Peter Rupert Lighte *81 EAS
Empathic, Quirky, Intrepid
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Peter Lighte has come to realize that earning his Ph.D. in Chinese history was vocational, fostering the wherewithal that enabled him to create a family. Little did he expect to find himself in the crosshairs of the history he had studied. When his quest for a child became ensnared in Hong Kong’s handover back to China in 1997, he relied upon lessons learned from the classics and made use of the Chinese language to navigate the landscape, which was more cultural than bureaucratic. Add the bloodymindedness it took to complete his dissertation for the redoubtable F.W. Mote, news of two successful adoptions should come as no surprise. Had Princeton’s gift of the past not been so present, the story might have ended otherwise. Lighte began his career teaching Chinese history. When it ended, he had been founding chair of JPMorgan Chase Bank China, with three decades of international living in between. Princeton is now his home, in a house where he had been a cat-sitter as a student.