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FOREWORD IV

THROUGHOUT The Sage in the Cathedral of Books, the biography of Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee, Ms. Yang Yang, the author, has portrayed the many important experiences of Hwa-Wei’s life with her beautiful and eloquent writing.

Hwa-Wei, a man who was born in mainland China, grew up in Taiwan, and pursued his advanced degrees in the U.S., is a superlative intellectual possessing many Chinese traditional virtues including being family-loving and patriotic, self-effacing and persevering, hard-working and thrifty. Hwa-Wei has succeeded as an exemplary Chinese American on both personal and professional levels.

The stories about Hwa-Wei’s childhood are quite absorbing. Through them, the readers of his biography will get to know more about the misery and chaos of the wars endured in mainland China from the 1930s to 1949. The Lee family’s landing at the airbase in Hsinchu, Taiwan, in an air force transport plane is truly legendary.

The vividly narrated chapters on Hwa-Wei’s striving to create a life in the U.S. and to successfully blend into American society are inspiring. Prior to the 1950s, Asian immigrants were often unfairly treated in the U.S. Many Chinese Americans suffered racial discrimination, making their lives difficult. However, Hwa-Wei, only twenty-six when he arrived in this foreign country, soon won the love of Mary, an American girl. They were married in 1959 and have been happily living together for over fifty years—having recently celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary—and have been blessed with many children and grandchildren. They were also blessed with Hwa-Wei’s successful career. Shortly after his retirement from Ohio University as the dean of Libraries, Hwa-Wei was invited to work as the chief of the Asian Division of the Library of Congress and was thus able to extend his contributions to the field of librarianship.

I personally got to know Hwa-Wei in the 1990s. Back then, the National Commission of Education, now the Ministry of Education, had received a loan from the World Bank for a development program on teacher education. A total of 128 teacher colleges participated in this program. A series of trainings, involving library directors from these colleges, was arranged in order to meet one of the requirements of the World Bank loan. Due to his reputation and the success of his previous international exchange activities, Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee was hired as a foreign expert and conducted two fascinating library seminars: one at Northeast Normal University in 1995, and the other at Sichuan University in 1996. His book, Modern Library Management, was well-received at both seminars. As his full-time companion, I learned a lot from Hwa-Wei’s lectures and follow-up discussions. It was a pleasant and exciting experience that I still benefit from today.

Through this biography, we can learn more about Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee—his personal and professional growth, his development as an individual, and his achievements in the world of libraries.

Zhejiang Dong

Former Head of Library & Information Bureau

Department of Development and Planning

Ministry of Education

Beijing, China

September 2011