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Gia-Fu Feng

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China

gender

male

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Gia-Fu Feng (1919 - 1985) was prominent as both an English translator (with his wife, Jane English) of Daoist classics and a Daoist teacher in the United States, associated with Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac, The Beats and Abraham Maslow.

He was born in Shanghai in 1919 into a fairly wealthy family of some influence. His father was a prominent banker, one of the founders of the Bank of China; his mother died when he was 16. He was educated privately in his own home in the classics of the Chinese tradition and in private boarding schools. He was for several months tutored by the wife of the British Consul-General. His family members were Buddhist. For the springtime holiday, they traveled to the ancestral tombs in Yu Yao, in Chekiang Province, for...more Gia-Fu Feng (1919 - 1985) was prominent as both an English translator (with his wife, Jane English) of Daoist classics and a Daoist teacher in the United States, associated with Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac, The Beats and Abraham Maslow.

He was born in Shanghai in 1919 into a fairly wealthy family of some influence. His father was a prominent banker, one of the founders of the Bank of China; his mother died when he was 16. He was educated privately in his own home in the classics of the Chinese tradition and in private boarding schools. He was for several months tutored by the wife of the British Consul-General. His family members were Buddhist. For the springtime holiday, they traveled to the ancestral tombs in Yu Yao, in Chekiang Province, for the spring festivals. During the Japanese Occupation, Gia-Fu went to Kunming in Free China to complete his Bachelor's Degree at Southwest Associated University in the liberal arts. Gia-Fu once commented that he had become a millionaire three times in his life, giving his money away each time. The first time was when he worked for the bank in Kunming.
After he returned to Shanghai in 1946, he left again in 1947, to come to the U.S. for a Master's Degree in international finance at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. After the communists took over China and the Korean War began, U.S. policy kept many Chinese students from returning home. Then, when Chinese Communist Party policies made life for the Feng family and all of China less certain, his father advised him to stay in the U.S. During the Cultural Revolution, some members of his family were persecuted.

After this, he started wandering across the country “in an old jalopy.” He spent some time in a Quaker community, lived in a Georgia commune during the time of the Supreme Court decision in Brown v The Topeka Board of Education, and in the mid-fifties moved to the West Coast. There, he 'hung out' with Jack Kerouac and other Dharma Bums, and began teaching Taoism.
Initially he translated Chinese classics for Alan Watts at the American Academy of Asian Studies, the center where Alan Watts served as administrator primary teacher. Alan Watts was later to state that Gia-Fu was “The Real Thing,” sending aspiring Beat-and-Hippie Taoists to him.
Watts' championing of Gia-Fu as a genuine Taoist Adept substantially abetted sales of Gia-Fu and his wife, Jane English's classic Taoist philosophy, coffee-table picture-books, which were published by Random House in many languages. Gia-Fu and Jane's books contained Jane's artistic black and white photos in conjunction with his outstanding calligraphy and readily understood wisdom translations. They initiated an important segment of what would become for the global book industry a highly popular, multicultural spirituality and philosophy genre. They also foreshadowed a trend toward multi-media usage in an emergent, classy, holistic marketplace.

Calligraphy by Gia-Fu Feng, from the cover of the book Tao-Te-Ching
Gia-Fu became involved in the East-West philosophy and spirituality movement that occurred in Northern California, centered by the evolution of the AAAS, reformed as the California Institute of Integral Studies. This was part of a core sociocultural transformation that became known as the San Francisco Renaissance. Regarding that, Alan Watts stated, “I know what it is, but when you ask me, I don't. I am too close to what has happened to see it in proper perspective. I know only that between, say, 1958 and 1970 a huge tide of spiritual energy in the form of poetry, music, philosophy, painting, religion, communications techniques in radio, television, and cinema, dancing, theater, and general life-style swept out of this city and its environs to affect America and the whole world.”
Michael Murphy, a primary founder of Esalen Institute, was also a student at the AAAS during his Stanford student days. From this network, including the community of the Sri Auro(less)

combine editions
Books by Gia-Fu Feng

Average rating: 4.29 · 16,489 ratings · 474 reviews · 3 distinct works

	Chuang Tsu: Inner Chapters by Zhuangzi (Translator), Jane English (Translator), Chungliang Al Huang (Introduction) 4.30 avg rating — 30 ratings — published 1974 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Tai Chi, a Way of Centering and I Ching: A Book of Oracle Imagery, 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1969	My rating:
	The Inner Chapters 4.31 avg rating — 71 ratings — 4 editions	My rating:
	Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, Gia-Fu Feng (Translator), Jane English (Translator) 4.29 avg rating — 22,785 ratings — published -600 — 498 editions	My rating:
	Chuang Tsu: Inner Chapters: A Companion to Tao Te Ching by Chungliang Al Huang (Narrator), Gia-Fu Feng (Translator), Jane English (Translator) 4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1999	My rating: