Ho Ping sung

Ho Ping-sung was a notable Chinese educator, writer and historian. He was born in Houxi Village, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province in 1890. In 1911, Ho graduated from Zhejiang Advanced College (浙江高等学堂, current Zhejiang University) in Hangzhou. In 1912, Ho went to the United States and studied mainly modern history, economics and international politics. Ho obtained his BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1915, and his MA from Columbia University in 1916. He then returned to China and became a professor at Zhejiang Advanced College, where he taught history and political science. He also participated in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, which sought to modernize China and resist foreign imperialism. He was a pioneer in the fields of historical linguistics, historical geography, and cultural anthropology, and made significant contributions to the study of ancient Chinese history and civilization. He was also a prolific writer who published many books and articles on various topics, such as the origins of Chinese writing, the development of Chinese philosophy, the history of Buddhism in China, and the impact of Western culture on China. He was a staunch advocate of democracy and human rights, and opposed the authoritarian regimes of both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. He was also a mentor and friend to many influential Chinese scholars, such as Hu Shih, Chen Yinke, and Qian Mu. He died of a stroke in Beijing in 1946, at the age of 56. He was widely respected and admired by his contemporaries and later generations, and is regarded as one of the most influential Chinese intellectuals of the 20th century.