent chapters, among which, my favorite is the one on library cooperation between China and the United States: This cooperation is creating significant change today; it promises to have an even greater, far-reaching historical impact.
Everyone who has had any contact with Hwa-Wei would be filled with admiration at his unique spiritual personality. What are the components of that personality and noble character? To name a few: dedication, innovation, hard work, tenacity, harmoniousness, self-sacrifice, helpfulness, kindness, and modesty; Hwa-Wei is a critical thinker and a practical doer. At this point, I have to admit that I feel Hwa-Wei’s excellence is a complete excellence, a comprehensive excellence, and an integrated excellence—qualities impossible to summarize in such a short list. Hwa-Wei is a rare perfectionist, one who always seems to achieve perfect results.
This leads to another question: what is the source of Hwa-Wei’s excellence, and how has he made his excellence so complete and comprehensive? The answer to the question can actually be found through learning about his background and experience. Hwa-Wei’s perfect excellence originated from a combination of the profound traditions of Chinese civilization and the vigor of American culture. Hwa-Wei’s perfect excellence is a successful outcome of the cultural fusion between the East and the West that has nurtured him and made him what he is.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the intertwining of Eastern and Western culture has shaped an exemplary global citizen: Hwa-Wei Lee!
The most enlightening thing that I have learned through Hwa-Wei’s life concerns that East and West fusion. Hwa-Wei has made great contributions and achievements in promoting the Sino-U.S. cultural exchange. Meanwhile, he himself represents the crown of intertwined Eastern and Western culture. Cultural exchange and fusion has become one of the passions of Hwa-Wei’s life; it is also the source of his excellence.
In spite of their many differences, Eastern and Western culture could essentially be mutually interlinked. A successful and meaningful fusion of the two cultures, a learning of each other’s strengths, could create a new world full of new possibilities.
It is my hope that the twenty-first century will be a peaceful, cooperative, and harmonious century that features an even closer collaboration between China and the United States.
Shoujing Zhuang
Former Library Director
Peking University
Beijing, China
September 2011
FOREWORD IV
THROUGHOUT The Sage in the Cathedral of Books, the biography of Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee, Ms. Yang Yang, the author, has portrayed the many important experiences of Hwa-Wei’s life with her beautiful and eloquent writing.
Hwa-Wei, a man who was born in mainland China, grew up in Taiwan, and pursued his advanced degrees in the U.S., is a superlative intellectual possessing many Chinese traditional virtues including being family-loving and patriotic, self-effacing and persevering, hard-working and thrifty. Hwa-Wei has succeeded as an exemplary Chinese American on both personal and professional levels.
The stories about Hwa-Wei’s childhood are quite absorbing. Through them, the readers of his biography will get to know more about the misery and chaos of the wars endured in mainland China from the 1930s to 1949. The Lee family’s landing at the airbase in Hsinchu, Taiwan, in an air force transport plane is truly legendary.
The vividly narrated chapters on Hwa-Wei’s striving to create a life in the U.S. and to successfully blend into American society are inspiring. Prior to the 1950s, Asian immigrants were often unfairly treated in the U.S. Many Chinese Americans suffered racial discrimination, making their lives difficult. However, Hwa-Wei, only twenty-six when he arrived in this foreign country, soon won the love of Mary, an American girl. They were married in 1959 and have been happily living together for over fifty years—having recently celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary—and have been blessed with many children and grandchildren. They were also blessed with Hwa-Wei’s successful career. Shortly after his retirement from Ohio University as the dean of Libraries, Hwa-Wei was invited to work as the chief of the Asian Division of the Library of Congress and was thus able to extend his contributions to the field of librarianship.
I personally got to know Hwa-Wei in the 1990s. Back then, the National Commission of Education, now the Ministry of Education, had received a loan from the World Bank for a development program on teacher education. A total of 128 teacher colleges participated in this program. A series of trainings, involving library directors from these colleges, was arranged in order to meet one of the requirements of the World Bank loan. Due to his reputation and the success of his previous international exchange activities, Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee was hired as a foreign expert and conducted two fascinating library seminars: one at Northeast Normal University in 1995, and the other at Sichuan University in 1996. His book, Modern Library Management, was well-received at both seminars. As his full-time companion, I learned a lot from Hwa-Wei’s lectures and follow-up discussions. It was a pleasant and exciting experience that I still benefit from today.
Through this biography, we can learn more about Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee—his personal and professional growth, his development as an individual, and his achievements in the world of libraries.
Zhejiang Dong
Former Head of Library & Information Bureau
Department of Development