A Tribute to Xiamen University
on the Occasion of its Eighty-Fifth Birthday
by
Jeffrey S. Lehman
April 6, 2006
Xiamen University, we salute you!
Xiamen University is a great university. And at the age of eighty-five it has become old and wise. We all can learn from the wisdom of Xiada.
This morning I would like to admire Xiamen University, both as an active, living community of outstanding scholars and also as a symbol. I would especially like to recognize Xiamen University as a symbol of the intellectual benefits that come from crossing borders.
Think of the many ways in which the remarkable founder of Xiamen University, Tan Kah Kee, crossed borders over the course of his admirable life. We all know that he was a man of courage and vision. And I would emphasize that he was a man who was willing to cross borders and venture outwards. His life was characterized by exploration, discovery, and return.
Tan Kah Kee ventured forth from Fujian Province and moved to Singapore when he was only sixteen years old. At that time he thought he knew what lay ahead for him; he planned to work in his father’s store.
But that business ended thirteen years later, and Tan Kah Kee was forced to venture outwards again. He had to explore new businesses and discover his own strengths and aptitudes.
As everyone in Xiamen knows, Tan Kah Kee learned about rubber and manufacturing and milling and canning and real estate. He learned what it takes to move goods across borders in an export business. And he was successful. In only ten years, before he was forty years old, he had amassed a great fortune.
But Tan Kah Kee was not finished crossing borders. His activities enlarged again, beyond business to education. And those activities also spanned international borders. He supported education in Singapore. And he returned to Fujian Province to create and nurture his enduring legacy, Xiamen University.
A great transnational university, Xiamen University today engages in many activities that reach across national borders. Students come to Xiamen from around the world to study on this beautiful campus with inspiring teachers. Professors from Xiamen University go outward beyond China to share the fruits of their research and to collaborate with overseas colleagues. Most importantly, the ideas and discoveries of Xiada’s faculty, students, and graduates have influence worldwide. For example, when the great mathematician and Xiada graduate Chen Jingrun proved that every large even number can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers or as the sum of a prime number and a semi-prime number, that truth was a fundamental truth for the entire world.
Today we also know that great insights often cross the borders of intellectual disciplines. At Xiamen and around the world, psychologists and economists work together. So do biologists and computer scientists, poets and physicists. Ours is an age of interdisciplinary exploration and discovery. And just as Tan Kah Kee returned and brought the benefits of his discoveries back to Fujian, the benefits of interdisciplinary research are brought home to rejuvenate the center of traditional disciplines as well.
Xiamen University, we salute you. You are old and wise. You pursue excellence. You strive for perfection.
You show us the importance of crossing national and intellectual borders.
We celebrate this anniversary with gratitude and admiration for all that you do.
