Ye Jiaying at Nankai University
According to the obituary released on the official website of Nankai University, Professor Ye Jiaying, a renowned international educator, poet, and leading scholar of Chinese classical literature, passed away in Tianjin at 15:23 on November 24, 2024, at the age of 100. She was a chair professor at Nankai University, director of the Institute of Chinese Poetry Education and Classical Culture, senior member of the Central Research Institute for Culture and History, and academician of the Royal Society of Canada. Despite medical treatment, she succumbed to her illness.
Nankai University highlighted that Professor Ye Jiaying integrated profound traditional Chinese scholarship, exquisite Western learning, and deep life experiences to establish a distinctive poetic system centered on “inspiration and emotion.” She made unique and significant contributions to promoting tradition and cultural exchange while achieving a fusion of poetic exploration and personal cultivation. Dedicating her life to the study of Chinese classical poetry, she cultivated numerous talents in Chinese classical literature during her decades-long teaching career. She donated nearly all of her personal wealth to establish the “Ye Shi Tuo’an Scholarship,” the “Yongyan Academic Fund,” and the “Jialing Fund” to promote the research, inheritance, and development of Chinese classical literature.
Ye Jiaying graduated from the Department of Chinese Literature at Fu Jen Catholic University in 1945. She previously served as a professor at National Taiwan University, a visiting professor at Harvard University, Michigan State University, Columbia University, and a tenured professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
In the late spring of 1978, Ye Jiaying applied to return to China to teach. Her application was approved in 1979, and she began teaching at Nankai University.
According to an earlier report by China News, Ye Jiaying returned at her own expense and did not ask for any remuneration for her lectures. She believed that the country was poor and was willing to return without asking for a penny. Nankai University’s Department of Chinese Language and Literature arranged for her to teach Han, Wei, Southern and Northern Dynasties poetry. At 55 years old, she lectured twice a week in a large lecture hall that could seat about 300 students in the main building.
When she first started teaching at Nankai, the lectures were unprecedentedly popular. The classroom was packed, with students sitting on the steps and windowsills. Ye Jiaying had to navigate through the crowded room to reach the podium. Dressed in a blue Chinese-style top, she stood elegantly on the podium, exuding passion and speaking with a melodious Beijing accent, astonishing the students. A student recalled, “When Professor Ye stood on the podium, from her voice to her gestures and posture, everything was refreshing. We had never seen such beauty before.”
Reports stated that Ye Jiaying inherited the teaching style of her mentor, Professor Gu Sui, emphasizing “inspiration and emotion,” allowing her spirit to flow freely without relying on anything, and focusing on sharing heartfelt feelings. Her handwriting on the blackboard was also beautiful, with vertical rows of traditional characters written quickly as she spoke, captivating the students. Subsequently, word spread, and many students from other universities came to Nankai to audit her classes. The temporarily added desks and chairs were arranged up to the edge of the podium and the classroom door, making it difficult for Ye Jiaying to enter the classroom and step onto the podium at times.
The university had no choice but to implement a policy: only students with listening certificates could enter. However, this caused dissatisfaction among students from other institutions. A female student from Tianjin Normal University even carved a seal of the Nankai University School of Literature out of a radish to make a fake listening certificate. For a time, both real and fake listening certificates were in high demand, and every class was still packed with students sitting or standing on the stairs and walls.
Ye Jiaying lectured on poetry during the day and ci poetry at night, and the students were so engrossed that they refused to leave after class. Together with her students, she immersed herself in the world of poetry until the lights-out signal sounded. She wrote a poem: “Discussing poetry in the daytime, lecturing on ci poetry at night, my students and I share a passion that cannot be quelled. It’s hard to stop the lesson at the end, until the deep night’s horn is blown.” to describe the scene.
According to another report by Nankai University News, Ye Jiaying’s lectures on classical poetry covered various regions across China. In 1993, she was invited to serve as the director of the Institute of Chinese Classical Culture at Nankai University and donated half of her pension, about $100,000, to establish the “Tuo’an Scholarship” and the “Yongyan Academic Fund” to reward and encourage students. After settling in Nankai in 2015, Ye Jiaying felt a sense of urgency. In her small living room, she gave weekly lessons to students, helping them revise their papers word by word and sentence by sentence. Her hearing was not as good as before, so during class, students had to sit closer to her and speak louder.
In 2016, Ye Jiaying was 92 years old. For a scheduled lecture, she arrived in the rain, trembling as she stood on the podium with a loud and logically coherent voice. When talking about poetry, she smiled like a girl, showing no trace of the hardships she had endured in her life. Professor Ye politely declined a chair offered by a student midway and completed the 130-minute lecture standing.
Reflecting on her teaching experience, Ye Jiaying once said, “I have no other talents, but I love poetry and want to introduce the poetry I love to young people.” Based on this initial intention, in 2018, Ye Jiaying donated her wealth to the Nankai University Education Foundation to establish the “Jialing Fund” to continue supporting research on excellent traditional Chinese culture.
“If there is an afterlife, I would still be a teacher and continue to teach classical poetry. ‘The lotus seed has a heart and should not die; life is fleeting, but dreams are persistent.’ As long as I can still stand on the podium and lecture, I am willing to continue doing this work,” Ye Jiaying made a wish on her 90th birthday.
In 2019, at the event celebrating the 40th anniversary of her return to teaching in China, the 95-year-old Ye Jiaying reiterated her wish: “I am now 95 years old. Due to illnesses in the past two years, I dare not say that I will work hard anymore. But if I am fortunate enough to recover, I have one wish: to pass on the nearly lost art of reciting poetry to future scholars before I die.”
As a classical poetry teacher with over 70 years of teaching experience, Ye Jiaying felt somewhat apologetic to her early students. “In the past, I didn’t teach my students how to recite poetry. Chinese classical poetry was originally meant to be recited. Recitation is not singing or compiling a poem into a song; it truly has tones and rhythms, containing the author’s inner emotions. This inspiring and emotional power emerges with the sound. I hope that Chinese recitation will not be lost. I want to compile all the recordings of ancient and modern poetry that I have left behind, so that I can leave something for the country and future generations—the nearly lost art of reciting Chinese poetry. Otherwise, I would feel guilty towards both the ancients and future generations.”
At the academic seminar celebrating the 40th anniversary of Ye Jiaying’s return to teaching in China in 2019, the host Bai Yansong said, “Sometimes you have this feeling: when you talk about other things, we may seem far apart; but when we talk about poetry, we instantly become close. At this moment, you realize that what Professor Ye has done is not just about cultural inheritance; it is the glue that fills the cracks of this nation and the bridge that spans its divides. When you see many things in the distance that worry or unsettle you, just look back at Professor Ye, what she has done, and the poetry she has promoted, and you won’t feel anxious. As long as the culture remains intact, this nation will overcome any challenges.”