Zhou Fengwu, renowned scholar, beloved teacher, Taiwan's foremost paleographer, and life and soul of the party at countless drinking bouts across the Taiwan Strait, passed away on November 19, 2015, at the age of 69.Footnote ¹

Zhou was born in 1947 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, after his family emigrated from Mainland China following the end of World War II. He received an artistic education at a young age; his father was a protégé of the eminent Zhang Daqian 張大千 (1899–1983) and an artist and calligrapher in his own right. At National Taiwan University (NTU), where he completed all of his degrees, all in Chinese literature, he studied under the scholars Qu Wanli 屈萬里 (1907–1979), Kong Decheng 孔德成 (1920–2008), Tai Jingnong 臺靜農 (1902–1990), and Jin Xiangheng 金祥恆 (1918–1989), and belonged to a generation of NTU students that would become known for their expertise on the Confucian classics and other pre-Qin texts, including Ye Guoliang 葉國良 (the ritual classics) and Huang Peirong 黃沛榮 (Book of Changes and the Yi Zhou shu).Footnote ² Zhou himself wrote his Master's thesis on the controversy surrounding the authenticity of the “ancient script” chapters of the Book of Documents, and a Ph.D. dissertation on the military stratagems Liu tao 六韜.Footnote ³ Upon completion of his degree in 1978, he began teaching at his alma mater, and was to remain there until just weeks before his death, thus fulfilling a wish, once expressed to a close student, “to die at the podium.”

Figure 1.

(colour online) Zhou Fengwu at a conference in Taipei, summer 2010.

For Zhou, National Taiwan University was a place laden with legacy and personal memory. The talks of Fu Sinian 傅斯年 (1896–1950), its one-time chancellor, brought tears to his eyes on more than one occasion. Among the courses that he regularly offered were the Chinese writing system, calligraphy, philological methods, Book of Documents, Songs of the South, as well as graduate seminars on Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, Warring States paleography, newly excavated corpuses from Baoshan 包山, Guodian 郭店, Shanghai Museum, and Tsinghua University, also Dunhuang studies. Like all other professors in the Department of Chinese Literature, he was a regular instructor in general education courses on reading and composition for freshmen. These courses provided a somewhat larger stage for Zhou and allowed him to attract many students who began their studies in non-Chinese disciplines.

As reported by his one-time student the Malaysian-Taiwanese writer Ng Kim-chew (Huang Jinshu 黃錦樹), Zhou was creative in his instruction. Besides regularly asking students to translate from Classical Chinese into the modern vernacular, and vice versa, a favorite tactic was to direct them in performing some of the more dramatic narratives while providing humorous voiceovers. An even more vivid portrait comes from another former student, now a musician. One week into the first term of his freshman year, the student was disappointed by the drudgery of college life. As he sat in the first meeting of his reading and composition class, he harbored thoughts of dropping out of school and concentrating on his band. He was at the same time immediately captivated by Zhou. After class, the student approached Zhou and described his plan. “Why? What happened?” Zhou was surprised. As the student elaborated, this is how Zhou reacted:

An indication more of his charisma and empathetic understanding than any transcendent wisdom, these remarks were what the student needed. “Since that day, whenever I had a difficult choice to make or was faced with a major challenge, I often thought about what Professor Zhou said to me.… The class changed my life.”

* * *

The 1970s was the decade when archaeological work in Mainland China resumed after the hiatus of the Cultural Revolution, and also the period in which Zhou came of age as a scholar. Tension was high across the Taiwan Strait. Though communication was not completely blocked, one had to work through layers of bureaucracy or look for various “unofficial” channels in order to access the books and articles reporting the latest archaeological finds. Zhou often regaled his students with tales of those years, including the first steps to reach out to scholars from the Mainland as relations gradually improved. Yet even as someone who was always extremely keen on tracking the latest discoveries, whether a bronze basin of the Western Zhou or an inscribed halberd from the Warring States, he would never have thought that one day there would be so many excavated texts to be read and deciphered. Nor would he have guessed, as he hunched over his desk poring over ink rubbings of the Han and Wei stone classics, that the “Metal-bound Coffer” and several of the so-called “ancient script” texts from the Book of Documents would be unearthed in the final years of his life.

It is, after all, the combination of interests in the received literary record and newly excavated texts that I believe sets Zhou apart from his contemporaries, not only on Taiwan but also Mainland China. While the value of the received tradition is accepted by every scholar who has any experience making sense of the new sources, few have been able to combine a deep understanding of the intricacies of the Confucian classics with creative insights about every aspect of the paleographical documents, as Zhou did. In this he resembled Geza Vermes, James L. Kugel, and other scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls, who emphasize the placement of the new discoveries in the context of the Jewish literary tradition as a whole. For Zhou, this meant the Warring States, Qin, and Han sources which inform one's reading of the Confucian classics, but also the various ancient commentaries from Han to Tang, coupled with an acumen and sophistication exemplified in the best of Qing scholarship. In this way, the new sources take on a significance that goes beyond just supplying raw data and adding to one's understanding of the linguistic and historical knowledge of the past. Rather, they are placed right at the center of some of the most crucial and long-lasting debates in Chinese intellectual history. Never content with finding a single “correct” solution for the various thorny problems of decipherment and reading, Zhou recognized the fundamental similarity between present-day scholarship and the works of Zheng Xuan 鄭玄, Liu Xiang 劉向, and other ancient scholars, and he sought to understand the dynamic and historic processes that inform any interpretive decision, seeing his own work as adding to, not undermining, those processes.

One example of this approach is his study of the Tsinghua University manuscript “Bao xun” 保訓, particularly the character zhong 中 that appears several places therein and that has attracted so much scholarly attention.Footnote ⁴ While the character itself is unproblematic graphically, the word that it represents can have any number of meanings, including “middle way,” “documents related to litigation,” “standard,” “inner heart,” “flag,” and “fate.” Rather than simply choosing the most plausible meaning from amongst this pool of candidates, Zhou asks the deeper question of what permitted these different meanings to arise. In so doing, he does not immediately connect the word with the “Zhong yong” 中庸, as many do, but makes the more subtle point that a text such as the “Bao xun” could have been used and adapted to justify the kind of conceptualized usage found in that celebrated Confucian classic. Such an observation points to something quite profound about the relation between language and thought. For any given character, the very nature of the writing system permits a range of orthographic choices, each with its corresponding meanings. To the extent that these different meanings were exploited by authors and thinkers to make different philosophical statements, language and writing were never separate from thought, and they can even be said to provide the key to understanding some of the most important shifts in textual exegesis and intellectual thought throughout Chinese history.

Besides the “Bao xun” and the Tsinghua corpus, the anecdotal literature in the Shanghai Museum corpus was Zhou's main preoccupation for several years. These include the “Jian dawang bo han” 柬大王泊旱, “Zhaowang yu Gong Zhisui” 昭王與龔之脽, “Zhuangwang ji cheng” 莊王既成, “Shengong chen Lingwang” 申公臣靈王, “Pingwang wen Chen Shou” 平王問鄭壽, “Pingwang yu Wang Zimu” 平王與王子木, among others.Footnote ⁵ All are stories concerning historical figures from the Chu of the Warring States. Although the difference in time is not great between when these manuscripts were written and the period that they purportedly describe, compared with many texts from the Tsinghua corpus, they present no less of a challenge, since the content can range from divination to ritual, from diplomatic maneuver to political intrigue. Whereas most scholars are content with analyzing a single character or a single statement, Zhou emphasizes a comprehensive understanding of any text, which he then proceeds to translate into the modern vernacular. It will be years before the significance of these studies is fully appreciated and comprehended. At a time when similar anecdotes continue to appear in large numbers, and when the general level of understanding is on the decline, Zhou's approach provides a model for future work. Above all, his reading is driven by a willingness to see the new discovery as a text every bit as rich, nuanced, and intellectually significant as a document from the Zuo zhuan 左傳 or other Confucian classics.

For this author, however, Zhou's most important work remains his study of the Guodian manuscripts, which are to this day the only provenanced corpus of literary and philosophical texts from the Warring States. Zhou outlines his approach in his magisterial “Guodian zhujian de xingshi tezheng ji qi fenlei yiyi” 郭店竹簡的形式特徵及其分類意義 (The physical attributes of the Guodian bamboo slips and the significance of their division into categories).Footnote ⁶ Building on Wang Guowei's 王國維 (1877–1927) important insight that the length of bamboo or wooden slips could indicate different degrees of importance, Zhou attempts to offer a comprehensive analysis of the Guodian corpus, accounting for not only the physical attributes of the bamboo slips (their length, shape, the number of characters on each slip, the number of bindings, the distance between characters, as well as non-linguistic markers and ziti 字體 “character form,” which refers to both calligraphy and the structure of the characters), but also their contents.Footnote ⁷ This enables him to detect multiple textual layers in the corpus, similar to the distinction between “canon” and “commentary.” It also suggests several hypotheses about the relationship between Confucian and Daoist thought, arguably the central issue in Early Chinese intellectual history. To this day the project remains unsurpassed in its scope and ambition, and the countless insights sprinkled throughout the article continue to be important sources of inspiration. Though many of his contributions, including the famous observation that the script contains traces of non-Chu writing, are widely acknowledged by scholars,Footnote ⁸ and though his hypotheses concerning “physical attributes” can now be tested against more evidence, none has attempted such a comprehensive analysis on the Guodian or another corpus.Footnote ⁹

Many of Zhou's other insights about the Guodian corpus are scattered throughout a series of articles that appeared shortly after the publication of those manuscripts. One example is his identification of the character bao 暴 in the “Xing zi ming chu” 性自命出, which has now been verified by another appearance of the same character in the Shanghai Museum text “Cong zheng” 從政.Footnote ¹⁰ This resolves not only a thorny problem in the reading of the “Xing zi ming chu,” but also opened the door to comparing the “Xing zi ming chu” to the expansive ancient discourse on qi and self-cultivation. Another example is his reading of the reduplicative binome hanhan 顑頷 in the “Qiong da yi shi” 窮達以時, now confirmed by the “Gucheng Jiafu” 姑成家父.Footnote ¹¹ Since the word hanhan is widely featured in the Chu ci 楚辭, this reinforces the importance of this work for the reading of manuscripts that were, after all, discovered in or associated with the Chu region.Footnote ¹² Finally, there is his discussion of the coordinative conjunction ji 及, as seen in the “Zi yi” 緇衣. As previously noted by such scholars as Ōnishi Katsuya 大西克也, yu 與 is the coordinative conjunction of choice in the Chu region and more generally during the Warring States, whereas ji is rarely seen.Footnote ¹³ To account for the appearance of ji in the “Zi yi,” Zhou suggests, in a paper delivered to an audience at the Hong Kong Baptist University in 2012, that ji in both the “Zi yi” and the “Yin gao” 尹誥 from the Tsinghua University reflects a more archaic usage, not just “and,” but the more specific and more technical meaning, “to form an alliance with.” Such an interpretation draws on Zhou's previous work on the covenants from Houma 侯馬 and introduces an additional layer of meaning to the “Zi yi” and the “Yin gao” that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.Footnote ¹⁴ Many more examples can be cited. One only needs to take a look at his study of the “Xingqing lun” 性情論 from the Shanghai Museum and his observation about the linguistic parallels between human nature and external objects, on the one hand, and offense and defense in military stratagem, on the other, to see that his creativity is boundless, and his command of the textual sources total.Footnote ¹⁵ In all of these cases, his scholarship exhibits a narrowing tendency in that he is able to specify a solution for a problem and brush aside all unnecessary complications. In so doing, however, he also broadens the scope of the inquiry and allows a paleographical text to make connections with preexisting scholarly contexts, whether linguistic, historical, or philosophical. In this way, the new source and indeed any textual source takes on a life of its own, and reminds one that the act of excavating a text is always an ongoing project.

Much of Zhou's scholarship takes the form of the commentary, a line by line analysis that is a direct continuation of traditional, particularly Qing scholarship. Though it may seem outmoded at times, the commentary proves an effective carrier of information, and it underscores Zhou's approach to the new sources as whole texts, not individual words and characters, not statements of grand philosophical positions. And readers will be surprised by the insights and kernels of truth hidden therein, representing years of learning and experience. An example is his decipherment of a semantograph from the inscription on the 43rd Year from the Yangjiacun 楊家村 cache, frequently seen in the literary record as the phonogram xie 渫. Zhou reads the character as she 攝 and identifies in it a somewhat technical usage of a low-rank official occupying a higher rank. What appears at first glance a footnote is instead a detailed account of a basic institution of Western Zhou bureaucracy.Footnote ¹⁶

* * *

Outside of Taiwan, Zhou is best known as one of the instructors of the First Creel Paleography Workshop (2000), together with Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭, Wang Bo 王博, and his spouse Lin Suqing 林素清, and also the keynote speaker of the 2008 Creel Paleography Conference, both at the University of Chicago, where he was also visiting professor from 1998 to 1999 and in fall 2003. Together with Edward L. Shaughnessy and Chen Wei 陳偉, he inaugurated the Chicago–Wuhan–NTU International Forum on Bamboo and Silk Documents. While Wuhan provided channels of access to the primary sources and Chicago the financial resources, Zhou added his charisma and instant credibility. This proved a winning formula as the forum ran for three consecutive years in 2006, 2007, and 2008, and helped to initiate a whole generation of scholars into the field. With Zhou's passing, however, the opportunity for further collaboration is forever closed.

For those who were fortunate to have ever attended an academic meeting with him, few will fail to remember the drinking bouts, which have become legendary across the Taiwan Strait. I suspect this is how most people will remember him: the ruddy complexion, the complete abandon, and did I neglect to mention the fun? Thus Liu Zhao 劉釗 reports how Zhou cajoled the otherwise tee-totaling Li Jiahao 李家浩 into emptying a glass. And no smaller feat was his enticing an austere Ōnishi Katsuya to break into a song. If there was no alcohol, no problem. I recall an evening spent at the home of Ethan Harkness and his family. Zhou enjoyed playing with Ethan's then toddling son so much that he bent over and allowed him to walk up his back.

Zhou had an unusual penchant for puns and language games. While shopping for books with Liu Zhao, he overheard the Fudan scholar's question to the female store clerk about whether any youhui 優惠 “discount” was to be had, and quipped: “Is it not a bit forward to ask for a youhui 幽會 ‘secret rendezvous’ on your first meeting?” Asked to find a Chinese name for an American classmate surnamed “Squire,” a young and wickedly mischievous Zhou tricked the “good boy” into adapting “Shi Guai'er” 史乖兒. And here is my personal favorite: having heard the Cuban folk song “Guantanamera,” Zhou found the title to sound like guan ta de 管他的 “the hell with it,” and for a long time “Guantanamera” was his response to bureaucracy and other nuisances.

Zhou leaves behind an enduring legacy. Former students now occupy academic positions at National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University, National Sun Yat-sen University, Fudan University, East China Normal University, and Academia Sinica, both the Institute of History and Philology and the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy. Their research spans the fields of paleography, intellectual history, Classical Chinese grammar, natural philosophy and occult thought; the diversity of these subjects attests to Zhou's versatility and his willingness to let each student develop in his or her own way. In his final years he directed several students to work on earlier and somewhat neglected discoveries, including the Warring States administrative records from Baoshan 包山, the tablet with the prayer by Yin 駰 from the state of Qin, the manuscripts from Shuihudi 睡虎地, and Western Zhou bronze inscriptions. These projects, too, will slowly but surely bear the fruits that Zhou envisioned for their authors. If there is one thing that binds his students, it is their special bond with him. Pham Lee-moi (Fan Limei 范麗梅) tells me that she sometimes thinks Professor Zhou has not really passed on, and that he is merely feigning death in order to read and study undisturbed. She imagines walking down a street in Taipei one day and running into him, only for him to disappear as quickly as he had appeared.

Zhou's demise signals the end of an era. He was the last of a generation of scholars to be completely immersed in traditional literary culture, the last to approach his scholarship with all the savviness and leisure of a dilettante. At a time when the brightest young minds were choosing engineering, medicine, law, and other technocratic vocations, Zhou gave himself to the classics and paleography, and he thrived thanks to his unique intelligence and personality. No doubt the scholars following in his footsteps will be able to build on his contributions, refine them, and appreciate their significance as a product of his time, the historical transition to a modern and liberal society on post-WWII Taiwan. But such critical distance also implies a gap that will never be closed.Footnote ¹⁷

I will end this piece with a poem composed by the Taiwanese writer Chang Ta-chun (Zhang Dachun 張大春). Known for the novel Wild Kids and such acclaimed short stories as “The General's Monument,” Chang is also a savant of Classical Chinese literature and a good friend of Zhou's. The following comes from a piece that Chang circulated on the Internet shortly after Zhou's passing. According to the author: