Yale: Largest donation criticized by Chinese

On the 4th of January this year Yale President Richard C. Levin announced the largest donation ever pledged by an alumnus of the Yale School of Management (SOM). The generous donator is Lei Zhang, founder and managing partner of Hillhouse Capital Management in Beijing - named after Hillhouse Avenue, the main street on Yale campus.

While in the US the business school already made plans to use the money for their new campus as well as scholarships, a heated discussion on national loyalties erupted on the other side of the pacific.

The news on Zhang’s donation was first published in Global Times, a state-run newspaper, followed by coverage of other Chinese media such as the China Central Television, Xinhua News Agency and China Daily. From there it made its way quickly into Chinese forums and news portals where it attracted up to 1,000 comments within a few days. Zhang was mainly criticized by his fellow citizens for not donating the money to schools in China, where he not only received his undergraduate degree but also spent most of his life.

However, other voices from the Chinese blogger scene used the media attention to raise concerns about the quality of the Chinese educational system and said the event “reflects the reality that the domestic universities lack”.

On his personal profile on Yale’s website Zhang explains his loyalty to the US school: “It’s no overstatement to say that SOM changed my life. I learned so much there, and not just finance or entrepreneurship. [...] Yale has been helping China for more than 100 years. Many Chinese leaders were educated at Yale. But the relationship has been one-way for too long and I want to help change that.”

Lei Zheng then chose $8,888,888 because the number "8" is regarded as a lucky number in Chinese culture. Unfortunately, it did not work too well for him.

http://mba.yale.edu/