Zhong Jingwen

Also known as Born Zhong Tanzong · Pen name Jingwen

Zhong Jingwen, born Zhong Tanzong and writing as Jingwen, was a Hakka from Haifeng, Guangdong, born in 1903. After a post at Lingnan University he became a teaching assistant at Sun Yat-sen University in 1927, where he helped Gu Jiegang and others form the Folklore Society, edited the weekly Folk Literature and Arts and a folklore book series. He studied at Waseda University's graduate school from 1934, taught in Hangzhou, Guilin and northern Guangdong, and from 1949 was a professor at Beijing Normal University. He championed the collection and study of folk songs; his books include collected essays on folk literature, Folklore Culture Studies and the prose collection Lizhi Xiaopin. He died in Beijing in January 2002.