Today I am very happy to participate in this exciting and enthusiastic Forum, and thanks to Ms. Kong who gave me this chance to give speech together with the science masters professor Chen-Ning Yang and professor Lo Yang. It is my honor.
I am a little restless in heart. Professor Yau talked about Tsinghua University and Peking University, and I have to confess that I was neither admitted by Tsinghua University nor Peking University, so I’m also thinking about what I shall share with you on the platform today. A few days ago, I thought about this subject which then entangles me till now, I think this subject is a little big and gives people a sense of empty words.
For the past more than ten years, I also did some researches and education in China, I am deeply impressed by people who are born after 1990, they are the young generation and show more direct intuition and true feeling to this object that my generation who already have the mind set with many ideas of empty words. So I decide not to talk about the subject today. I am going to share a true story with all young people present here. This is the true story I experienced and it is about me. At that time I was also a student as young as you, with high enthusiasm for science but did not know how to find the way to science. This story is the origin of my latter science career which has lasted for decades, and everything has become a certainty after this story.
I was refused by Tsinghua University and Peking University but admitted by the Biology Department of Beijing Normal University. I was a junior and it was a microorganism lab experiment, in which we made microslides from our own oral cavities for observing a common parasitical microorganism in our oral cavities. The class started at 2 o’clock PM, the student who saw the spirochete could end the experiment and go back. Till 6 o’clock in the afternoon, all of my classmates had left the lab but only a dull student who could not find the spirochete and keep observing. It was me.
Several hours had passed; I had tried all methods but in vain. It was the time for supper. We college students all know having a meal was very important, particularly in the 1980s, delicious food would be eaten up if you missed the dining time, so I began to be anxious. At that time, a professor came into the lab from the corridor and had a look in the lab. He must think why everyone left but only this student stays here and how stupid he is. The professor is Professor Shaobai Xue of Beijing Normal University. Maybe many of you haven’t heard of Professor Shaobai Xue, but in the early 1980s, he can be compared to Professor Yigong Shi in Tsinghua University. He was the young and middle-aged scholar who was very respected by us and just come back from overseas. But you know we could not have the chance of contacting such a professor.
Seeing me alone in the lab and could not solve the problem at the dining time, the professor was sympathetic to me. He went into the lab and asked me why everyone else has left but you are still here? I replied I cannot go before I find the spirochete but I cannot find it. Professor Xue said OK, let me help you. Then he sat beside me and tried to find it out, but he also failed after a long time, and said there is no spirochete in your slide but you cannot go if you cannot find it. Let me help you. He made a slide from his mouth and put it under the microscope. After a long time, he said OK I find it, you can have a look. Then I tried to find it for a long time but still in vain. I was very tangled in heart at that time; I wanted to say I see it very much, because I could leave if I say that. In front of such a respected professor who helped you and told you to have a look, why do you still cannot find it? How bad is your vision!
I said sorry, Professor Xue, I still cannot find it. Then he said OK, leave the lab and have your supper. I will do it. I said OK. Then I left with a pity. The next day after my class, my head teacher told me, Professor Shaobai Xue asked me to visit his home this evening. I was confused at that time and asked myself why. When I visited his home that day, he told me," I want you to be my postgraduate who will have the chance of going abroad to study in U.S.A.."
Not same as now, there were no regular channels for going abroad at that time. There were very few chances for going abroad, but Professor Shaobai Xue asked me to be his postgraduate, and then I became his postgraduate after passing the examination.
The reason I share this story with you today is the story touches my heart deeply and tells me your research career will be very natural in everything if you persist and show respect to yourself, which is one of the most important qualities for science and many other things in the world.
By the way, I want to remind you that keeping your oral cavity health is very important. Thank you!