The Weatherhead East Asian Institute mourns the death of William Z. Hwa, a donor and supporter who established the Institute’s Julie How Fellowship. Named in honor of Mr. Hwa’s late wife, who graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Chinese history, the Julie How Fellowship provides support for doctoral students at Columbia who study China in a social science discipline. The Institute extends its condolences to Mr. Hwa’s family and is deeply grateful for his generous support of East Asian scholarship at Columbia.
Below is Mr. Hwa’s obituary, which was published by his family in The New York Times on August 5, 2016:
“William Z. Hwa passed into rest on July 17, 2016. He was born in Dangkou, China, the second of eight siblings, children of the Chinese agricultural innovator and educator, Hua Yizhi aka ‘The Bee King of China’ and his wife, Sun Songqin. He graduated from MIT with an MSE in mechanical engineering. Following his graduation, when the United States entered WWII in the Pacific, he was a major in the Chinese Air Force and worked in Washington, DC as a liaison between the Chinese Air Force and the US Armed Services. Following his return to Shanghai to assist his family’s move to Taiwan to escape the Chinese civil war, he settled in Thailand, became a Thai citizen and adopted the name Bil Hwaphongchai. He joined the engineering construction company, the American Trading Company and ultimately became the principal owner for the next 50 years, involved in many of the large engineering projects of Thailand.
“He married Julie How, a longtime beloved friend, who had a degree in Chinese Modern History from Columbia University and author of several books. She predeceased him in 1982. Although they never had children, Bil adopted the role of ‘father’ to his large extended family. He visited family all over the world. He encouraged and funded children and grandchildren of the Hwa family through their education. He travelled extensively, had many friends throughout the world and was a witty, kind and urbane gentlemen who was uniformly liked by everyone he met. In the 1990s, Bil visited Wuxi and Dangkou and started long negotiations with the officials in those cities to restore the cultural and ancestral legacy of the Hwa family. With the officials’ approval, finally he was able to restore the Ming Dynasty Ancestral Hall of the Hwa Family which is now open to the public in a beautiful park in Wuxi. His next project was the restoration of the Family Ancestral Hall in Dangkou which was completed last year.
“Among his philanthropic works was the establishment of scholarship funds in memory of Julie How at Columbia University and Vassar College. He donated a scholarship fund to the University of Pennsylvania in his father-in-law’s name, Bang How. He donated a new tennis court complex to MIT. Tennis was a lifelong passion for him. Visiting the US a few years ago, he fell and in declining health, was unable to return to China or Thailand. His family had a reunion in March to celebrate his ‘100th’ birthday which he attended and enjoyed being in the heart of his large and loving family for that joyous occasion. The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made: In Memory of William Z. Hwa, Hospice of Palm Beach County, 5300 East Ave., West Palm Beach, Florida 33407.”
