Who are we?
We are a group of 2nd and 3rd generation families and friends of the leaders of the Chinese language modernization. Most of us are busy working professionals in our daily lives, but we are spending time and resources to collect, investigate, and write to preserve this important piece of history. This is an ongoing effort, and this website will be updated with new content as we continue to make progress.
Personal Studies
I grew up in my grandparent’s house until I was ready to go to school. I knew that my grandfather was a Chinese language scholar; he was one of the major contributors to the “Modern Chinese Dictionary". Today, almost everyone in mainland China has a copy. Grandpa was the high school Chinese teacher for several of his brothers and sisters. He taught me and my cousins Pinyin before we started reading. When I was in elementary school, I would open up the “Modern Chinese Dictionary” to the page with my grandfather’s name on it and show it to my classmates proudly; they looked at me with admiration. However, Grandpa lived a very low-key and humble life, so I never thought of him as an extraordinary person.
Recently, after finally having room to breathe from my busy working and family life, my cousins and I realized it is our responsibility to record the extraordinary contributions Grandpa's generation made to the modern Chinese language. Why? His generation lived through the end of Qing Dynasty, the establishment of the Republic of China, the Japanese occupation, the S World War, the Chinese Civil War, the retreat of the Republic of China to Taiwan, the establishment of the People's Republic of China, and the Cultural Revolution. They experienced so many of the highs and lows of Chinese history. Unfortunately, many records, books, and resources were lost in battles and political turmoil.
After finding a few documents and photos left by my grandfather, we were lucky enough to connect with Mr. Peter Wang, the youngest son of Mr. Shoukang Wang. Mr. Shoukang Wang and Grandpa were colleagues on many occasions, and they were both students of Master Jinxi Li- one of the greatest modern Chinese linguists who invented Pinyin. They both worked on Chinese Daily, the daily newspaper for promoting the Mandarin language, and were early members of the "Chinese Dictionaries Compilation Bureau". Mr. Wang was invited by the then Taiwan province governor with a number of other young teachers to spread standard Chinese pronunciation to Taiwan. Please refer to Mr. Peter Wang's article "Professor Li's Disciples" for the story. We realized that Master Li, together with Mr. Wang, Grandpa and their students have made great contributions to the standardization and modernization of Chinese pronunciation and definitions. We feel greatly honored to be able to commemorate their hard work.
To give us a platform to collaborate with other people, we established a non-profit, tax exempt organization -- Case Studies of Chinese Language Reformers. The organization aims to collect, organize, and write about the people and events involved in Chinese language standardization and modernization. The organization was granted tax-exempt status in August of 2019, and we appreciate the difficulty of this endeavor. Most of the people who were involved in the early stages of this effort have passed away. However, we will do our best because we feel that this piece of history has far-reaching implications for modern Chinese culture and education.