In one corridor is a lifesize statue of a Chinese scholar, Yung Wing (容闳 Róng Hóng). The sculpture — a gift from Yung’s hometown of Zhuhai — depicts Yung as a young man, in the 1850s, when he spent many hours in the halls of an earlier Yale library on his way to becoming the first Chinese to graduate from an American university. He was still a student at Yale — beginning his junior year — on October 30, 1852, when he took the oath that made him a naturalized U.S. citizen: part of a career that saw him become an instrumental figure in the history of U.S.-China relations.
tirsdag 30. april 2024
From China’s Past: The triumphs and travails of China’s first American citizen
Yale University’s main research library, Sterling, is meant to evoke a Gothic cathedral. The main entrance doors open onto a nave, lighted through stained-glass windows, with the circulation desk where the altar might otherwise be. Although the architecture resembles a church, the iconography is secular, including statuary throughout the library.
In one corridor is a lifesize statue of a Chinese scholar, Yung Wing (容闳 Róng Hóng). The sculpture — a gift from Yung’s hometown of Zhuhai — depicts Yung as a young man, in the 1850s, when he spent many hours in the halls of an earlier Yale library on his way to becoming the first Chinese to graduate from an American university. He was still a student at Yale — beginning his junior year — on October 30, 1852, when he took the oath that made him a naturalized U.S. citizen: part of a career that saw him become an instrumental figure in the history of U.S.-China relations.
In one corridor is a lifesize statue of a Chinese scholar, Yung Wing (容闳 Róng Hóng). The sculpture — a gift from Yung’s hometown of Zhuhai — depicts Yung as a young man, in the 1850s, when he spent many hours in the halls of an earlier Yale library on his way to becoming the first Chinese to graduate from an American university. He was still a student at Yale — beginning his junior year — on October 30, 1852, when he took the oath that made him a naturalized U.S. citizen: part of a career that saw him become an instrumental figure in the history of U.S.-China relations.
