William D. Wu ’61 *79

Bill succumbed to lung cancer Dec. 18, 2007, while traveling in Shanghai, the city of his birth. Long before his death he had become an iconic figure in cultural exchanges between the United States and China.

Bill came to Princeton from the Diocesan Boys School in Hong Kong. He majored in philosophy as an undergraduate and earned his doctorate from Princeton in art and archaeology. As president of the International Students Association, he was known as “Emperor Wu.”

After teaching Chinese art at Dartmouth, Oberlin, and Mills College, Bill became the first executive director of the Chinese Cultural Center in San Francisco, where he lived until his death. At a celebration of Bill’s life at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum in February, his junior-year roommate John Randall recalled Bill’s extraordinary ability to “transform the ordinary” for the thousands of Americans to whom he introduced Chinese art and culture through his San Francisco Cultural Delegation Tours. Joy Luck Club author Amy Tan described touring with Bill as “in two words: the best.”

Bill is survived by his brother, Ted Wu; three sisters, Anna Feng, Lillian Wu Wilson, and Vickie Leong; two nephews; nine nieces; six grand-nieces; and two grand-nephews. We join them in mourning the passing of our classmate.