Fang Chao-ying (Chinese: 房兆楹; pinyin: Fang Zhaoying) (1908–1985) was a Chinese-born American Sinologist, bibliographer, and historian of China best known for the contributions he and his wife,

Tu Lien-che Tu Lien-che (; 1904–1994), sometimes credited also to incorporate her married name Fang, was a distinguished bibliographer and historian of China. Early life and education Born in Yangliuqing as the daughter of scholar and calligrapher , she m ...

, made to the biographical dictionaries ''

Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period ''Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (1644–1912)'' (''ECCP'') is a biographical dictionary published in 1943 by the United States Government Printing Office, edited by Arthur W. Hummel, Sr., then head of the Orientalia Division of the Libr ...

'' (1943) and ''Ming Biographical Dictionary'' (1976). He spent his professional career primarily at libraries and universities in the United States. Columbia University in 1985 conferred degrees of Doctor of Humane Letters upon Mr. and Mrs. Fang. He became an American citizen in 1958.

Education and early career

He graduated from

Yenching University Yenching University () was a Private university, private research university in Beijing, China, from 1919 to 1952. The university was formed out of the merger of four Christian colleges between the years 1915 and 1920. The term "Yenching" come ...

in 1928, where he studied under

William Hung William Hing Cheung Hung (; born November 10, 1982) is a Hong Kong-born American motivational speaker and former singer who gained fame in 2004 as a result of his unsuccessful audition singing Ricky Martin's hit song "She Bangs" on the thir ...

. He studied at Wenhua College of Library Science (

Boone Library School Huachung University () was a Christian university in Wuhan, in China's Yangtze valley, originally called Boone University, was founded by the union of several Christian universities in 1924 and renamed Huachung in 1929. The university expanded unti ...

), in

Wuchang Wuchang is one of 13 urban District (China), districts of the prefecture-level city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, Hubei Province, China. It is the oldest of the three cities that merged into modern-day Wuhan, and stood on the right (southea ...

, China in 1932, and became assistant librarian there (1930–32) At Yenching he met

, who would become his wife and lifelong collaborator. The couple travelled to the United States for him to study at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. He worked at the Harvard-Yenching Library under Alfred Kai-ming Ch'iu. Arthur W. Hummel, Sr. at the Orientalia Division of the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

in Washington, D.C. then invited him to be chief assistant on

and the

Dictionary of Ming Biography A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for logographic languages), which may include infor ...

His later career was spent in university institutions:

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

beginning in 1955, at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

(1961–63) and from 1963 at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. In 1980, he delivered the

Morrison Lecture The George Ernest Morrison Lecture in Ethnology is given annually at the Australian National University in honour of George Ernest Morrison. The Lectures, founded by the Chinese community in Australia "to honour for all time the great Australian ...

on "The Great Wall of China: Keeping Out or Keeping In?" After retirement, he lived in New Jersey, then died in Beijing on a trip to do research in 1985.

William Theodore de Bary William Theodore de Bary ( zh, c=狄培理, p=Dí Péilǐ; August 9, 1919 – July 14, 2017) was an American Sinologist and scholar of East Asian philosophy who was a professor and administrator at Columbia University for nearly 70 years. De Bar ...

's obituary judged that "It is not too much to say that his name thereby became immortalized in the annals of Western Sinology as the co-compiler of two of the most monumental works of sinological scholarship that have ever been produced in this country."De Bary, W. (1986). "Chao-ying Fang (1908–1985)". ''The Journal of Asian Studies'', 45(5), 1127-1127. . At Fang's death, the historian

Jonathan Spence Jonathan Dermot Spence (11 August 1936 – 25 December 2021) was a British-American historian, Sinology, sinologist, and author specialised in History of China, Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 199 ...

's notice of appreciation said that as a graduate student he wrote to Fang to ask if he could spend a year in Canberra to study with him. Fang accepted him, and added that he sympathized with Spence's feeling of being "too English to be American and too American to be English." Fang said that he himself felt "proud to be Chinese with an American outlook", and hoped he had "selected in the way of life from both civilizations a little better than just an average."

Selected publications

*
Dictionary of Ming Biography
' * ---, Julia Ching, translate and ed.,
Huang, Zongxi, 1610-1695 The records of Ming scholars

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

Notes

References

* * * de Bary, William Theodore, Obituary: Chao-ying Fang (1908–1985), Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 45, no. 5, November 1986, p. 1127. * * * C. K. Yang. (1946). (Review) Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period., by Arthur W. Hummel. Pacific Affairs, 19(1), 109–112. https://doi.org/10.2307/2752226 * 1908 births 1985 deaths 20th-century Chinese historians Columbia University faculty Yenching University alumni {{China-historian-stub