1. Ch'ien Mu or Qian Mu was a Chinese historian, philosopher and writer.
20 Facts About Ch'ien Mu
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Ch'ien Mu is considered to be one of the greatest historians and philosophers of 20th-century China.
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Ch'ien Mu was from the prestigious Qian family in Wuxi, with his ancestor said to be Qian Liu, founder of the Wuyue Kingdom during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
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Ch'ien Mu received little formal education, but gained his knowledge on Chinese history and culture through traditional family school education and continuous self-study.
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At eighteen years old, Ch'ien Mu began his teaching career as a primary school teacher in his hometown.
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Ch'ien Mu continued teaching at several other universities, including Tsinghua University and Peking University, until 1937 when Peking was occupied by the Japanese army.
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In 1949, amid the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War, Ch'ien Mu moved to British Hong Kong at Chang Ch'i-yun's suggestion.
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Ch'ien Mu served as the president of New Asia College from 1949 to 1965.
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Ch'ien Mu resigned from presidency after New Asia College became a member college of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and moved to Ma Liu Shui.
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Ch'ien Mu then founded New Asia Middle School as a non-profit-making Chinese secondary school at the former campus of the college.
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Ch'ien Mu later received honorary doctorates from Yale University and the University of Hong Kong.
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Ch'ien Mu taught at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur before returning to Hong Kong.
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Ch'ien Mu relocated to Taiwan in October 1967 after accepting an invitation from President Chiang Kai-shek, in response to the 1967 Hong Kong riots.
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Ch'ien Mu was given land in Waishuangxi in the Shilin District to build his home Sushulou while continuing as a freelance academic researching and giving lectures at universities in Taiwan.
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On 1 June 1990, two Democratic Progressive Party politicians, Chen Shui-bian and Chou Po-lun, accused Ch'ien Mu of occupying public land as the nature of gifting the land for Sushulou by Chiang Kai-shek to a private citizen was deemed to be illegal.
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Ch'ien Mu died on 30 August 1990, a little less than three months after being forced to move out of Sushulou.
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Many of Ch'ien Mu's supporters condemned the practice Chen and Chou of using Ch'ien Mu for scoring political points against the Kuomintang.
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Ch'ien Mu wrote extensively on Chinese classics, history and Confucian thought.
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Ch'ien Mu was an extremely industrious and prolific scholar who had about 76 works published during his life, which exceeded 17 000 000 words in total.
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Ch'ien Mu was criticized for having invested in too many different academic fields.