Hao Wang was born in 1921 in north-east China of a westernizing father; he came to study and teach at Harvard in 1949, and he remained in the West, always feeling culturally of two distinct worlds. His deep interest in Gödel as thinker and person indicates a Confucian influence, which holds the teacher to be the great authority in both administrative as well as family matters. Wang more than once combined scientific explication with biography, since in China a student must always show special respect and veneration for his teacher as a kind of father.