The Best of Two Worlds

Yu-Tang Daniel Lew had a long and distinguished career as a diplomat, editor and professor. He served as consul general in Vancouver, minister in Brazil, and ambassador to New Zealand and at the United Nations. He also devoted many years to teaching-first at Tsing Hua University in Beijing in 1948, later at Mackinac College in Michigan in the late '60s and then at the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan from 1976 until his death in 2005. In 1974, he established the Sino-American Relations quarterly and was its editor-in-chief for all of its 30 years. A long admirer of Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Lew founded the Lincoln Society in 1984 to promote Lincoln's ideals of democracy among the Chinese. He also spent his final years teaching children the spirit of "Liang-zhi", espoused first by the philosopher Mencius. The oldest of six siblings, Dr. Lew was born on October 26, 1913 in Guangzhou, China. He attended Seattle's Broadway High School and obtained his doctorate at Harvard University. Married to Yalan Chang Lew, they had three sons.