Dr. Lee Yuan-tseh, a co-winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry, is the first Nobel Prize winner to have received his doctorate as well as his undergraduate and primary education in the Republic of China. His victory has been claimed as an honor for Academia Sinica, for National Tsing Hua University, for National Taiwan University, for the city of Hsinchu, for the Chinese people, and even for the elementary school he attended as a child.

Amid all the hoopla and excitement of Dr. Lee's return visit from the United States to his hometown of Hsinchu in northern Taiwan, the least ruffled appeared to be his parents, the elderly painter Lee Tse-fan and his wife. Rather than greet their famous son at the airport, his parents waited at home with incense and offerings for him to sacrifice in gratitude to his ancestors. When questioned, the elderly couple would only smile broadly and reply, "It's just wonderful! Yuantseh didn't take the wrong road after all."

For this happy story, the news media industriously sought out Dr. Lee's grade school classmates, high school report cards, and college professors. . . and discovered that he had been outstanding as a pupil; interested in music, philosophy, and sports as a teenager; and talented in college at building his own chemistry equipment and conducting experiments, which was attributed by some to his having inherited his father's artistic hands. A few even cited the beneficent influence of a neighboring Confucian temple!

On December 17th Dr. Lee came back, and he began to speak for himself.

He said that he was an ordinary, active child who used to run off to play when his parents told him to study. He said that he was never a model student, and used to skip class in college.

He believes that the educational system on Taiwan is rather passive and centered around examinations, and he urges young people not just to memorize formulas for exams, "turning your heads into trash cans."

Dr. Lee is mild-mannered and articulate. His honestly spoken words inevitably set off a flurry of discussion in the newspapers.

Returning Chinese scholars and foreign visitors to the ROC almost invariably praise the country's economic achievements and its advances toward membership in the ranks of the developed nations.

But Dr. Lee, when interviewed, directly stated that while the streets of Taipei make one feel that it is a wealthy place, this, he believes, is not real progress. He feels that young people now are too interested in "what pays." "Everybody wants to work in electronics or computers and make money. But society needs talent in the basic sciences and people with high ideals," he said.

Dr. Lee's straight talk was disappointing to some, but in fact the questions he raised are nothing new. He himself said, "What I'm talking are commonplaces."

Everyone says that Dr. Lee's earning of a Nobel Prize is an honor for the Chinese people. But Dr. Lee opened a press conference this way: "Over the past century, as China was kept down by the colonial powers, when it saw Chinese do well overseas it would think that the Chinese were pretty good after all. This kind of self-affirmation has a positive significance. But what I don't like to see is Chinese attributing their accomplishments to something innate in the Chinese race. . . ."

Dr. Lee has reached the frontiers of research and earned the highest honor in his profession, yet he still returns here several times a year. During vacations he is a visiting professor at Tsing Hua University. He is an active member of Academia Sinica, and he is the chief planner of the academy's Institute of Atomic and Molecular Science. In whatever he has done, Dr. Lee has displayed the traditional Chinese attitude of doing one's best to do one's bit.

Modesty and open-mindedness is another characteristic of the traditional Chinese scholar. "To look at my success as a personal achievement is completely wrong," he has said. "Modern science is a huge social activity, requiring the collective efforts of numerous specialists and the financial support of government organizations. The Nobel Foundation only chose us three as examples. Actually, the award was made to encourage chemistry researchers for their accomplishments over the past twenty years."

Dr. Lee's understanding of his debt to society and history is what Chinese call "knowing the roots and branches," or what is fundamental and what secondary.

Everyone who has worked with Dr. Lee agrees that he is "always most polite." As a professor at the University of Chicago in 1973, he was extremely busy with teaching and experiments, and the school gave him a secretary to help screen out visitors. When his parents came to visit him that year, his mother found out and told him to be sure to answer his calls and not keep people waiting, because "the riper an ear of grain, the more it bows its head."

Courtesy and breeding are passed down. The Chinese with the greatest right to "share" in Dr. Lee's honor and to feel "proud" are indeed the Lee family's ancestors.

A few days after his visit, Dr. Lee returned to his laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. But as in the past, this relative, friend, and teacher of ours will return to see us frequently and continue his work at Academia Sinica.

When Dr. Lee won the Prize, he said. "I study science. Today, yesterday, last week--it's still the same old me; there's been no change."

Nor will Dr. Lee change tomorrow; he'll continue to be a modest, diligent scientific scholar. Only, the fame he has achieved through winning the Nobel Prize will allow his image to serve as a model to many people outside of science, too.

Last March, after winning an American National Science Award. Dr. Lee wrote home: ". . .Maybe President Reagan knew that Dad would be eighty this year and only gave me the award to make him happy. . . . When I was small, Mom used to watch me poke around at my what I did and say she was afraid I'd go hungry even as a ghost. At least she can comfort herself that this unworthy son of hers hasn't wound up in such a miserable condition. . . ."

This sort of typical traditional Chinese scholar hasn't been seen in a while. Who says that Chinese shouldn't be proud?

[Picture Caption]

Group portrait of Lee Yuan-tseh and the other Nobel Prize winners taken in Sweden on December 12, 1986. (AP telephoto)

A replica of his Nobel Prize which Dr. Lee presented to his alma mater. The Chinese characters are a quotation from the ROC's national anthem.

This is a molecular beam instrument from Dr. Lee's laboratory. (courtesy of Newton magazine)

When Dr. Lee returned to his high school in Hsinchu and saw a display of his grades, he covered his wife's eyes. (courtesy of Wu Kung-ming)

Dr. Lee supporting his father, the painter Lee Tse-fan, at a congratulatory dinner with family and friends.