|
CHINA> National
![]() |
|
Ji Xianlin, the reluctant master
By Xiao Dao (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-13 09:08 Premier Wen Jiabao visited Beijing's No 301 Hospital on Saturday to pay his respect to a very dear friend. Unfortunately the Premier was unable to offer his last goodbye in person. Ji Xianlin, dubbed by many as the "master of Chinese culture" had died three hours earlier of heart attack. He was 97. Premier Wen said he had planned to celebrate Ji's 98th birthday next month and was looking forward to discussing many different issues.
Ji's wise counsel was always in big demand over his 70-year academic career. He was one of China's greatest scholars of history, ancient languages and culture. Ji repeatedly asked the media to stop calling him a "maestro in traditional Chinese culture" but despite the protests, the "master" title stuck.
According his students and colleagues, China's academic giant was always an amiable old man who wore bleached khaki suits, soft cloth shoes, and carried an old-fashioned schoolbag. They also remember his utmost respect for people, his humility and his tenderness for little animals, especially cats. Ji spent his last moments in No 301 hospital, Beijing, with his son Ji Cheng accompanying by his side. "Ji's leaving is the ending of an era," says Zhao Rengui, professor of Beijing Normal University. "There are fewer and fewer masters accomplished like him nowadays." Son to an impoverished rural family in Linqing, Shandong province, Ji was admitted to Tsinghua University in 1930 and majored in Western literature. Five years later he went to Gottingen University in Germany as an exchange student, majoring in Sanskrit and lesser-known ancient languages like Pali. He would spend more than 10 years in Germany and received his PhD in 1941. In Germany, Ji met Irmgard, his friend's landlord's daughter, who helped him type his dissertation, because he could not afford a typewriter. The two soon fell in love but Ji was already married in China and made the hard decision to give up the relationship and returned to China in 1946. In his book Ten Years in Germany (Liude Shinian), he wrote of the relationship. When he re-visited Gottingen in 1980, he tried to find Irmgard but failed. In 2000, a Hong Kong reporter, who was making a documentary of Ji, went to the city and found the lady, who was still single. The typewriter she used to help Ji was still on her desk. |
主站蜘蛛池模板: 于都县| 哈尔滨市| 定陶县| 潼南县| 广宁县| 盱眙县| 分宜县| 固镇县| 白城市| 乌兰县| 江川县| 连城县| 吴忠市| 偏关县| 四会市| 子长县| 辉南县| 泽普县| 安徽省| 巴楚县| 西平县| 江陵县| 襄樊市| 海门市| 常德市| 通海县| 霞浦县| 登封市| 电白县| 伊通| 祁连县| 新巴尔虎右旗| 永年县| 平凉市| 绥宁县| 三门峡市| 德昌县| 思南县| 图们市| 城市| 祁连县| 鹤岗市| 柏乡县| 修武县| 湖北省| 白玉县| 神池县| 霍山县| 浑源县| 孝义市| 文山县| 兴仁县| 铜陵市| 马尔康县| 灵璧县| 大邑县| 墨竹工卡县| 绥江县| 五台县| 江门市| 香港 | 海口市| 济南市| 建湖县| 金溪县| 得荣县| 饶阳县| 黄浦区| 宝山区| 西和县| 双江| 保康县| 桑植县| 松原市| 资兴市| 彰化县| 舞钢市| 和硕县| 尖扎县| 新沂市| 津市市| 南陵县|