Photographer George Leung 　　 　　It was a sweating hot afternoon, when I met Prof. George Leung for the first time, in his room in the guesthouse of Beijing Normal University, in the early summer of 1994. He was a professor from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where a cousin of mine studied before. Like many of my classmates who were graduating from a graduate school in Beijing, China, I was applying graduate schools in the States. I heard that this professor was visiting China, so I made an appointment, put on my best T-shirt, and ride my old bicycle for more than a half hour to meet him. 　　 　　The meeting was smooth and brief. He did not ask questions like "Why do you want to study Physics?" or "Whats your plan after graduation?" as I expected. Instead, he simply asked me to tell him my background, and told me how to apply to his school. He was very nice, but did not laugh or make jokes during the conversation, but smiling. 　　 　　"Lets take a picture." At the end of the meeting, suddenly he suggested. I was totally surprised, because that was the first time, also the last time till today, an interviewer took a picture of mine, although probably Professor Leung did not think that was an interview. So I smiled, and Professor Leung clicked his camera. 　　 　　Months later, I joined this school, located in a remote town called North Dartmouth, southern Massachusetts, in the middle of New Bedford and Fall River. On the first day I registered, I noticed that there were many pictures hanging on the walls in the Physics Department. Most of those pictures were taken for some group events, like annual alumni meeting or physics seminar. With no exception, Prof. Leung could always be found at the very end of either left or right. The reason was that it was him who took all those pictures. 　　 　　Professor Leung had never learned how to photograph professionally though, as far as I know. He just loved it. His name was Leung Yan-chok in Cantonese, which was his native tongue. He spent his childhood all over China including Canton, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. He came to the States right before the end of WWII, studied civil engineering in UIUC, then physics in MIT. He had been teaching in University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, known as Southeastern Massachusetts University at that time, since he got his PhD degree in Physics from MIT. In the early years, there were not as many Asian people in the States as today. He told us that he was confused when he took a bus in a southern state in the 50s. "There was a sign saying `White at the front of the bus, and a sign saying `Colored at the end of the bus. You know, colored people actually meant black people or African American at that time. So I was not sure where I should sit." 　　 　　"So where did you sit finally?" 　　 　　"In the middle, of course." 　　 　　Professor Leung spent most of his life in the States, but he had never stopped caring for China, the country where he was born. In the April of 1970, about 2,500 Chinese American demonstrated in Washington DC, claiming the sovereignty of China over Diaoyu Islands, which was also 　　claimed by Japan (Senkaku Islands in Japanese). This disputation had something to do with the US because the US administrated those islets under the 1951 San Francisco Treaty after WWII, and transferred it to Japan in 1971, before understanding whether those islets should belong 　　to Japan or China. Professor Leung was in that Protecting Diaoyu Movement, which lasts till today. 　　 　　Probably the first time that Professor Leung took a huge amount of pictures was during his visit to China in the winter of 1972, a few months after President Nixons historic visit to China. He, probably due to his involvement to Protect Diaoyu Movement, was invited to 　　visit the Red China, along with some other Chinese Americans who were friendly to China. China was in the middle of the Culture Revolution. Chairman Maos quotes were everywhere, in huge fonts and deep red. In his journey, he wrote: 　　 　　"As soon as I walked pass the border bridge I realized that I had not brought along enough photographic films for this trip. I had twenty rolls of 36-exposure Kodachrome films. At the planning stage I thought surely that should be enough since I had never taken so many pictures in my entire life, but now I realized that if I were to take a picture of every scene that looked curious, or memorable, I would definitely need more films than I had." 　　 　　He began to ration his film usage. Those pictures* he took are of great historic value, although not realized by many people yet, because he recorded scenes ignored by Chinese who were living there, from a view of a foreigner, in color. 　　 　　Maybe because that those pictures were too precious for him, although I got a copy of his China journey in only one week after I arrived that school, I never got a chance to see those pictures, until he put some pictures on the Internet years later. 　　 　　But I did see many pictures and slides he took in other China trips he made after Maos era. Most of those trips were made for the purpose of the Yellow River. Since early 90s, Prof. Leung had devoted most of his time and enthusiasm in solving the Yellow River problem in China. Because of high volume of sediment in Yellow River water, that river, which is called the mother river of Chinese culture, has been loved and hated by people living in that area for thousands of years. There is an old saying: "When a saint appears, the Yellow River clears." Many Chinese leaders wanted to be saints, from those emperors, to Chairman Mao, and his successors nowadays. Maybe to have 　　an impressive monument standing on the river so that people can appreciate and remember them, the recent governments always love the idea to build a huge dam there. One example is Sanmenxia Dam, built a half century ago, shortly after Mao secured the control of China. It 　　was quickly blocked by sediment, and failed to function. 　　 　　When I joined UMass Dartmouth, Prof. Leung was just back from a field trip in China. Chinese government was planning to build another big dam on Yellow River, at Xiaolangdi. Prof. Leung was totally against the big dam idea. He thought that sediment, surface soil washed down 　　by water from loess plateau, was rich for plant growing, such valuable resource. He suggested building thousands of small dams in gullies. 　　 　　"Valuable farmland can be created with warping dams by trapping eroded soil flowing down a gully during the flood season in the land-scarce, badly-eroded loess plateau. Not only would the dams conserve soil and water for local economic development, they also help to reduce excessive sediment deposition in downstream rivers. 　　 　　To support his own idea, Prof. Leung had made dozens of field trips to China, at least one each year, in the last decade of his life. In one of those trips, he dropped his favorite camera in the Yellow River, at Xiaolangdi, as I remembered. 　　 　　"I sacrificed it to worship the river," so said Prof. Leung. 　　 　　The booming of internet was a great help to Prof. Leung, who finally found a convenient way to publish his articles, along with thousands of pictures he took during those field trips, to the whole world. 　　 　　In the spring of 1996, graduated from UMass Dartmouth in the previous year, I was a graduate student in Georgia Tech. Prof. Leung sent me emails, asking me to help him to build a website for his Yellow River effort. I asked him to open an account in the Computer and Information Science (CIS) Department of UMass Dartmouth, and give me the password. Then I created a simple website with several pages. I did not expect that this was the beginning of the No. 1 Yellow River website, which had been visited for more than 150,000 times when Prof. Leung passed away in late 2004. The beginning of this website explains why when one googles Yellow River, he will be directed to a 　　web page in a personal account in the CIS Department of UMass Dartmouth, which contains some images icons originated from Georgia Tech. 　　 　　Prof. Leung never stopped learning. Soon after that website was built, I noticed that he had begun to put pages on, in HTML written by him. Although HTML is not difficult, its very impressive considering Prof. Leung was a retiring Physics professor. Later, he bought a 　　scanner which could scan film negatives. That enabled him to put tons of pictures on that website. 　　 　　In 2000, I went for a friends wedding in Boston, and I met Prof. Leung in the wedding. On the next day, I visit UMass Dartmouth store to purchase some small souvenir, and bumped into Prof. Leung there. He was considering buying either a zip drive or a CD burner, to store his tons of pictures. At that time, he had at least two computers. 　　 　　In 2002, I met Prof. Leung for the last time, when he came to the San Francisco bay area to attend a funeral of a relative of his. He brought some CDs which contains thousands of pictures he took before, of students in Physics Department of UMass Dartmouth. I helped him to 　　make more copies, and distributed those among our alumni in the bay area. He made a brief visit to my apartment. Not to my surprise, he took pictures with us. I noticed that he was using a digital camera. 　　 　　After he left, I watched those pictures in his CD. I could see many familiar faces, and recalled those happy moments we had together in Massachusetts, when Prof. Leung was taking pictures on the side. Among those pictures, I could see one of mine, in my then best T-shirt, taken in a sweating summer day in 1994, when I met him for the first time.

原文Sun Jan 2, 2005 7:16 pm 发表于umdphysics.yahoogroups.com  浏览：2040

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