CHAN WING-TSIT
CHAN WING-TSIT
陳榮捷
Chan, Wing-tsit 陳榮捷¹ (1901–1994), grew up in a small village in China during the fall of the Qing Dynasty. From these humble beginnings, it is no exaggeration to say he did more than any other to establish correct scholarship in Chinese philosophy in the United States. It is also clear from his life and work that he personally embodied the values he taught. Born before the digital age, few details of Chan's life are found online. This page shares what is known and welcomes further information.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Wing-tsit Chan was born on August 18, 1901, in a small village in Kaiping 開平, Guangdong Province, China. His village was one of seven, all Chans, which had stood in that location for some 800 years. Chan's family was among the poorest in the village.
Chan's father began work at age 16, first pounding rice locally, then venturing to Hong Kong, Saigon, and Bangkok as a carpenter, eventually becoming a foreman. Seeking better prospects, he traveled to the United States and established a laundry in Ohio. Returning to the village with his fortunes improved, helped to buy a house for his parents and married at 34. He continued to work in the states, visiting the village every four years, and had four children: an eldest son, two daughters, and Wing-tsit Chan, the youngest.
“You cannot describe our family as Buddhist or Daoist or Confucian. It was a typical Chinese family, with a traditional religion that included all the other religions.”
– Wing-tsit Chan, Excerpts from an Oral Autobiography
Growing up he was exposed to many philosophies and religions that were part of his family’s diverse passed down tradition. And Chan's mother was deeply religious. In a fantastic tale Chan recounts how as an infant he was “spiritually married” to be the child of two people who had died in early childhood, one being his uncle. At the age these deceased individuals would have wed, they bore a child—Chan himself. Thus, Chan's biological parents became his aunt and uncle. Yes, it is confusing.
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
Being bright, it was determined that young Chan would be prepared for the civil service examinations. There was but one school in his village, a traditional schoolhouse with a single hall of 15-20 boys where he was the youngest. He studied the traditional curriculum, covering the various Character Classics at age five, the Four Books at age six, and the Five Classics at age seven. From this we can gain insight into Chan’s later work: he was a native reader of Classical Chinese and the last generation to receive the traditional Confucian education which was standard from 1313 to 1905.
“It was decided that I should be prepared for the civil service examinations, so I went to the school I described for one year … learning the Three Character Classic 三字經 … the first sentence is 人之初性本善 (in the beginning, man’s nature is good). Then I went on to the Five Characters. Then, after that, we went to the Thousand Character Classic 千字文 … they are actually the one thousand most popular characters put in meaningful sentences.
And after that—I think that was at least a year—I went on to the Great Learning, and the Analects, and then the Mencius, and then the Doctrine of the Mean, exactly according to Zhu Xi’s order. By the time I got through all the Four Books 四書 I suppose I was seven or so. I memorized the Daxue from the beginning to the end, but not the others.
And after that we went to the Wuchang 五常, the Five Classics, beginning with the Book of Odes. And we went on to the Book of Changes, and the Book of Rites, and, finally, the Book of History, which is the most difficult.”
– Wing-tsit Chan, Excerpts from an Oral Autobiography
In this “audio biography” that was recorded in 1981–83, Chan goes on to tell the amusing story of how he was was still being prepared for the civil service examination even though that was officially abolished in 1905. “But in the village we didn't know, so I went on until I was about eleven.” As the interviewer Irene Bloom said, he was a born storyteller.
[Draft in progress, December 2024]
FOREIGN STUDIES AT LINGNAN
When news of the abolition of the state exam system finally reached his village at age eleven, he shifted focus to Western education at Lingnan Christian College 嶺南大學 in China, where he gained ability in English and familiarity with Western religion and philosophy.
“My professor once asked me: ‘Well, Wing-tsit, isn’t it about time that you considered your immortality?’ He was thinking of life in the next world. Well, I believe my reply to him was very Confucian. I said, ‘Well, I'm very, very busy with this life, and I'll think about that later on.’ That was my answer [laughs]. Well, that's about as much of the religion as I embraced.”
– Wing-tsit Chan, Excerpts from an Oral Autobiography
GRADUATE STUDY AT HARVARD
At age 23 he entered Harvard philosophy and completed his dissertation on Zhuangzi 莊子 under James Houghton Woods and William Ernest Hocking. [More here]
BACK TO CHINA AT LINGNAN
[Here]
AMERICAN PROFESSOR
Chan taught as a professor of Chinese philosophy for over 35 years (1929–1966) at Lingnan University, University of Hawaii, and Dartmouth College. He continued teaching another 15 years in retirement at Chatham College and as a guest at institutions across the nation. In the early years, he was one of only three tenured professors of Chinese background in America, and developed what was likely the first regular undergraduate Chinese philosophy course in America. He authored most of the encyclopedia entries on Chinese Philosophy and collaborated with Charles Moore from Yale on pioneering East-West philosophical conferences, lecturing with Bertrand Russell at one point.
GUEST PROFESSOR IN RETIREMENT
[Here]
TRANSLATOR
Later in life, in his 60s as China opened and source materials became more available, Chan published prolifically in both America and China. Having lamented the scarcity of correct knowledge in Chinese philosophy departments and the lack of a suitable textbook during his teaching in the United States, he dedicated ten years to create A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963), published when he was 62, which before his passing he made public domain.
He also published complete translations of individual texts: a Daodejing translation titled The Way of Lao Tzu (1963), the Buddhist classic The Platform Sutra (1963), Wang Yangming’s Instructions for Practical Living (1963), the Neo-Confucian anthology Reflections on Things at Hand (1967), and Chen Chun's Neo-Confucian Terms Explained (1986). He increasingly focused on Song Confucianism, as he explains below.
“But gradually my writings were directed more and more toward Neo-Confucianism and particularly to Zhu Xi. Not that my own interest had shifted, but because the development of American scholarship had advanced in that direction. I thought the time was ripe for me to write more on Neo-Confucianism and then later on Zhu Xi.”
– Wing-tsit Chan, Excerpts from an Oral Autobiography