Professor Tang was my undergraduate thesis advisor three decades ago. He passed away on Tuesday. Below is the English translation of the main passages of the article on Thursday in China’s Guangming Daily, full text in Chinese at https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/JzjPkV0MMUjhlfibbRLNyw

Professor Tang Shiwei was born in December 1939 in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. He graduated from the Computational Mathematics program of the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics at Peking University in 1964 and remained at the university to teach after graduation. He was promoted to professor in August 1990 and retired in December 2004.

Professor Tang Shiwei was a founder of the database as an academic discipline in China. He long dedicated himself to teaching and research in databases and information systems. He served as Director of the Database Research Laboratory in the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Peking University, Director of the Peking University Computing Center, Director of the Information Science Center, Director of the National Key Laboratory of Visual and Auditory Information Processing, Vice Chair of the Database Professional Committee of the China Computer Federation, and Professional Advisor to the Beijing Municipal People’s Government, making significant contributions to the development of computer science research and education in China.

At Peking University, he spearheaded the development of China’s independently copyrighted database management system, COBASE and the domestic system software platform COSA, for which COBASE was a key component and received a national award in 1996.

Original text in Chinese by Jin Haotian (晋浩天), correspondent, Guangming Daily

I took the database class around 1993, taught by his colleague Professor Yang, Dongqing (杨东清) and then joined their research group for my undergraduate thesis. I remember Professor Tang mentioning to me that they were the first in China to learn the development of databases in the US including reading the source code of early database systems. As a student assistant, I was sent to visit the Bank of China and talk to to account operators. It was pretty much deaf-mute conversation — I knew the textbook but nothing about applications let alone banking, but at the time I thought I was there to tell them what to do. Later a senior graduate student went to redo the visit. I was given part of the consulting fee even though my contribution might have been negative. Professor Tang was most generous and encouraging to me. I am fortunate and proud to be a part of his legacy.

Professor Tang also directed the undergrad thesis of Yuanyuan Zhou, now a professor at UCSD.