Past Issues

Professor Tsung-yi Lin’s died on July 20,
2010 at the age of 89 years. His memorial services
were held on July 29, 2010, in Vancouver, Canada
and on September 18, 2010 in Taipei, Taiwan. An
obituary of Tsug-yi Lin was published on
September 6, 2010 in New York Times. He is the
father of psychiatry in Taiwan. His lasting infl uence
on the practice of psychiatry is well-recognized.
We will never forget what we have learned
under his guidance. Our thoughts and prayers go
out to his family. We are deeply sadden to the loss of
a great leader like him. He will be sorely missed.
Prof. Lin was born in 1920. At the time,
Taiwan was ruled by Japan. His father, Mo-Seng
Lin, was the fi rst Taiwanese to earn a Ph. D. degree
(in education) at Columbia University in the
United States of America. He was infl uenced by
his father in many ways, particularly in the teaching
styles that integrated ideals and perspectives
from both Western and Eastern cultures. Under his
father’s infl uence, he developed a broad vision,
and always bore in his mind of a poem written and
read to him by his father when he was about to go
study abroad. In English, the poem reads, “Where
is the wonder land? It is in the deepest place of the
mountain. But, we do not have to ask the fi sherman
how to get there. Just walk along the riverside
with fl owers, and you shall fi nd it.” This poem
had encouraged him to embark on new challenges
that led to his future success. In 1946, after World
War II, he returned from Tokyo Imperial
University, now University of Tokyo, at the age of
26 years and became the founding chairman of
Department of Psychiatry at National Taiwan
University Hospital.