Embedded Files
The foundation of Chinese studies at UH was laid by the faculty. Their innovative courses and curricula served local communities and established them as international leaders in their field.
Chinese Studies Scholars, Courses, and Curricula
Chinese Studies Scholars, Courses, and Curricula
Faculty Connections and Characteristics
Several of the early faculty in the Chinese studies programs at UH were linked by close institutional and personal ties. The global Chinese studies community at that time was small, and opportunities for higher education were given to only a few people worldwide, meaning that there was a small pool of advanced scholars who were likely to know each other. For example, three of the faculty who taught at UH were graduates of Lingnan University 嶺南大學, a Christian college in Guangzhou established by Presbyterian ministers in 1888. After World War I, several distinguished universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, began accepting Lingnan graduates into their MA and PhD programs, a path taken by several UH faculty including Shao Chang Lee, Wing-tsit Chan, and Shou-Yi Chen.
Another academic touchpoint was work for the Academia Sinica, established in Nanjing in 1928 and one of the most influential and esteemed research institutions in modern China. UH was fortunate to have several Academia Sinica researchers as faculty or visiting scholars, among them Yuen Ren Chao, Feng Youlan, and Li Fang-kuei.
While there were numerically fewer female than male faculty among the Chinese studies programs at UH - as was typical of higher education globally at the time - women scholars made crucial contributions to UH. Lily Pao-hu Chang, who joined the UH faculty as a lecturer, became a noted translator of poetry and drama, contributing to the UH Asian theater program with her translations by modernist playwright Cao Yu. Betty Tseng Yu-Ho Ecke, an acclaimed painter, joined the faculty as a lecturer in Art and became central to UH's postwar Chinese studies programs. And Yao Shen, who began her career at the University of Michigan, published over 100 books and articles on Chinese and English second language pedagogy and literature.
Faculty Arrivals in the 1920's - 1930's
Faculty Arrivals in the 1920's - 1930's
Tien Mu Wang 王天木 (1883-?), at UH 1921-1922
The first Chinese language and history teacher at UH, Beijing-born Tien Mu Wang was a rival of Chiang Kai-shek and member of the pro-peace faction of the KMT. He served as Director of the Zhejiang prosecutor’s office, and later defected to the Japanese side and formed a collaborationist government at the Chinese Consul in Mexico.
At UH, Tien Mu Wang taught language and literature classes, including Elementary Chinese, Modern Chinese Prose, Advanced Chinese Prose and Essays, Contemporary Chinese Literature, History and Social Sciences, and Chinese History.
Tien Mu Wang in the Chinese press
Shen Bao (申報) 1920-12-7
王天木起程赴美 "Wang Tianmu leaves for America," December 7, 1920 (日期：1920-12-07 專欄, 版次：10 頁次： 卷期總號)
"Setting off to teach history and Chinese literature at the University of Hawai'i is Mr. Wang Tian Mu, who was previously a high-level prosecutor in Zhejiang. At the University of Hawai'i he will be engaged in teaching Chinese history and literature..."
赴任夏威夷大學中國歷史及中國文學科敎授前浙江高等檢察廳廳長王天木君、爲美國夏威夷大學聘請任中國歷史及中國文學科敎授、定於今日乘中國郵船公司輪船中國號放洋、
王君爲北京人、原籍浙江、前清癸卯科進士、日本中央大學法學士、歷任政界司法界報界各要職多年、對於中西文學歷史哲學及一切政法諸學、深有研究、此次赴美任中國歷史及中國文學敎授、定能於中美二國文化上有所盡力也、
前日記者訪王君天木於其寓所、詢王君赴美後計劃、王君謂、夏威夷大學之敎務、其開始期約在明年二月中旬、在二月以前、及明年署假時、擬游歷西美各州、以資考察一切風土習慣、而於將來敎授時、則擬設法隨時比較中美二國文學上歷史上之異同及長短、使美國學子、知有一種比較的觀察力、以觀察中西文化上之優劣而知所選擇云、
Shen Bao (申報) 1924-7-25
派駐墨西哥總領事過滬
日期：1924-07-25 專欄：
版次：14 頁次： 卷期總號：
王天木君
八月二日放洋
我國派駐墨西哥總領事王天木氏、已於前日到滬、定於八月二號放洋、王氏曾任浙江高等審判廳長、富於新職、曾任太平洋夏威夷大學敎授、返國後、協助王正廷氏辦理外交、尤著動勞、王氏赴墨後或能有所建白云、
Shao Chang Lee 李紹昌 (1891-1977), taught at UH 1922-1943
SHAO CHANG LEE, M.A., Professor of Chinese Language and History. Graduate Canton Christian College, China, 1911; Graduate Tsing Hua College, Peiping, China, 1913; A.B., Yale Univ., 1917; M.A., Columbia Univ., 1918.
Courses taught by Dr. Shao Chang Lee
In Reminiscences of My Past fifty Years (Association Press of China, 1941), Prof. Shao-Chang Lee recalled the courses he taught and the textbooks he used for these courses. For the Level 1, 2 and 3 Chinese language classes adopted the Chinese language textbook series published by the Commercial Press in Shanghai starting in 1904. He also used a bilingual Chinese-English Commercial Press edition of the Confucian Four Books (Analects, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, and the Mencius), which had been translated into English by the Scottish missionary John Legge, who lived in Hong Kong for several decades starting in the 1860's.
Chinese cover of Shao Chang Lee's memoir
Publication page of Shao Chang Lee's memoir
Shao Chang Lee discussing teaching at UH
Gregg Manners Sinclair (1890-1976), at UH 1928-1956
Cover of the 1938 Bulletin of Courses (Volume 17, Number 5, Supplement)
GREGG MANNERS SINCLAIR, for whom Sinclair Library is named, served as fourth president of the University from 1942-1956. Born in St. Mary’s, Ontario, Canada, BA. University of Minnesota in 1912, MA. Columbia University in 1919. He taught English in Japan before coming to the University of Hawaii’s English department in 1928.
Denzel Carr (1900-1983), taught at UH 1934-1940
Born in Kentucky, Denzel Raybaurne Carr was hired by UH to teach Romance Languages, but his gifts for Asian languages soon opened opportunities in the Oriental Institute. A gifted polyglot, he studied Chinese and Japanese, Indonesian, Malay, Dutch, Japanese, French, German, Russian, and Czech, and dabbled in Polynesian, American Indian, and other languages. His research focused in particular on changes in script forms during the 20th century, and the influence of political and social change on written language. He also engaged in military intelligence work. From 1940 to 1948, he worked in Honolulu as an adviser to the District Intelligence Officer for the Fourteenth Naval District, recommending Nisei troops-what later became the 442 Infantry Battalion-be sent to Europe. He also participated in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials as Chief of the Language Division of the International Prosecution Section of General MacArthur's Occupation Headquarters. Starting in 1948, he began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching Japanese as well as Malay-Indonesian.
Charles A. Moore (1901-1967), taught at UH 1936-1967
Charles Alexander Moore was born in Chicago and earned philosophy degrees from Yale University. A UH faculty member for over three decades, he founded the East-West Philosophers' Conferences, which was held every decade or half-decade from 1939, 1949, 1959, and 1964. Moore was an advocate of comparative philosophy and wrote that the philosophy of the future would be “characterized by transcultural cooperation and world perspective.” He was the founding editor of Philosophy East and West, published continuously since 1951. Moore was also the co-editor of A Source Book In Indian Philosophy (Princeton, 1957, with Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan) and also taught Chinese and Japanese philosophy.
Kenneth Kuan-Sheng Chen 陳觀勝 (1907-1993), taught at UH 1936-1940
Honolulu-born Kenneth Kuan Sheng Chen was one of the first faculty of the Oriental Institute. He attended the local Chinese language school, Mun Lun School, during his childhood. He received his BA from UH before earning an MA from Yenching University and a Ph.D. in Buddhism and Indian Philosophy from Harvard University. He served as a professor in the religion departments of the University of Hawai'i, Yenching, Harvard, and Princeton. His major works include Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey (1964), Buddhism: the Light of Asia (1968), and The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism (1973).
Wing-tsit Chan 陳榮捷 (1901-1994), taught at UHM 1937-1942
WING-TSIT CHAN, Ph.D., Visiting Professor of Chinese Philosophy.
B.A., Lingnan Univ.; M.A., Harvard Univ., 1927; Ph.D., Harvard
Univ., 1929; Dean and Professor of Philosophy at Lingnan Univ.
Wing-tsit Chan was originally from Pingshan in Guangdong. A specialist in Confucian philosophy, he focused in particular on the Song and Ming Dynasties, and was the world expert on the philosophy of the Southern Song Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1126–1271). After studying in a traditional academy as a young man, followed by Lingnan University, he traveled to the US as an overseas student and earned his doctorate from Harvard in 1929. The next year, he returned to Lingnan as its provost. In 1936 he was a visiting faculty member at UH, where his appointment was half with the Oriental Institute and half with the Philosophy Department. For the last two years of his appointment at UH, following the disbanding of the Oriental Institute in 1940, Professor Chan was chair of the UH Department of Philosophy.
With the University having been closed for a period during the war, and its future uncertain, he availed himself of the services of the Lingnan Foundation office in New York to explore other job opportunities and finally decided to take a position at Dartmouth College. He arrived at Dartmouth by army transport in September 1942. From 1966 to 1982, he was Anna R.D. Gillespie Professor of Philosophy at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In retirement, Chan taught part-time at Chatham and at Columbia University. In addition to his Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, he collaborated on another crucial anthology, Sources of Chinese Tradition (first published 1960).
Courses taught by Dr. Wing-tsit Chan
Yuen Ren Chao 趙元任 (1892-1982), taught at UH 1938-1940
Tianjin-born Yuen Ren Chao was one of the most famous linguits of the 20th century. A gifted polyglot who spoke German, French, and Japanese in addition to many Chinese dialects, he was also a famous composer and translator. Chao studied mathematics and physics on a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship at Cornell, where he met the philosopher Hu Shih. He later went to Harvard, earning a PhD in philosophy. After teaching in China for almost two decades, like many of his contemporaries he sought refuge abroad during the Sino-Japanese War, first in Honolulu, then at Harvard, and finally at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1952, he became Agassiz Professor of Oriental Languages, a position later held by UH Oriental Institute MA Edward H. Schafer. His works on Chinese grammar and phonetic systems were highly influential in both linguistic studies of Chinese as well as practical pedagogy for second language learners.
Courses taught by Dr. Yuan Ren Chao
Teaching Mandarin in Hawaii was Chao Yuen Ren’s second serious involvement in teaching Chinese to westerners since he taught at Harvard from 1922-to 1924.
The most well-known innovative teaching approach he experimented with in Hawaii was what he did in teaching Classical Chinese. In his diary on January 4th. 1938, Chao Yuen-Ren wrote: “…tried an experiment of teaching classical Chinese as if it were a living …” and asked the student to “read everything aloud and write exercises and answer questions aloud in class instead of merely translating the text into English.” During his Oral History interview, he explained, “I ….emphasize the audio-lingual approach in studying classical Chinese, and make students compose in it….” To justify his reason, he said, “I felt that the way to go about learning the language well--a living or a dead language you should teach it as if it were living. That was why I conducted the course with a lot of oral work and I even carried on conversations in the classical language.”
Chao Yue Ren believed in the audio-lingual approach to a language, whether living or dead. He said in the interview that “it was in classical Chinese that I started things, with the idea that it was good to be prepared for a study of Chinese books or classical texts.” Beyond the audio-lingual, Chao Yuen-Ren considered the active use of the language, such as writing and composing, was more necessary than a merely passive understanding of it.
Chao Yue-Ren recalled the students he taught in Hawaii were made up with the following three groups, Chinese Cantonese speakers from Hawaii who didn’t know enough of the language of their origin and needed to have some knowledge of Mandarin, none Chinese speakers who would later work in their fields, and Hawaiians of Chinese origin interested in learning Mandarin.
Due to a lack of teaching materials, Chao Yue Ren created texts for most of his classes. When he composed the texts, he “emphasized more the frequency of actual use, put those frequently used phrases and constructions first, and then tried to make the student get into contact as much as possible with the language as it is actually used.”
Chao Ren Yen made several recordings for his class in Hawaii, Cantonese Primer Lessons 1-24, Cantonese Riddles, classical Chinese read in Cantonese, and Fake Mandarin from Cantonese Notation, which is part of the collection of the Bancroft Library, the University of California, Berkeley.
Li Fang-Kuei, Hsu Ying (Li's wife), Yang Buwei (Yuen Ren Chao's wife), and Chao Yuen-Ren in Honolulu, July 1939
Yuan Ren Chao family and Li Fang-Kuei Family in Honolulu, July 1939
Fang-Kuei Li 李方桂 (1902–1987), at UH 1969-1974
Li Fang-Kuei and his wife, Hsu Ying, in Honolulu, July 1939
In 1937, the linguistics scholar Li Fang-Kuei was invited by Yale University as visiting professor for a three-year term. However, the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica (中央研究院) where Li Fang-Kuei served as a research fellow, only approved a two-year leave. Li Fan-Kei completed his two-year term and returned back to China in 1939. On his way back to China, Li Fang-Kuei and his wife Hsu Ying stopped by Hawaii on July 4, 1939. They stayed in Chao Yuen Ren’s house for about two weeks. The two families left Hawaii on the same day, July 14th. While Li Fan-Kuei was heading back to Academic Sincia , Kunming, China, Chao Yuen-Ren and his family departed for San Francisco, then to Yale to fill Li Fang-Kuei’s third year teaching vacancy.
During his oral history interview conducted by the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley in 1986, Li Fang-Kuei recalled his short stay in Hawaii: “So we had a nice time, swimming and so on, in Hawaii. Hawaii, in those days, there were no high rises. All very flat.”
In 1969, Li returned to Hawai'i, teaching at UH for five years. After the Academia Sinica, his career included positions at Yale University, Harvard, and the University of Washington. He was well known for his significant research on Tai and Sino-Tibetan languages, whcih he began as a graduate student at the University of Chicago in the 1920's and continued for more than 40 years. He also conducted significant fieldwork on Native American languages, including the Mattole language of northern California and the Hare language of Northwest Canada. He worked with one-time UH faculty member YR Chao at the Academia Sinica in the 1930's.
From 1969 to 1972 at UH, Li taught Chinese Linguistic Seminars in Comparative Tai (比較台語）and Archaic Chinese Phonology (漢語上古音). He continued to teach at UHM after retiring in 1972 until 1977. During his last years at UH, he wrote the Handbook of Comparative Tai, the result of more than forty years of research. It was published by the University of Hawai'i Press in 1977 (see below for inside front cover, first page of contents, and the first page of the preface).
Shou-Yi Chen 陳受頤 (1899—1977), at UH 1938-1941
Born in Guangdong, Chen Shouyi was a wartime refuge at UH who taught Chinese history and civilizations for three years. He was chair of the History Department at Beijing University from 1931-1937. After he left UH until 1941, he moved to California and taught at Pomona College until 1967. Like Wing-tsit Chan, he received his undergraduate degree from Lingnan and his doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Chicago in 1929. After returning to China in 1931, he taught mostly world literature and philosophy, focusing on comparative studies of China and Europe. In 1961, he published Chinese Literature: A Historical Introduction (Ronald Press), the second English language survey of Chinese literature after Herbert Giles' 1901 A History of Chinese Literature.
Left: Shou-Yi Chen with a student at Pomona college
Courses taught by Dr. Shou-Yi Chen
Faculty Arrivals in the 1940's - 1950's
Faculty Arrivals in the 1940's - 1950's
Lily Pao-Hu Chang Winters 鄭寶滬 (1914-1989), at UH 1946-1974
Lily Pao-Hu Chang was born in Shanghai. She received her BA from at Yenching University in 1937, where she studied economics, and then her MA degree in 1950 from the University of of Hawai'i. Beginning in 1946, she taught at UH, first part-time, and then rising to the position of Professor of Chinese Literature in the Department of East Asian Literature. She translated two important plays into English for production by the UH Theater Department, both by legendary playwright Cao Yu 曹禺 (1910-1996), namely Peking Man 北京人 (1940) and Thunderstorm 雷雨 (1933). These were both popular and influential modernist works that critiqued traditional Chinese society. She also wrote a biography of the female Song Dynasty poet Li Qingzhao 李清照 (published in the Journal of Oriental Studies); translated the complete works of Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 (or Tao Qian 陶潛); and wrote the entry on the Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin 李商隱 in the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1965.
Left: Li Pao-Hu Chang, Honolulu Advertiser, March 3, 1957. Below left: Chang and Marjorie Sinclair, Honolulu Advertiser, September 5, 1953
Lily Chang collaborated with Marjorie Putnam Sinclair Edel (1913-2005), wife of Oriental Institute director and UH President Gregg Sinclair, on several projects, including the translations of Cao Yu's plays Thunderstorm and Peking Man and the poems of Tao Qian. They were introduced by Yenching University professor Feng Youlan during his time at UH. The edition of Tao Qian's poems, published by University of Hawai'i Press, was enhanced by the literati-style wash drawings on the jacket, which were made for the project by Tseng Yu-ho (Betty Ecke), also a UH faculty member.
Faculty Arrivals in the 1960's
Faculty Arrivals in the 1960's
Yao Shen 沈垚 (1914-1985), at UH c. 1961-1977
The luminous portrait of Shen Yao is by famed photographer Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976), labeled "Shen Yao, professor of linguistics, University of Hawai'i," dated 1938, and is in the collection of the Library of Congress. Cunningham was affiliated for a number of years with Mills College, where her husband taught art, and that is most likely how she and Shen Yao became acquainted.
Dr. Yao Shen was a professor of English and Linguistics at UH. She earned her BA at Yenching in 1935 and an MA from Mills College in California in 1938. Before coming to UH, she taught English at the University of Michigan, where she earned a doctorate in Education in 1944 with a dissertation on Shakespeare, and joined its new Department of Far Eastern Languages and Literatures in 1948. She published more than 100 articles and books on Chinese linguistics and Chinese and English as a second language, including An Intensive Course in English for Chinese Students (with Charles C. Fries, 1946), Mandarin Chinese for English Speakers: An Oral Approach (1950), and English Phonetics (Especially for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) (1962). Joining the faculty of UH in the early 1960's, she was Professor of Asian Studies and Chinese and also taught in the English Department. In an essay entitled "Learning the Chinese Script Can Be Easy" (Language Learning, 1958), she reassured students that problems in learning Chinese were generally due to poor pedagogy, rather than the inherent difficult of the language.
In her retirement, Dr. Shen worked to reestablish ties between the US and China. She established two important scholarships at UH, including a scholarship for a student of Hawaiian natural history, named in honor of Rose Schuster Taylor, a naturalist and librarian who was a friend from California.
Daniel W.Y. Kwok 郭穎頤 (b. 1932) , at UH from 1961-2001
Daniel W. Y. Kwok began teaching at the University of Hawai’i in 1961, was director of Asian Studies from 1969 to 1975, chair of History from 1986 to 1988, and director of the Center for Chinese Studies from 1987 to 1991. Born in Shanghai (his father was an official in the Republic of China’s Shanghai Foreign Office) he graduated in 1954 with a BA in History from Brown University, where he met his wife Nancy Campbell Kwok. He then earned an MA and a PhD from Yale University, developing his lifelong expertise in Chinese scientism, populism, and Ming-Qing thought. In 1978 he launched the China Seminar, a monthly town-gown speaker series which combined serious discussion of a wide range of topics followed by superb food. Over forty plus years, more than 250 speakers delivered over 350 presentations on a wide range of topics. He also created and supervised the Asia Fellowships Program (1974-2001), which brought 160 mid-career journalists to learn more about Asia via UHM classes.
Tseng Yu-ho 曾佑和 (Betty Ecke, 1924-2017), at UH from 1961-1986
Dr. Tseng Yu-ho, who also used the name Betty Ecky, moved to Honolulu in 1949 with her husband Gustav Ecke, who became the curator of Asian Art at the Honolulu Academy of Art (now the Honolulu Museum). Tseng began studying at UH for an MA degree in Art History while also being a noted painter. She began teaching at UH as a lecturer in the early 1960's, later earning a PhD in Asian art history from NYU in 1972. At UH, she taught Asian art history and also was instrumental in unifying Chinese Studies faculty, serving as Director of the China Council from 1977-1985.
Left and below right from Sati Chock, "Remembering the multitalented Dr Tseng Yuho," Honolulu Museum of Art blog, 2017
Oliver M. Lee 李明心 (1925-2017), at UH 1963-2001
Oliver Minseem Lee 李明心 (1925-2017) joined the UH Department of Political Science in 1963, becoming both a popular instructor and an active member of the state's antiwar and peace activism community. Lee came from a remarkable family background. His father was a noted modernist poet, sculptor, and diplomatic official, Li Jinfa 李金髮 (1900-1976); his mother was a German painter, with whom he lived in Germany for several years, during the period of Nazi rise to power. Lee left Germany to join his father in Mauritius, where his father's family had business interests, before moving to the US in the late 1950's. He graduated cum laude from Harvard and then received a PhD from the University of Chicago. At UH he became an important voice on US-China relations as well as Southeast Asian affairs, typically arguing from a position favoring engagement and detente. His father's family had Hakka roots and Lee taught conversational Hakka for several years after retirement for a local Chinese benevolent organization.
Left: image from Ian Lind, "Remembering Professor Oliver Lee," May 2, 2017
John Young 楊覺勇 (1920-2013), at UH 1964-1974
John Young, an expert in Chinese and Japanese history and language, taught at the University of Hawaii from 1964 to 1974. Born in Tianjin, he attended a French-language school as a young boy in Tokyo (his father was a diplomat) and graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1942. He traveled across wartime China to join Chiang Kai-shek's government in Chongqing, where he served as a broadcaster and translator, interpreting for Douglas MacArthur in his meeting with Mao Zedong as well as for Mao in conversation with Japanese anti-war activist Wataru Kaji (鹿地 亘, 1903–1982). After the war Young collected evidence of Japanese war crimes in preparation for the Tokyo trials. Moving to the US in 1946, he received BA and MA degrees from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, respectively, and a PhD in history from Johns Hopkins University. He co-founded the American Association of Chinese Language Instructors (now the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA) and served as its director while at UH.
John DeFrancis 約翰·德範克 (1911 –2009), at UH 1966-1976
Prof. John DeFrancis was a highly influential and sometimes controversial expert in Chinese language pedagogy. Educated at Yale and Columbia Universities, he traveled across China in 1935, tracing the path of Genghis Khan, including crossing the Gobi Desert. He came to UH after having been blacklisted for a decade by McCarthyism, after he defended Owen Lattimore, a distinguished Inner Asia specialist who was accused of Communism. Arriving at UH in 1966, he chaired the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures until his retirement, then, as professor emeritus, wrote three books (The Chinese Language: Fact & Fantasy; Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems; and In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan), and worked with the Center for Chinese Studies to edit and publish three titles in the ABC Dictionary series, a Chinese dictionary organized according to a phonetic pinyin system.
The "DeFrancis series" Textbooks (Yale University Press)
The DeFrancis series: Beginning Chinese (1963); Character Text for Beginning Chinese (1964); Beginning Chinese Reader (Parts I and II) (1966); Intermediate Chinese (1964); Character Text for Intermediate Chinese (1965); Intermediate Chinese Reader (Parts I and II) (1967); Advanced Chinese (1966); Character Text for Advanced Chinese (1966); Advanced Chinese Reader (1968)
Paul. S. Bachman (1901-1957)
The future president of the University of Hawai'i, Paul Bachman taught Political Science, including Asian politics.
Ralph S. Kuykendall (1885-1963)
Ralph Simpson Kuykendall was primarily a historian of the Hawaiian Islands, South Pacific, and Pacific Northwest, but he also taught classes that included Asian culture and history.
Shunzo Sakamaki (1906 –1973)
Shunzo Sakamaki 坂巻 駿三 was born on Hawai'i Island to workers on the Ola'a Sugar Plantation, where his father was an interpreter. A graduate of the University of Hawai'i (he was on the debate team that prevailed against Oxford University), he taught at UH for several years before earning a PhD from Columbia. Sakamaki had a long career at UH, directing the university's summer sessions starting in 1955, and encouraging the growth of Asian Studies programs after World War II.
Summer Schools and Intensive Sessions
Summer Schools and Intensive Sessions
Shao Chang Lee: Chinese Literature in English and in Oriental Religious Thought and Practice,
Wing-Tsit Chan: Currents in Contemporary Oriental Thought and in Chinese Aesthetics,
Shou-yi Ch‘en: China: Ancient and Modern,
Y. R. Chao & K. Chen: Intensive Chinese Reading Courses.
Building a Broad Asian Language Program
Building a Broad Asian Language Program
On October 26, 1970, John DeFrancis, then the Chair of the Department of Asian and Pacific Languages, sent out a memo to the UH community addressing "Anyone Interested," calling for the University to give priority to studies related to Asia, support Asian language instruction, and make UHM stand out uniquely "as the one institution to which a wide variety of serious students might be attracted by the possibility of getting the language training they need." In the memo, John DeFrancis proposed a comprehensive language instructional system that could better serve the language needs of UH students studying in various Asia-related areas and disciplines and outlined the resources needed to build such a program. John DeFrancis' Asian language instructional system laid the foundation for today's foreign language program at UHM.
1926 PIcture of UH, with Hawai'i Hall on the right of the quad. George Hall, which was used as the university library and also housed the Oriental Instiute, is in the upper left of the quad. Gartley Hall was positioned facing an athletics field, now built over the by the Campus Center. Note the agricultural fields facing Hawai'i Hall to the south and ringing the campus. The exhibit organizers are grateful to Edythe U. Kaanapu for her suggestion of this photograph and information about the early campus. Mahalo!
Page updated
Report abuse