Tsien Tsuen-hsuin
Tsien Tsuen-hsuin | ||||||||||||||||
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錢存訓 | ||||||||||||||||
PhD ) | ||||||||||||||||
Spouse |
Hsu Wen-ching
(m. 1936; died 2008) | |||||||||||||||
Children | 3 | |||||||||||||||
Scientific career | ||||||||||||||||
Fields | Chinese bibliography, history | |||||||||||||||
Institutions | University of Chicago (1947–78) | |||||||||||||||
Chinese name | ||||||||||||||||
Hanyu Pinyin | Qián Cúnxùn | |||||||||||||||
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Tsien Tsuen-hsuin (
Early life
Tsien was born on January 11, 1910
Tsien began his education with a private tutor in 1916, and then entered Taixian No. 2 Senior Elementary School. He became active in political agitation when he was a student at Huaidong High School (now
Career and contributions
Tsien entered
In 1941, war with the United States meant that this group of books and manuscripts would no longer be safe even in Shanghai. Tsien packed some 30,000 of them for shipment to the United States for safekeeping. In order to evade Japanese confiscation, he marked them as new books and waited to ship them in small groups at times when he knew a friendly Chinese customs worker was on duty.[3] He later recalled "had the Japanese occupying forces discovered this subterfuge, and that I had personally been responsible in this task, I would most likely have been executed."[6] The Library of Congress microfilmed the collection to make it widely available.[3]
After the end of World War II, Tsien was sent to the United States in 1947 to manage the repatriation of these volumes. However, the Chinese Civil War precluded shipping the books and his own return to China. In the mid-1960s, the United States gave the books to Taiwan, where the Republic of China government had retreated after losing the civil war. They are currently at the National Palace Museum in Taipei.[3]
Tsien was especially concerned to build relations of cooperation between China and other countries. His master's thesis, "Western Impact on China Through Translation," was published as an article in 1954,[8][9] and the 1869 donation of books by the emperor in Beijing to the Library of Congress was the subject of a 1964 article.[10] His concern with scholarly communication between East and West led him to translate his English writings into Chinese and his Chinese writings into English.
Another major activity was encouraging the development of Chinese collections outside China and the promotion of librarianship as a profession.
In his nineties Tsien helped with the revision and proofreading for the 2nd edition of his Written on Bamboo and Silk, which appeared in 2004, and arranged for it to be translated into Chinese.[13]
Tsien died on April 9, 2015, in Chicago, at the age of 105.[1]
Family
Tsien's wife, Wen-ching Hsu (Chinese: 许文锦, 1916-2008), was one of the earliest teachers of Chinese at University of Chicago. She died in 2008. The couple had three daughters, Ginger Tsien (1936-2008), Mary Tsien Dunkel, and Gloria Tsien (b. 1940). Tsien's nephew, Xiaowen Qian, is an assistant to the curator for the East Asian Collection of University of Chicago.[1]
Honors and awards
Tsien received a Distinguished Alumni Award from University of Chicago and also from Nanjing University.[12] The National Library of China gave him the Distinguished Service Award in 1999. In 2007, Nanjing University established the T. H. Tsien Library in his honor. He donated thousands of books from his own collection to the library.[3]
Selected publications in English
- ——— (1952). "A History of Bibliographic Classification in China". The Library Quarterly. 22 (4): 307–324. S2CID 144623794.
- ——— (1954). "Western Impact on China through Translation". The Far Eastern Quarterly. 13 (3): 305–327. S2CID 156037140.
- ———; with Nunn, G. Raymond (1959). Far Eastern Resources in American Libraries. [Chicago]: [University of Chicago].
- ——— (1964). "First Chinese-American Exchange of Publications". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 25: 19–30. JSTOR 2718337.
- ——— (1975), "Current Status of East Asian Collections in American Libraries" (PDF), Journal of Asian Studies
- ——— (1985). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521086905.
- ——— (2011). Collected Writings on Chinese Culture. Chinese University Press. ISBN 978-9629964221.
- ——— (2013). Written on Bamboo and Silk : The Beginnings of Chinese Books and Inscriptions. University of Chicago Press. Edward Shaughnessy.
Notes
- ^ Tsien's date of birth is sometimes given as December 1, 1909, which stems from an alternative rendering of his birth date according to the Chinese calendar; Tsien occasionally used this date during his life.
References
Citations
- ^ a b c "Tsuen-hsuin "TH" Tsien". Chicago Sun-Times. April 12, 2015.
- ^ a b c Shaughnessy (2015).
- ^ a b c d e f Margalit Fox (April 19, 2015). "T.H. Tsien, Scholar of Chinese Written Word, Dies at 105". New York Times.
- ^ a b c Cheng (1987), p. 29.
- ^ a b c d e f 著名汉学家钱存训在美病逝 享年105岁 [Famous Sinologist Tsien Tsuen-hsuin dies in the United States at the age of 105]. China News (in Chinese). April 13, 2015.
- ^ a b T.H. Tsien Turns 100 Tableau Spring 2010
- ^ a b Cheng (1987), p. 30.
- ^ Tsien (1954).
- ^ Tsien (1975).
- ^ Tsien (1964).
- ^ Cheng (1987), p. 32.
- ^ a b Tsien (2011), p. xii.
- ^ Tsien (2011), p. xi.
Works cited
- Cheng, James K.M. (1987). "Fifty Years Embracing the Wall of Books: The Life and Career of Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin". Committee on East Asian Libraries Bulletin. 1987 (82): 29–38.
- Fox, Margalit (19 April 2015). "T. H. Tsien, 105, Dies; Scholar of Chinese Books Rescued 30,000 of Them". New York Times. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
- Shaughnessy, Edward L. (April 10, 2015), Obituary for Tsuen-hsuin (T.H.) Tsien (1909−2015), H-ASIA
Other sources
- von Falkenhausen, Lothar (2005). "Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginnings of Chinese Books and Inscriptions (Review)" (PDF). Technology and Culture. 46 (2): 410–411. S2CID 110519497.
- Roy, David Tod (1978). Ancient China: Studies in Early Civilization. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. ISBN 9622011446. A festschrift in Tsien's honor.