Accolades for Chinese who make waves

Eleven feted for contributions in fields of arts, culture, medicine, public affairs, science and sports

A TV network in Hong Kong has honored 11 people and groups it reckons are the world's most influential Chinese.

This year's annual You Bring Charm to the World Awards, organized by Phoenix TV and its website Ifeng.com, were held at a ceremony at Tsinghua University in Beijing on April 3.

Renowned sinologist Jao Tsung-I received a lifetime achievement award, as did Yu Min, a physicist widely known as the father of China's hydrogen bomb.

Jao, who turns 100 soon, is regarded as a pioneer in many of his endeavors. He is said to have been the first scholar to render the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish into Chinese and the first person to make a comparative study of the oracle bone script and the Indus script.

"Professor Jao acts like a cultural bridge connecting China and the West, with most of his foreign students now being the world's top sinologists," said Dou Wentao of Phoenix TV, one of the award ceremony's presenters.

Jao, who was born to a wealthy family in Guangdong province and who grew up in a home said to have housed more than 100,000 books, addressed the event by video link.

"The future success of sinology needs the effort of China and its people," he said.

Yu, 89, was also unable to attend the event, so his son accepted the award on his behalf.

The TV presenter Chen Luyu said Yu is a pacifist who believes the world will eventually rid itself of nuclear weapons.

Other science winners included David Da-i Ho, a Chinese American HIV/AIDS researcher, and Wang Bin, a meteorologist.

Ho is renowned for his leadership in developing a therapeutic cocktail of protease inhibitors for HIV carriers in the earliest stages of infection, and Wang made his mark by devising a way of predicting climate change.

The Beijing medical aid team to Africa, a group that dispatched 43 teams to 11 African countries and regions, and Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun in Taiwan, and her charity the Tzu Chi Foundation won awards honoring their contribution in public affairs.

"We lost six colleagues in the fight against Ebola," said Kong Kong Qingyu, a representative of the Beijing medical team, who is a former deputy director of Beijing Anzhen Hospital.

"The biggest challenge was to get Africans to understand that infected patients needed to be isolated. The medical team stuck to its mission, projecting China as a country that takes responsibility during major international incidents in a determined way."

China's national diving team and Weng Ming-hui, of Taiwan, who invented the game of woodball, a Chinese version of golf, in the 1990s, also won awards.

He Hui, the Chinese operatic soprano, and Tan Yuanyuan, principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet, were honored for their contributions to the arts.

After a 13-hour flight to Beijing, Tan said her first priority was to find a room for her daily practice.

"Ballet dancers have to practice every day and must be clear about the dos and don'ts. Becoming a ballet dancer really is very difficult, but it's worth it."

Qiu Jiayi, 24, a graduate of the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, was one of the youngest winners. Qiu created a computer simulation to evaluate the potential of a ground source heat pump system in London. He was the first winner outside Britain or Ireland of the Royal Engineers Registration construction equipment Chairman's Award.

xufan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 04/10/2015 page29)