To celebrate the 101^st founding anniversary and commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the passing of President Mei Yi-chi, NTHU invited the descendants of six Tsing Hua Grandmasters from mainland China and presented a forum to commemorate the Grandmasters on April 29^th. Through such a forum where the descendants recollect the life stories of their forebears, we hope that all Tsing Hua persons will have a chance to familiarize themselves with the important works and contributions that these grandmasters had made during the early days of Tsing Hua University.

President Lih J. Chen opened the forum by quoting President Mei Yi-chi who once said that "the greatness of a university is not in her building, it is on the persons of her grandmasters." President Chen also recalled the history of the establishment of Tsing Hua Academy of Chinese Study in 1925 and indicated that the founding of this Academy was actually a turning point in the developmental history of Tsing Hua as a whole. With the establishment of this Academy, Tsing Hua was transformed from a prep-school where students planning to go to the U.S. prepared themselves before going abroad to that of a true university with a comprehensive undergraduate curriculum and unique research strength. President Mei, then working as the Dean of Academic Affairs, was instrumental in this important developmental process. He recruited many accomplished scholars to join the rank of Tsing Hua faculty and within a short while transformed Tsing Hua to a power house of Chinese studies and a premier university in China. Thus, when Tsing Hua celebrated her 30^th anniversary, she was praised as "having accomplished what foreign universities took hundreds of years to accomplish within mere thirty years!" This history, President Chen emphasized, clearly demonstrated to all of us that the greatness of Tsing Hua stems from nowhere but her outstanding faculty members.

Tsing Hua Beijing has recently published a book, A Profile of Tsing Hua Grandmasters, to commemorate the academic accomplishments of these grandmasters. This book follows the principle of "not writing someone's biography while he/she is still alive," it profiles only those grandmasters who had passed away. Although NTHU is a younger institution, she has cultivated quite a few grand scholars and President Chen hopes that in due time we will publish A Profile of Grandmasters in Tsing Hua, Hsinchu to document the great accomplishments some of our colleagues have accumulated.

The forum of Remembering Tsing Hua's Grandmasters started with the 101 years old Ms. Wang Dongming, the daughter of the grandmaster of Tsing Hua's College of Chinese Literature, Mr. Wang Kuo-wei. She recalled her father, taught her how to read classic literature, and said, "Mencius has stories so it is somewhat interesting, but the Analects is really hard to understand." The great grandson of Mr. Wang Kuo-wei, Mr. Wang Liang, indicated that even though Master Wang was the grandmaster of Chinese literature, he actually studied physics while he was studying in Japan. He further stated "in Chinese, the term science (科學) could possibly be first coined by Wang Kuo-wei."

Mr. Wen Yiduo was the Dean of Tsing Hua's Department of Chinese Literature, his second son, Mr. Wen Lidiao (84 years old) shared his memory about his father; Master Wen loved classic literature since his youth and was determined to study Chinese literature in the future.

Ms. Wu Liming, the granddaughter of Tsing Hua's College of Chinese Literature instructor and Grandmaster of Culture, Mr. Liang Qichao, expressed that her grandfather was an educator and a great father, three of his nine children acquired the status of Academician. In addition, Master Liang wrote over 14 million words of literature, which indicated Mr. Liang Qichao's diligence and devotion to his discipline.

Ms. Shi Qiuming stated that her entire family has a very deep connection with Tsing Hua, as her father was the former professor of Tsing Hua Institution of Sociology, Mr. Shih Kuo-heng, and he was also the longest serving Chief Librarian of Tsing Hua University Library.

In addition, Mr. Chen Beichen recalled his childhood memory about his great grandfather, Dr. Li Chi, the instructor of Tsing Hua's College of Chinese Literature and the father of Chinese Archeology, that he was stern towards his family. However, when Mr. Chen was organizing Prof. Li's data, he soon discovered that his great grandfather was passionate towards archeology and Chinese pre-history.

Mr. Xia Zhengyan, the son of another renowned Chinese archeologist, Master Xia Nai, pointed out that his father began writing diary on the day he start attending Tsing Hua and continued as long as he was alive. Mr. Xia also mentioned that his father originally wished to study in the field of science but then chose archeology as his lifelong profession.

Lastly, one of the editors of A Profile of Tsing Hua Grandmasters, Mr. Zhou Wenye, the son of the former Director of Tsing Hua's Department of Psychology, Master Zhou Siegen, used visual materials to introduce Tsing Hua grandmasters, and thereby shortened the distance between the grandmasters and their admirers.