Essays on Writing and Language in Honor - Sino-Platonic Papers

Schnffestschri!: f isq in Honor of John &Francis
Thinking About Prof-John DeFrancis
In the early nineteen eighties, I was surprised to
learn that Professor John DeFrancis was an ardent
supporter of Chinese language reform, in particular, the
efforts in Chinese Romanization. Introduced to him by our
mutual friend Prof. Zhou Youguang, a distinguished Chinese
expert in the field of Chinese language reform, I visited
Prof. DeFrancis during one of my transit stays in
Honolulu. I called Prof. DeFrancis up and was invited to
stay overnight in his hillside residence near the Manoa
campus of the University of Hawaii. It was a modest but
beautiful Japanese-styled two story single family house
whose slope-facing sides were flanked by a garden, the
centerpiece of which was a little Japanese rock garden
with a small pond and perennial flowering plants of pink
and red colors beside it. They appeared strikingly
beautiful when contrasted with the prevailing greenness of
the garden. Everytime I sat gazing out from the computer
desk in front of a large latticed window facing the rock
garden, I was mesmerized by the exquisite view and thought
how lucky it would be to be able to live in such a
pleasant environment in this age of environmental
degradation. Later, I learned that Prof. DeFrancis
himself was the mastermind behind much of the garden
design and had been spending many hours every week to
maintain and enhance its beauty; To substantiate my fond
impressions of the beautiful house and garden, I am
including herewith a few photos taken recently during my
last visit on January 19 to 22, 1991. One photo shows the
house with Professor's car in front of it. Another photo