Chan Ying 1916–1998

Tang Studies 17 (1999) CHAN YING 1916-1998 Elling O. Eide While still regretting the loss of the witty and prolific Li Po scholar P'ei Fei HH, I now have the sad duty to report that Chan Ying M®k, tzu Chen-wen M~X, the dean of China's Li Po scholars, died of heart and kidney failure in a Tientsin hospital at 8:15 a.m. on 16 December 1998. Chan Ying was born in Liao-ch'eng fp=$ County, Shantung, on 16 June 1916. He is survived by his second wife Hsieh Tao-yii Wft^M and four children: a son Ch'ing-hsiian BM and a daughter Hsiao-Ian Mffli by his first wife, and two sons, Ch'ing-su M.M and Ch'ing-k'ang MM, by Hsieh Tao-yu. Ch'ing-su, married with one son, is a computer scientist in Atlanta. The other children remain in China. Chan Ying entered Peking University in 1934 to study in the Department of History, but in 1935 switched to the Department of Chinese Literature, where he studied the history of Chinese literature under H u Shih ffiM and linguistics under Lo Ch'ang-p'ei Mlgig. When the Japanese overran China, he, like his university, fled to the Southwest, where he received his A.B. degree in 1938 from Peking University in exile. During the 1940s, Chan Ying taught at several colleges and universities in China, first as an instructor, then as a professor, earning sufficient respect to win a Chinese government scholarship that enabled him to come to America in 1948 for further study. In 1949, he received a Master's degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California, where he also taught a Chinese language course in the Department of East Asian Studies to earn money to replace his scholarship funds, which vanished with the fall of the Kuomintang. That same year he transferred to the more practical field of Educational Psychology, earning another Master's degree in 291 Chan Ying Necrology 1950. From the fall of 1950 to 1953 he attended the Teachers College of Columbia University, receiving a Ph.D. in Education. Returning to China following receipt of his Ph.D., Chan Ying taught first as an associate professor of psychology at Tientsin Normal College; by 1961 Tientsin Normal College had become Hopei University, and Chan Ying had become an associate professor of Chinese literature. By 1978, he was a full professor, and by 1981 he was also a member of the State Council's Group for a Program to Edit Classical Texts. For the 1983-84 academic year, he was back in the United States as a Luce Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, where Shigeyoshi Obata had done his graduate work in English. During his remaining years at Hopei University, Chan Ying served as Director of Doctoral Dissertations (a highly honored position in China) and as Director of the Institute for the Retrieval and Collation of Classical Texts. He was also the founder and first president of the All-China Li Po Research Society, a permanent member of the board of directors of the All-China Society for the Study of T'ang Dynasty Literature, a permanent member of the board of directors of the AllChina Society for Study of the Wen-hsin tiao-lung JcfoffiW., and a member of the board of directors of the All-China Society for the Study of Ancient Literary Theory. Among the works for which he is best known, one may note: Li Po shih-lun ts'ung ^ S e t t l e (Peking: Tso-chia, 1957). Li Po shih-wen hsi-nien &&%$3c9%*z (Peking, Tso-chia, 1958). T'angshih mm (Shanghai: Shang-hai ku-chi, 1979). Liu Hsieh yii Wen-hsin tiao-lung §\mm3c>bMM (Peking: Chung-hua, 1980). Wen-hsin tiao-lung tefeng-ke hsiieh ^C'DHSi^Mt&^ (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsiieh, 1982). Wen-hsin tiao-lung i-cheng ir^DHIffiasffi (Shanghai: Shang-hai ku-chi, 1989). 292 Tang Studies 17 (1999) Li Po ch'iian-chi chiao-chu hui-shih chi-p'ing 3&&ikM&&.^1$&W, 8 vols. (Tientsin: Pai-hua wen-i, 1996). Chan Ying is buried...