For European diplomats of his generation, fluency in fifteen languages and the experience of living in places like Batavia, the Hague, Tokyo, Chungking, Washington, New Delhi, Beirut, Damascus, and Kuala Lumpur wouldn't be considered extraordinary perhaps, but his illustrious "amateur careers" are downright astonishing. He was a musician, instructed in the Chinese lute as a young man by the master Yeh Shih-meng.
而對那一代的歐洲外交官而言，通曉十五種語言，歷居泗水、巴達維亞、海牙、東京、重慶、華盛頓、新德里、貝魯特、大馬士革、吉隆坡… … 的經歷，也許不算特別輝煌；倒是他大放異彩的「業餘」生涯，教人驚訝不已。