ForeverMissed
Large image
Stories

Share a special moment from Leiping's life.

Write a story

Posted for Stephen Wilson from ERM

July 24, 2014

Leiping, it was a great privilege to have known you, and to have worked with you. And tragic that you have been taken from your family and from the world so young.

Gracious. Humble. Thoughtful. Intelligent. Patient. Hard-working. Intelligent. Generous. Kind.
Leiping you were all these things and more. A true role model. Without doubt you were one of China's finest sons.

- - -

I first met Leiping in Zhengzhou in Feb 1997, just after Deng Xiaoping had passed away.
Leiping was Deputy Director of the Beijing Economic Research Institute for water resources and electric power. Leiping was running the peak power consultancy body in the biggest country in the world in his 30s. I was a young consultant on my first trip to China.

Several years later I worked with Leiping in Hong Kong. He had completed his MBA at Cranfield and worked for a time in London. I persuaded him to come and work with me in Hong Kong in energy consulting.

At that time I learned of Leiping's spirit of service to society. How he had been chosen for an Air Force career, and would have been trained as a bomber pilot, but that he had told the authorities that he didn't want to learn to drop bombs to destroy things and kill people. Instead he wanted to help to build his country. And so he went to engineering school and became a power system planner. He was in the first university class in China to study western market economics.

Leiping told me he was the son of medical doctors. The youngest child and the only one whose education was not disrupted by the cultural revolution.

Leiping was there in June 1989, and lost some of his university friends. He didn't speak much about that, but it was clear that the heady idealism of youth had been quietly and thoughtfully channelled into quiet work of lasting benefit to others.

Through the World Bank, other countries throughout Asia were to benefit from Leiping's knowledge and wisdom and hard work.

- - -

Leiping, I have often found myself speaking of you as one of the people I respect most. As one from whom I learned many things. You had the ability to communicate much with few words. You are greatly missed.

May you rest in peace, dear friend. Rest in peace.

A friend dearly missed

July 23, 2014

Leiping and I got to know each other when he joined the Bank over ten years ago.  We didn't have much interaction then as I left DC soon for field assignments.  We reconnected again when he joined South Asia in the Islamabad Office as the Lead Energy Specialist and when I just finished my assignement there, but still supporting the country program from Nepal.

We had extensive discussions on the country, the energy sector and its challenges as well as personal matters, such as relocation logistics, family visa status in DC, the Chinese community in Islamabad.  I actually gave him a long list of Chinese restaurants hidden among the Islamabad neighbourhoods, and informed him about the health clubs and the tracking trails etc.

Leiping loved his family very much and family was one topic we talked about a lot, me explaining the family evacuation experiences after Marriot Hotel bombing and him explaining to me how he went about the challenge and the efforts he understook to overcome the G4 Visa issue when one's duty station changed.  To him, family is always Number One.

Leiping was then all excited and eager to engage and start actions on the ground.  He had lots of experiences in this sector and had already a good analysis of the energy situation and development strategy in Pakistan.  He gave me a full doze of his thinking.  He was quite committed and eager to take up the challenge.  I explained to him the complexities, challenges and difficulties in Pakistan as well as within the Bank to engage in hydropower development on Indus, all from the social political side, which is my field, and let out my frustration and pessimism over the hydropower development in Pakistan.  I really gave him an earful. His answer threw me off the chair.  He said - I'm an engineer and I don't think these are big problems.  I almost jumped from my chair.  He then said - I take care of the engineering side and you take care of the social political problems.  So there's a division of labour among the team and in that sense these are really not my problems. I then realized he was having fun of me.  I can visualize him sitting there talking.

It is very sad and unfortunate that God didn't give him the time to complete what he has started.  Otherwise he could have made a huge difference on the ground. We'll keep him in our heart and continue the mission he has started.  May he rest in peace.

A wonderful colleague from Mohua Mukherjee

July 23, 2014

Dear Leiping,

It is hard for me to believe that you have left us.  I think it was June 2012 when we had a SASDE Retreat in Nepal, outside of Kathmandu, in Nagarkot.  I met you there for the first time and I will always remember and appreciate the few conversations that we shared during the sessions, and most especially the bus ride back and forth to Kathmandu. 

At one point we were parked at the roadside and our driver was nowhere to be found, for a long time.  I remember stepping out of the bus to look for him, bringing him back, and seeing your broad smile when you declared "I like this lady. She is a LEADER!!!"  and we both laughed.

I dropped into your office a few times for brief chats, and we always used to say that we should have lunch to catch up on more things, particularly about how you were finding life in Islamabad, when you came back once.  I used to travel to Yemen on mission in the earlier part of my career in the Bank, and you said you were interested to hear more about that.  I wish we had not left it for later--at least one lunchtime chat with you would have been a wonderful memory for me now.

I really appreciated your kindness, your professionalism and your good spirit every time we interacted. 

May you rest in peace, dear friend.

Mohua

July 22, 2014

We celebrated the mid-autumn festival together in Jakarta in 2010.

Leiping, a true professional and friend

July 19, 2014

I got to know Leiping when I was in the World Bank Office in Jakarta. At that time, he was the TTLof a few projects in the energy sector, Power Transmission, Upper Chisokan Pumped Storage Storage, etc. and I was the procurement specialist. We worked together to impement and prepare the projects. We had enjoyable cooperation and disputes as well. But all our different views were resolved in a professional way under his task team leadership. I still remember, for a new project, we waited for almost an hour in a small room when we went to see a senior official of PLN. Even though, Leiping was still in a professional manner to talk with the counterparts and finally he successfully delivered the project. Through the years of working together, we became personal friends of each other.


We were in touch when he moved to SAR until he did not feel well.

Leiping, you will be in our memory! All the best to your family.    

Sitting Next To Leiping

July 18, 2014

Soon after I joined what was then called the East Asia Energy Group, a new staff member moved into the office next to mine.  This wasn't our first meeting, but up until then Leiping had been a consultant for the Bank, as part of his job with Beijing Energy Research Institute.  In those early days Leiping was a regular visitor to my office, asking about who to see and how to get things done - he, like all of us, was lost in the endless complications of the Bank and needed a compass now and then.

Time passed, and Leiping learned the ropes, started taking over projects, and got busy, first on China and then on Indonesia - all in a remarkably short time.  His visits to my office became less frequent - a good sign.  Then I found I was visiting his office more and more often, because I found out that he had an encyclopaedic knowledge about the power sector.  He was always patient, and friendly and helpful and willing to take the time.  One day after about a year of this I asked him why he kept on with this.

His answer was simple: "You helped me when I was new.  I owe it to you".  Leiping, I owe you so much, and you will be missed every day.

A man for all Seasons from Vijay Jagannathan

July 18, 2014

A man for all seasons

Leiping was the person we all looked up to in the East Asia region for his professional competence and personal dedication to the cause of economic development.
His years building the Indonesian energy program was a model effort, in which he was able to leverage his personal knowledge of energy issues from his pre-Bank years to move the entire national program to a much higher level.

What stands out as far as I am concerned is the way he developed the first pumped storage project in Indonesia. The concept of generating 'green' electricity in this manner was quite new to our Indonesian clients, and he went through the process step by step - first to build the knowledge, next the national capacity, and finally putting the project design together and most importantly delivering on schedule.

Within the Bank, given the labyrinth of hoops a team leader has to jump through to meet the safeguards requirements, he worked systematically to bring in the best consultants he could find, and invariably came up with solutions and not complaints.

I had the privilege to accompany him on a hike to the headwaters of the project in Bandung province, and despite being a seasoned hiker myself had a hard time keeping apace with him during the short march. I simply cannot imagine that such a vigorous person has been felled so quickly.

My deepest sympathies are with his family.
Vijay Jagannathan

Share a story

 
Add a document, picture, song, or video
Add an attachment Add a media attachment to your story
You can illustrate your story with a photo, video, song, or PDF document attachment.