List members may be interested in watching the recent episode of PBS’s Finding Your Roots, which features Maya Lin. The episode includes a genealogy of Lin’s mother, Julia C. Lin (林明暉, nee 張明暉), who will be familiar to many MCLC list members.
While the episode mentions Maya Lin’s maternal grandfather, Dr. Foh-Sing Tsang 張福星, it doesn’t discuss him at any length. Julia several times told me that he was the personal physician to Madame Sun Yat-sen for many years.
Maya’s father (& Julia’s husband), Henry Lin, an accomplished ceramic artist, is mentioned in the show as well; among the interesting facts of his life not touched upon in the episode are that he was tutored by Shen Ts’ung-wen as a child, and his half sister was Lin Huiyin.
Discover how the ancestors of business mogul Richard Branson and architects Maya Lin and Frank Gehry took audacious risks to create opportunities, and how their luck, ingenuity and chutzpah was passed on to these three visionaries.
www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/visionaries-full-episode/14999/
Nicholas A. Kaldis <nkaldis@gmail.com>