THE DOCTOR IS IN [CHINA]

When Joe Kepes '46 entered Dartmouth in 1942 he thought he might become a language major—he had studied French and Latin at Phillips Exeter. But the U.S. Army had a different idea; they sent him to medical school because a test showed he had that sort of aptitude. By 1952 he had returned to Hanover, for a surgical residency at Dartmouth Medical School. Six years later—after farther study at Duke's med school—Joe established a practice in Rochester, N.Y., and kept at it for the next 25 years, in the meantime sending all four of his children to Dartmouth.

But in 1984 something happened that has colored the way he has lived ever since: he and his wife, Dutch, attended an international seminar on plastic surgery in Beijing, and followed that with a tour of China. Joe was hooked.

At about the same time the Kepeses retired to Maine, where Joe began taking adult education courses in the Chinese language in Portland. (It's Mandarin, the official language, one of the more than 60 Chinese dialects.)

Joe became a member, and later served on the board, of the Maine chapter of the U.S.-China Friendship Association. In the summer of 1989 he attended the Chinese language course given in the ALPS program at Dartmouth. Then, last November, the Chinese Peoples Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries invited him to be one of a small group of 12 "friendship ambassadors" from the United States (two others are from his Portland group). For two weeks the group toured Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Hangzhou, and Shanghaitraveling by plane, train, and van, visiting historic and scenic sites, schools and universities, factories, open air markets, urban and rural homes. They met with officials and with rank-and-file citizens, even school children. The photo shows Joe with four of the group's hosts in Hangzhou.

His overall reaction to the political climate in China after Tienanmen Square? "I'm more sanguine than most Americans. This sort of reaction happens every 30 years or so, only this time there was television there. The Chinese do not welcome and, in fact, strongly resist any interference from outside. They'll work it out themselves."

Politics aside, last fall Joe's earlier fascination with the country was reinforced. He finds its people and geography so interesting, the food so good, the travel so easy, and the rates so reasonable that he'll urge anyone to consider Dartmouth's Alumni College in China. He wants to go back soon. But in the meantime he's substituting this summer's Alaska trip with Dean Jim Wright. Can't stop learning.