Searching for his inner sage

Veteran French Sinologist Leon Vandermeersch is recognized for his lifetime contribution toward promoting Chinese culture abroad, Wang Kaihao reports.

While in his early 20s, Leon Vandermeersch learned Chinese at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilization in Paris, and became a student of Li Zhihua, the first linguist from China to have completely translated The Dream of the Red Chamber - a Qing-era novel and a hallmark of Chinese literature - into French.

Li used two characters, de and mai from Shangshu, or Esteemed Documents, which was compiled around the 5th century BC - one of the top five classics in ancient Chinese literature - to create the Chinese name Wang Demai for Vandermeersch.