By Jerome A. Cohen
Two reliable sources have just told me the sad, shocking news that my old friend and dear former colleague Ezra passed away yesterday after surgery in Cambridge. No details have been provided, but this surely was not long foreseen. We were supposed to join forces in a January 21 program for the National Committee on US-China Relations. Ezra, as many know from personal experience, was not only a wonderful scholar of East Asian studies but also a marvelous mentor and friend to generations of Harvard students and others, as well as an important public intellectual. So many will miss his warmth, humor and generosity.
I never had the benefit of a Harvard East Asia education and only met Ezra in August 1963 when I was starting a research year in Hong Kong en route to teaching at Harvard. John Fairbank put us in touch since he had just dispatched Ezra to Hong Kong for a similar year. Ezra got there a bit earlier than I and was kind enough to solve my housing problem by telling me there was an apartment available across the street from his own on Marigold Road in Kowloon. Our families spent a friendly year together while Ezra and I interviewed refugees for our respective books. Ezra’s older son David and our eldest Peter still are friends in Cambridge.
Trying to muster humor on this grim day, I recall the time Ezra asked me to give a lecture on law to his class on Chinese society in William James Hall. Since I lived nearby and always had my charming dog Simhala walk me to the law school every day, I made the mistake of bringing him with me that morning, tying him up outside the building. As I started to hold forth to about 80 students in the auditorium, I spotted Simhala coming down the center aisle like a late student. He promptly ascended the stage to the evident amusement of the students and started pacing back and forth across the stage. I utterly failed to capture the students’ attention and watched in frustration as their eyes shifted from left to right with Simhala’s movements. Ezra was seated in the first row, observing the spectacle with his usual bemused tolerance. Neither of us knew what to do. At that moment, however, Simhala, who must have been listening to the lecture, fell asleep, like some of the students, and the crisis was resolved! Ezra was too kind to ever mention the incident again. He will be greatly missed.