Editing Robert van Gulik (section)

==Life==
[[File:高羅佩和水世芳.jpg|upright=1.35|thumb|left|Marrying Shui Shifang (Chongqing, 1943)]]
Robert van Gulik was born in [[Zutphen]], the son of a medical officer in the Dutch army of what was then called the [[Dutch East Indies]] (modern-day [[Indonesia]]). He was born in the Netherlands, but from the age of three till twelve he lived in [[Batavia, Dutch East Indies]] (now [[Jakarta]]), where he was tutored in [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]] and other languages. He went to [[Leiden University]] in 1929. He began his studies under the [[Sinologist]]  [[J.J.L. Duyvendak]], whose interests were in [[Ancient China]]. Perhaps because of his upbringing in the East Indies, Van Gulik's interests were in later periods, and he transferred and obtained his PhD in 1935 from [[Utrecht University]]. His talents as a linguist suited him for a job in the Dutch Foreign Service, which he joined in 1935; and he was then stationed in various countries, mostly in East Asia (Japan and China).{{sfnb|Benedetti|2014|p=13}}

He was in Tokyo when Japan declared war on the Netherlands in 1941, but he, along with the rest of the Allied diplomatic staff, were evacuated in 1942. He spent most of the rest of [[World War II]] as the secretary for the Dutch mission to [[Chiang Kai-shek]]'s Nationalist government in [[Chongqing]]. While in Chongqing, he married a Chinese woman, Shui Shifang ({{zh|c=水世芳}}) (1912-2005), the daughter of a [[Qing dynasty]] [[Scholar-official|Imperial mandarin]], and they had four children together. There he freely mingled with prominent figures in traditional and modern Chinese culture, though he had little interest in China's modernization and the intellectual changes since the [[New Culture Movement]].{{sfnb|Benedetti|2014|p=14-15}}

Van Gulik was an accomplished [[calligrapher]]. His work is known in China under the name Kao Lo-p'ei<ref>John C. H. Wu, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40725575 "Book review" {of ''T'ang-yin-pi-shih''}], in ''Monumenta Serica'', v.17, pp. 474-478 (1958)</ref> ({{zh|c=髙羅佩|p=Gāo Luópèi}}).

After the war ended, he returned to the Netherlands, then went to the United States as the counsellor of the Dutch Embassy in Washington, D.C. He returned to Japan in 1949 and stayed there for the next four years. While in Tokyo, he published his first two books, the translation ''[[Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee]]'' and a privately published book of [[erotic]] colored prints from the [[Ming dynasty]]. Later postings took him all over the world, from [[New Delhi]], [[Kuala Lumpur]], and [[Beirut]] (during the [[1958 Lebanon crisis|1958 Civil War]]) to [[The Hague]]. In 1959 Van Gulik became correspondent of the [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]]; he resigned in 1963. In 1964 he became a full member, and the next year he became a foreign member.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00000573 |title=R.H. van Gulik (1910 - 1967) |publisher=Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |access-date=27 July 2015}}</ref> From 1965 until his death from cancer at The Hague in 1967, he was the Dutch ambassador to Japan.