Businessman Follows Ancestral Footsteps

By Wei Shuihua

August, 2009 saw a group of Taiwan college students and teachers trace the life of Zhu Xi (1130-1200), a great Confucian scholar of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), paying visit to places where the ancient scholar lived and lectured. They visited Fuzhou, capital city of Fujian Province, Youxi and the Wuyi Mountains also in Fujian and Geese Lake Academy in Jiangxi Province. The trip deepened Taiwan scholars understanding of the ancient scholar and his ideas. I went along with the group and talked with Zhu Maonan, the organizer and sponsor of the tour.

Zhu Maonan was the 30th-generation grandson of Zhu Xi. He was born in the 1940s in Shandong Province. In 1949, the family moved to Taiwan. He adjusted to the new environment fast. When he was to choose a major for his college education in the 1960s, he wanted to study history, as he was highly interested in literature and history. A conversation with his father changed his mind. The junior had wished to carry forward the scholastic banner of his ancestor and become a great scholar. His father said the Song Dynasty might need new ideas, but a modern society needed more than mere thought. After thinking about Taiwan, the ancient scholar and his fathers analysis, Zhu Maonan decided to study medication. He was a good scholar. Everybody thought he would become a doctor. But something happened and changed his mind.

At that time, some serious medical accidents happened in Taiwan. Some pharmaceutical companies were blamed for sub-quality drugs. He thought about the situation and decided to start his own pharmaceutical business.

His business has been successful. The company makes and provides quality drugs at very reasonable prices and does a great job in cracking down on bad quality drugs. He is one of the high-profile men behind the legislature for providing all-inclusive health and medical care in the island province. He was honored by Taiwan University, his Alma Mater, as one of the eight outstanding entrepreneurs cultivated by the university.

But the successful pharmaceutical tycoon still felt somewhat incomplete. The sense of uneasiness haunted him. He ascribed the feeling to his unfulfilled dream of becoming a great scholar and to the sense of honor running deep in the family. He later commented on this feeling, saying he felt bad about himself.

A chance event changed him again. In a business event, he happened to run into a group of descendents of Zhu Xi. He was greatly inspired. He dedicated himself to his latest cause. In 1982, he flew to Hawaii and attended an international seminar on Zhu Xi. At this seminar, he met with many fellow descendents from the Chinese mainland. It was a happy reunion. One of the positive results of the seminar was the establishment of the Wuyi Mountain Center of Zhu Xi Studies in 1982, for the ancestor had lived in the mountain for decades and eventually died there. Also in 1982, the Association of Zhu Xi Descendents was founded in Jianyang City, the birthplace of Zhu Xi.

In October, 1990, an international seminar on Zhu Xi in celebration of his 860th birthday took place in the Wuyi Mountain. A group of 20 Zhu Xis descendents from the Republic of Korea attended the seminar. China and Korea did not have diplomatic ties at that time. The group went through a lot of red tape before they were able to travel. The visit of the descendents from Korea opened a new chapter of relationships between descendents on the mainland with their counterparts in the rest of the world. Zhu Maonan and other fellow descendents in Taiwan did not attend the seminar, but they were thrilled by the success of the seminar.

After the milestone visit of the Korean descendents of Zhu Xi to the mainland, other overseas distant relatives followed each other to seek roots in Jianyang and the Wuyi Mountain. They came from Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States. On the Qingming Festival (a key occasion in early April in China when family members visit tombs and hold rites in memory of ancestors) in 1992, descendents of Zhu Xi in China and from overseas met in Jianyang and honored their common ancestor. At a gathering after the memorial, a proposal was put forward to set up a world association of all descendents of Zhu Xi. Mr. Zhu Changjun from Korea and the Korean Association of the Zhu Clan were charged of the task of setting up the association. In 1993, the association came into being with Zhu Changjun acting as its first president.

Eight years later the first president of the association stepped down because of poor health. Mr. Zhu Xiangnan of Malaysia succeeded to the presidency. Zhu Maonan served as vice president. In 2008, Zhu Maonan became the president.

Shortly after taking over the association, Zhu started the Zhu Xi Tour, a study visit to places on the mainland at his expenses. Applications flooded in from colleges and universities in Taiwan. The organization committee has specific rules for selection. The first qualification for teachers is they must be established scholars of Chinese learning so that they can give lectures on Zhu Xi and his scholastic achievement during the tour. As for students, only those in postgraduate courses of history and classic literature can qualify.

The tour is now two years old. Zhu Maonan wants it to be a regular summer tour in the hope of enhancing the image of the world association of descendents of Zhu Xi and of promoting the ties between Chinese studies on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. I heard Zhu Maonan repeat the remark on many occasions: “We have the same blood and the same ancestor. We are family. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should boost the ties through cultural and academic exchanges.”□