Hu Shih (Simplified: 胡适, Traditional: 胡適, Pinyin: Hú Shì), (December 17, 1891-February 24, 1962) was a Chinese philosopher and essayist. His courtesy name was Shìzhī (適之). A picture of Hu Shih File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiǎntǐzì; also called 简化字/簡化字, jiǎnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; Hanyu Pinyin: , lit. ... December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1891 (MDCCCXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... February 24 is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... Chinese philosophy has a history of several thousand years. ... An essayist is an author who writes compositions which can be about any particular subject. ... Cha can also refer to a Latin American dance, also called the Cha-cha-cha. ...

Born Hu Hóngxīng (洪騂) in Shanghai to Hu Chuan (胡傳, courtesy name Tiehua 鐵花) and Feng Shundi (馮順弟), Hu's ancestors were from Jixi (績溪), Anhui. In January 1904, his family established an arranged marriage for Hu with Jiang Dongxiu (江冬秀), an illiterate girl with bound feet who was one year older than he was. The marriage took place in December 1917. Hu received his fundamental education in Jixi and Shanghai. Shanghai (Chinese: 上海 pinyin: (help· info); Shanghainese: Zanhe ), situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta, is Chinas largest city. ... Jixi is a city with more than a half million inhabitants in the Peoples Republic of China. ... Anhui (Chinese: 安徽; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: An-hui; Postal System Pinyin: Ngan-hui, Anhwei or An-hwei) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China. ... The bound feet of an adult woman Foot binding (纏足, 包腳, 裹小腳, or 紮腳) is a now obsolete Chinese custom, considered for centuries to be aesthetic, of producing very small feet in adult women through the application of tight bandage wrappings on the feet of young girls. ...

Having become a "national scholar", on August 16, 1910 Hu was sent to study at Cornell University in the United States and later Columbia University. At Columbia he was greatly influenced by his professor, John Dewey, and Hu became Dewey's translator and a lifelong advocate of pragmatic evolutionary change. He received his Ph.D in philosophy in 1917 and returned to lecture in Peking University. During his tenure there he began to write for New Youth journal, quickly gaining much attention and influence. Hu soon became one of the leading and influential intellectuals during the May Fourth Movement and later the New Culture Movement. He quit New Youth in the 1920s and published several political newspapers and journals with his friends. His most important contribution was the promotion of vernacular literature (Baihua) to replace classic literature (see Classical Chinese): the significance of this for Chinese Culture was great -- as John Fairbank put it, "the tyranny of the classics had been broken".¹ Cornell redirects here. ... Columbia University is a private university in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. ... John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thought has been greatly influential in the United States and around the world. ... 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Peking University 博学审问慎思明辨 Peking University or Beijing University (Simplified Chinese: 北京大学; Traditional Chinese: 北京大學; Hanyu Pinyin: ), colloquially known as Beida (北大, BÄ›idà). Established in 1898, it is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China. ... New Youth (新青年, pinyin: Xīn Qīngnián) was an influential Chinese revolutionary magazine in the 1920s that played an important part during the May Fourth Movement. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Students in Beijing rallied during the May Fourth Movement. ... New Youth (新青年, pinyin: Xīn Qīngnián) was an influential Chinese revolutionary magazine in the 1920s that played an important part during the May Fourth Movement. ... The 1920s were a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... Vernacular literature is literature written in the vernacular - the speech of the common people. ... Vernacular Chinese (白话 [白話]; in pinyin: báihuà, literal meaning: Plain Language) is a style of written Chinese which is based on Standard Mandarin. ... Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of very old forms of Chinese , making it very different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. ...

Hu was ambassador from the Republic of China to the United States of America (1938-1941)(Cheng and Lestz 1999, 373), chancellor of Peking University (1946-1948), and later 1958 president of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, where he remained until his death by heart attack in Nangang at the age of 71. He was chief executive of the Free China Journal, which was eventually shut down for criticizing Chiang Kai-shek. For other uses, see Ambassador (disambiguation). ... National motto: None Official language Mandarin Chinese Capital and largest city Taipei President Chen Shui-bian Vice President Annette Lu Premier Su Tseng-chang Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 138th 35,980 km² 2. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Alternate meaning: Chinese Academy of Sciences The Academia Sinica (中央研究院; Latin, Chinese Academy), headquartered in the Nangang district of Taipei, is the national academy for the Republic of China on Taiwan. ... A myocardial infarction occurs when an atherosclerotic plaque slowly builds up in the inner lining of a coronary artery and then suddenly ruptures, totally occluding the artery and preventing blood flow downstream. ... Nángǎng (Hanyu Pinyin) (Chinese: 南港, WG: Nan-kang, Tongyong Pinyin: Nangang) is a district of Taipei. ... Free China Journal (Chinese: 自由中國半月刊, pinyin: Zìyóu Zhōnggúo Bànyùekān) was a periodical that was published by the Republic of China government after its retreat to Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War. ... Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 – April 5, 1975) was a Chinese military and political leader who assumed the leadership of the Kuomintang (KMT) after the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925. ...

Wey Daw-ming (魏道明 Pinyin: Wèi Dàomíng; Wade-Giles: Wei Tao-ming, 1900 - May 18, 1978) was the first Governor of Taiwan Province (1947-1949) to replace Chen Yi, who was the governor general of Taiwan. ...

Footnotes

¹ Fairbank, John King (1979 (c1948)). The United States and China, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 4th edition, p. 232-233, 334.

Sample Work

Don't You Forget (translated poem)

Son,

Over twenty years I taught you to love this country,

But God tell me how!

Don't you forget:

It's our country's soldiers,

That made your Aunt suicide in shame,

And did the same to Ah Shing,

And to your wife,

And shot Gao Sheng to death!

Don't you forget:

Who cut off your finger,

Who beated your father to a mess like this!

Who burned this village?

Shit! The fire is coming!

Go, for your own sake! Don't die with me!

Wait!

Don't you forget:

Your dying father only wished this country conquered,

By the Cossacks,

Or the Prussians,

Anyone!

Any life ever worse than -- this !?

References

• "Hu Shih", in (1931) Living philosophies, New York: Simon & Schuster.

• Li [李], Ao [敖] ([1964-]). Biography of Hu Shih [Hu Shih p'ing chuan] [胡適評傳], Taipei [T'ai-pei shih] [臺北市]: [Wen hsing shu tien, Min kuo 53-] [文星書店, 民國53-]. Series : [Wen hsing ts'ung k'an 50] [文星叢刊 50].

• Yang, Ch'eng-pin (c1986). The political thoughts of Dr. Hu Shih [Hu Shih ti cheng chih ssu hsiang], Taipei, Taiwan: Bookman Books. in English.

• Chou, Min-chih (c1984). Hu Shih and intellectual choice in modern China, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472100394. Series : Michigan studies on China.

• Hu, Shih (c1934). The Chinese renaissance : the Haskell lectures, 1933, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (see online Resource listed below)

• Grieder, Jerome B. (1970). Hu Shih and the Chinese renaissance; liberalism in the Chinese revolution, 1917-1937, Cambridge [US]: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674412508. Series : Harvard East Asian series 46.

• Cheng, Pei-Kai; Michael Lestz (c1999). The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection, 373, New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company.

Resources

• "The Chinese Renaissance": a series of lectures Hu Shih delivered at the University of Chicago in the summer of 1933. (see print Reference listed above)
• "Dr Hu Shih Research": Dr Hu Shih Research