Great Nanjingers

Li Shengjiao (厉声教) was a famed university sports star who went on to be advisor to China’s first Premier and key contributor to China becoming party to the International Law of the Sea. Born in Nanjing on 7 January, 1935,...

Tao Hongjing (陶弘景) was the Daoist Buddhist who invented an elixir which made the body weightless, a protoscientist who taught princes and drew supernatural talismans, known to many as the “Grand Councillor of the Mountains”. Born in Nanjing in then...

Yang Buwei (杨步伟) was the lady who coined the term “Stir Fry”, in a landmark, war-time recipe book on Chinese cuisine that would stop just short of earning her a Nobel Peace Prize. Born in Nanjing in 1889, Yang was...

Cheng Shewo (成舍我) was China’s first and only media magnate. Over more than 7 decades, he illustrated the power of the press by launching the Republic of China’s most progressive and independent newspapers, and ensuring their future through the...

Zhu Dexi (朱德熙) was a man to whom every student of the Chinese language owes a debt of gratitude; with a penchant for the analysis of grammar and rhetoric, Chinese would be a whole lot more impenetrable today were it...

Li Tianye  (厉鼎毅) can be thought of as he who speeded up the Internet by a factor of 100 during the 1990s, and a man capable of giving entertaining speeches on the most mundane of technical subjects, altogether an...

Wan Laiming (万籁鸣) was the man who breathed life into the Monkey King, bringing Chinese animation to its heights in the 1960s and putting it at an international level for its time. Born in Nanjing in 1900, Laiming had three...

Shen Fuzong (沈福宗) introduced the world to the wonders of China and was something of a fascination for King James II of England, so much so that Shen’s portrait still hangs today in the King's Dining Room in Windsor...