The Tang Prize Foundation on Sunday extended its condolences to the family of William Theodore de Bary, winner of last year’s prize in sinology, who passed away on Friday at his home in New York at the age of 97.
His daughter, Brett, who last year accepted the award on his behalf, said De Bary was with his three children at the time of his death and his final hours were peaceful.
The Chinese studies academic watched recordings of last year’s award ceremony with his children, his daughter said.
De Bary was honored by the foundation for his “remarkable academic career spanning more than seven decades.”
“He has written and edited more than 30 books, many of them making groundbreaking contributions that provide both enlightening insight into and honest critique of Confucianism,” the prize citation said.
De Bary, who set out to become a bridge-builder between the East and West through an academic career as a sinologist, had become a cornerstone of the bridge itself — “a bridge every person interested in interculturation must cross,” Rachel Chung, associate director of Columbia University’s Committee on Asia and the Middle East, said last year in Taipei.
De Bary was pleased to see his Chinese name “corrected” through the prize, foundation chief executive officer Chern Jenn-chuan (陳振川) said.
De Bary cherished his “real” Chinese name of Di Peili (狄培理), given to him by Qian Mu (錢穆), a renowned Confucian who was De Bary’s classmate when the latter studied at Yanjing University (now Beijing University), Chern said.
However, De Bary was known in Chinese-speaking nations as Di Bairui (狄百瑞) because of a mistake by a Hong Kong publishing house in the 1980s.
“De Bary was happy that a three-decade misnomer was finally corrected,” Chern said.
David Wang, a professor of Chinese literature at Harvard University, said he worked with De Bary at Columbia University for 15 years and learned “enormously from his work, teaching and guidance.”
“He is a great scholar and a visionary leader,” Wang said, adding that the sad news “marks the end of his 70-year-long pursuit of Chinese and East Asian thought.”
“He will be remembered fondly by many colleagues, students and friends all over the world,” Wang said.
A Keelung high school on Saturday night apologized for using a picture containing a Chinese flag on the cover of the senior yearbook, adding that it has recalled the books and pledged to provide students new ones before graduation on Thursday. Of 309 Affiliated Keelung Maritime Senior High School of National Taiwan Ocean University graduates, 248 had purchased the yearbook. Some students said that the printer committed an outrageous error in including the picture, while others said that nobody would notice such a small flag on the cover. Other students said that they cared more about the photographs of classmates and what was
GOING INTERNATIONAL: Rakuten Girls squad leader Ula Shen said she was surprised that baseball fans outside of Taiwan not only knew of them, but also knew their names Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Oakland Athletics on Saturday hosted its first Taiwanese Heritage Day event at the Oakland Coliseum with a performance by Taiwanese cheerleading squad the Rakuten Girls and a video message from Vice President William Lai (賴清德). The Rakuten Girls, who are the cheerleaders for the CPBL’s Rakuten Monkeys, performed in front of a crowd of more than 2,000 people, followed by a prerecorded address by Lai about Taiwan’s baseball culture and democratic spirit. Taiwanese pitcher Sha Tzu-chen (沙子宸), who was signed by the Athletics earlier this year, was also present. Mizuki Lin (林襄), considered a “baseball cheerleading goddess” by Taiwanese
A 14-legged giant isopod is the highlight of a new dish at a ramen restaurant in Taipei and it has people lining up — both for pictures and for a bite from this bowl of noodles. Since “The Ramen Boy” launched the limited-edition noodle bowl on Monday last week, declaring in a social media post that it had “finally got this dream ingredient,” more than 100 people have joined a waiting list to dine at the restaurant. “It is so attractive because of its appearance — it looks very cute,” said the 37-year-old owner of the restaurant, who wanted to be
EVA Airways was ranked the eighth-best airline in the world for this year, the only Taiwanese carrier to make it into the top 25 Airline Excellence Awards this year, aviation reviews Web site AirlineRatings.com said on Wednesday. AirlineRatings.com has a seven-star rating system to evaluate more than 360 airlines around the world every year, EVA Airways said in a statement on Thursday. “We are delighted that efforts by the entire EVA staff have been recognized by Airline Ratings,” EVA Airways president Clay Sun (孫嘉明) said in the release. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company identified and adopted services and procedures that enhance and