Lin Yutang

Lin was born in 1895 in the town of Banzai, Pinghe, Zhangzhou, Fujian.

His father was a Christian minister. His journey of faith from Christianity to Taoism and Buddhism, and back to Christianity in his later life was recorded in his book From Pagan to Christian (1959).

Lin studied for his bachelor's degree at Saint John's University in Shanghai. Then he received a half-scholarship to continue study for a doctoral degree at Harvard University. He later wrote that in the Widener Library he first found himself and first came alive, but he never saw a Harvard–Yale game.[2]

In financial difficulty, he left Harvard early and moved to work with the Chinese Labour Corps in France and eventually to Germany, where he completed his requirements for a doctoral degree in Chinese philology at the University of Leipzig. From 1923 to 1926, he taught English literature at Peking University.

Enthusiastic about the success of the Northern Expedition, he briefly served in the new Nationalist government, but soon turned to teaching and writing. He found himself in the wake of the New Culture Movement which criticized certain ancient traditions as feudal and harmful. Instead of accepting this charge, Lin immersed himself in the Confucian texts and literary culture which his Christian upbringing and English language education had denied him.[3]

His humor magazine The Analects Fortnightly (Lunyu Banyuekan, 1932–40, 1945–49) featured essays by writers such as Hu Shih, Lao She, Lu Xun, and Zhou Zuoren. He was one of the figures who introduced the Western concept of humor. In 1924, the term yōumò (幽默) was invented, a phono-semantic match with the English word humor. Lin used the Analects to promote his conception of humor as the expression of a tolerant, cosmopolitan, understanding and civilized philosophy of life.[4][5]

In 1933, Lu Xun attacked the Analects for being apolitical and dismissed Lin's elegant xiǎopǐn wén (小品文), or "small essays", as "bric a brac for the bourgeoisie". Lu Xun nevertheless continued to write for the magazine.[6]

Lin's writings in Chinese were critical of the Nationalist government to the point that he feared for his life. Many of his essays from this time were later collected in With Love and Irony (1940). In 1933, he met Pearl Buck in Shanghai, who introduced him and his writings to her publisher and future husband, Richard Walsh, head of John Day publishers.[7][8]

Lin's relation with Christianity changed over the years. His father was a second-generation Christian, but at Tsinghua, Lin asked himself what it meant to be a Christian in China. Being a Christian meant acceptance of Western science and progress, but Lin became angry that being a Christian also meant losing touch with China's culture and his own personal identity.

On his return from study abroad, Lin renewed his respect for his father, yet he plunged into study of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism and did not identify himself as Christian until the late 1950s.[9]

Lin Yutang House in Taipei

After 1935, Lin lived mainly in the United States, where he became a writer of Chinese philosophy and way of life.[10] Lin wrote My Country and My People (吾國與吾民) (1935) and The Importance of Living (生活的藝術) (1937) in English. Others include Between Tears and Laughter (啼笑皆非) (1943), The Importance of Understanding (1960, a book of translated Chinese literary passages and short pieces), The Chinese Theory of Art (1967). The novels Moment in Peking (1939), A Leaf in the Storm (1940), and The Vermilion Gate (朱門) (1953) described China in turmoil while Chinatown Family (1948) presented the lives of Chinese Americans in New York. Partly to avoid controversial contemporary issues, Lin in 1947 published The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo, which presented the struggle between Su Dongpo and Wang Anshi as parallel to the struggle between Chinese liberals and totalitarian communists.

Lin's political writings in English sold fewer copies than his cultural works and were more controversial. Between Tears and Laughter (1943) broke with the genial tone of his earlier English writings to criticize Western racism and imperialism.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lin traveled in China and wrote favorably of the war effort and Chiang Kai-shek in Vigil of a Nation (1944). American China Hands such as Edgar Snow criticized the works.[1]

Lin's Mingkwai Chinese typewriter played a pivotal role in the Cold War machine translation research.

Lin was interested in mechanics. Since Chinese is a character-based rather than an alphabet-based language, with many thousands of separate characters, it was difficult to employ modern printing technologies. However, Lin worked on this problem for decades using a workable Chinese typewriter, brought to market in the middle of the war with Japan.

The Mingkwai "Clear and Quick" Chinese-language typewriter played a pivotal role in the Cold War machine translation research.[11]

From 1954-55, Lin served briefly and unhappily as president (or Chancellor) of the Nanyang University, which was newly established in Singapore by Chinese business interests to provide tertiary education in Chinese studies in parallel with the English-medium University of Singapore. However, according to CIA agent, Joseph B. Smith, Lin clashed with founder Tan Lark Sye and the board of trustees on the direction of the new university. Smith quoted Lin as saying "They want to indoctrinate the students not only with a love of China."[12]

Further, the faculty rejected Lin's plans to demolish and rebuild the new school building (which though grand, was not "Western" enough), his demands to have sole control over finances, and a budget clearly beyond its means.[13] Lin accepted a dismissal fee of $305,203, entirely contributed by Tan Lark Sye, to prevent depleting the university's funds.

After he returned to New York in the late 1950s, Lin renewed his interest in Christianity. His wife was a devout believer, and Lin admired her serenity and humility. After attending services with her at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church for several months, he joined the church and announced his return to the faith.[9] His 1959 book From Pagan to Christian explained this move, which many of his readers found surprising.

With his facility for both Chinese and English idiom, Lin presided over the compilation of a Chinese-English dictionary, Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage (1972), which contains an English index to definitions of Chinese terms. The work was undertaken at the newly founded Chinese University of Hong Kong.

His works represent an attempt to bridge the cultural gap between the East and the West.[14]

He continued his work until his death in 1976. Lin was buried at his home in Yangmingshan, Taipei, Taiwan. His home has been turned into a museum, which is operated by Taipei-based Soochow University. The town of Lin's birth, Banzai, has also preserved the original Lin home and turned it into a museum.

Lin Yutang as pictured in The Most Recent Biographies of Chinese Dignitaries

Although his major books have remained in print, Lin was a thinker whose place in modern Chinese intellectual history has been overlooked.[15] Lin themed conventions have been organized in Taiwan and Lin's native Fujian, and in December 2011, the International Conference on the Cross-cultural Legacy of Lin Yutang in China and America was held at City University of Hong Kong, with professional and private scholars from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, the United States, Germany and Slovakia. The organizer of the conference was Dr. Qian Suoqiao, author of the book, Liberal Cosmopolitan: Lin Yutang and Middling Chinese Modernity (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2010).[16]

The first full-length academic study of Lin in English is Diran John Sohigian's "The Life and Times of Lin Yutang" (Columbia University Ph.D. diss., 1991). Jing Tsu's Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010) gives a detailed account of Lin Yutang in the context of late 19th century script reform, Chinese national language reform in the early twentieth century and machine translation research during the Cold War.

His wife, Liao Tsui-feng (廖翠鳳), was an author, who, along with her daughter Lin Hsiang Ju, wrote three cookery books which popularized Chinese cuisine in the English speaking world. Dr. Lin wrote introductions which explained the historical background and relevance for American life.

His first daughter Adet Lin Feng-ju (林鳳如; 1923–1971) was a Chinese-American author who used the pseudonym Tan Yun. Adet Lin later committed suicide by hanging herself.

His second daughter Lin Taiyi (林太乙; 1926–2003) was also known as Anor Lin in her earliest writing and had the Chinese name Yu-ju (玉如). She was an author and the editor-in-chief of Chinese edition of the Reader's Digest from 1965 until her retirement in 1988. She also wrote a biography of her father in Chinese (林語堂傳).

His third daughter Lin Hsiang-ju (林相如; born 1931), was referred to as Meimei in childhood. She was co-author of cookbooks with her mother, and was the head of the Department of Pathology, University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital Compound, in Hong Kong.

Works by Lin Yutang free online at Internet Archive are HERE.

• Gwoyeu Romatzyh

• Diran John Sohigian, "The Life and Times of Lin Yutang." Columbia University Ph.D. dissertation, 1991.
• Jing Tsu, "Lin Yutang's Typewriter," in Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora. Harvard University Press, 2010, pp. 49–79. ISBN 978-0674055407
• Suoqiao Qian. Liberal Cosmopolitan: Lin Yutang and Middling Chinese Modernity. Leiden: Brill, Ideas and History Series, 2011. 271p. ISBN 978-90-04-19213-3.
• Suoqiao Qian. Lin Yutang and China's Search for Modern Rebirth. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
• Rea, Christopher (2015). The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520283848.
• Jianming He, “Dialogue between Christianity and Taoism,” in Ruokanen, Miikka, and Paulos Zhanzhu Huang, eds. Christianity and Chinese Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2010), pp. 138–143.
• Liu, Shi-yee (2007). Straddling East and West: Lin Yutang, a modern literatus: the Lin Yutang family collection of Chinese painting and calligraphy. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9781588392701.
• Rain Yang Liu, “Lin Yutang: Astride the Cultures of East and West,” in Carol Hamrin and Stacey Bieler, eds, Salt and Light: More Lives of Faith That Shaped Modern China (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011), 158-175.
• Tsai, Yuanwei (2018). Patriotic Writer: Lin Yutang and His Political Views(1895-1945). Taipei: Yuan hua wen chuang Publications, Inc. ISBN 9789863939948.
• Ebeling, Richard M. "Lin Yutang, a Classical Liberal Voice for a Free China," American Institute for Economic Research, March 9, 2021

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lin Yutang.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Lin Yutang.

• Works by or about Lin Yutang at Internet Archive
• List of Lin Yutang's publications
• Lin Yutang Biography & Photograph Collection
• Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage
• Patent for Lin Yutang's Chinese typewriter
• The Lin Yutang House (Taipei)
• "History of a 'Scribal Machine'", The Harvard Gazette (April 2, 2009)

• Lin Yutang. A Portrait by Kong Kai Ming at Portrait Gallery of Chinese Writers (Hong Kong Baptist University Library).