China Seminar | 13 April 2006

Chinese History Education in the Internet Age

Philip Tzann-Yeu Wang

A Chinese saying goes that if the right hand holds a book, the left ought to hold relevant graphics. Philip T. Y. Wang will help the China Seminar visualize, through digitally lively maps, two sets of events in Chinese history: 1. The Battle of Gaixia which won for Liu Bang the throne of Han China in 206 B.C. and was rhapsodized in the opera “Farewell My Concubine,” in which Xiang Yu of Chu bid farewell to his love after losing the battle; 2. The travels of China’s poet-sage Du Fu (or Tu Fu 712-770), known as wanlixing (ten-thousand-li travels), offering not only geographical itinerary but also the poetic landscape of voluntary or involuntary exile.

Philip Wang is Director-General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office of Honolulu. He holds a degree in Sinology from Fu-Jen University. Before assuming his post in Honolulu in 2005, he was posted at the home Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as to Atlanta, the Dominican Republic, and Washington, D. C. Active in Rotary Clubs in the cities where he is posted, Mr. Wang is married with two sons “taller than myself.” Philip Wang returns us to the tradition of the scholar-diplomat (Arthur Hummel, Hu Shih, George Yeh, Robert van Gulik) in the history of Chinese foreign relations.