A Young Person's Resolve Cannot Be Taken Away

I once hoped very much that my son would study medicine with me, but his heart was not in it. He was willing to follow me in studying medicine to build up his health, yet his true ideal was to spend his whole life studying mathematics.

In 2020, when my son was fifteen, he already had his own plan for his life. When speaking of the future, he said with firm resolve that he would immerse himself in mathematical research for his whole life, that the world beyond mathematics had nothing to do with him, and that he would not care whether he was rich or poor. His goal for the college entrance examination was the mathematics department of Peking University, though by his current grades it would be no easy task to reach that goal.

Confucius said that at fifteen he set his heart on learning. When I was fifteen, I resolved to study medicine; the college entrance examination did not fulfill my wish, and I missed the medical university of my dreams, assigned instead to an engineering college. But in the end I withdrew from that university and switched to medicine. By the age of forty-two I am still studying medicine, and the world beyond medicine has nothing to do with me either.

Changing my life direction midway cost me enormous trouble, as I struggled through every hoop to sit the licensing examination for medical practitioners. My father deeply regretted that, on an impulse back then, he had not supported me in fulfilling my wish. I expect that my son will indeed devote his life to mathematics and immerse himself in scholarship. The power of family genes is very strong—had I not studied medicine, I think I would have gone into mathematics or physics, because those two subjects were the ones I did best in during middle school, and my older brother did best in mathematics as well.

I feel deeply gratified that my child has such an ambition, and I will help him fulfill it. I have promised to support him all the way through his mathematics PhD; even if later he wishes to do postdoctoral research and needs support, I will support him.

Only today, when I spoke with my son, I also told him that he need not be dead-set on the mathematics department of Peking University. Do your best; go wherever you can get in, and do not put too much pressure on yourself for the sake of an empty reputation. As long as you do not forget your original aspiration and spend your life studying mathematics happily, that is enough!

My son answered that he could endure repeating the exam for three years just to get into the mathematics department of Peking University. Even if he still failed, after finishing his undergraduate degree he would do his best to get into the mathematics department as a graduate student.

I do not think that way. I support him in studying abroad after his undergraduate degree. As everyone knows, the standard of education in our country is not yet high enough, and university education is not pure enough—researchers have to obey too many absurd rules. If my son wants to study mathematics, I hope he will have the chance to receive a better mathematical education in another country.

This year my son entered high school. The first time he chatted with his head teacher, who also teaches mathematics, he said to her straight out: "Teacher, my goal is the mathematics department of Peking University; I want to study mathematics for my whole life." His teacher was rather taken aback—she rarely sees a student like this—so she encouraged him, saying she had never yet produced a student for Peking University's mathematics department, and she was willing to work hard alongside him to help him fulfill his wish.

I am not surprised by this seemingly outlandish behavior of my son's, because it is exactly the way of our family.

When I was in first year of middle school, seeing the class monitor act wildly, I plucked up my courage one evening after self-study and went into my head teacher's dormitory. I told him that our monitor was simply not up to the job and had made a complete mess of the class. I asked my head teacher to remove the monitor, and I volunteered myself—begging the teacher to let me be monitor, promising that I would surely set the class's academic atmosphere right. My head teacher was greatly shocked at the time; he said that he had taught all his life and his hair had turned white, and a student like me he had met only once. He did as I asked and made me monitor, and gave me much encouragement.

My older brother, back in his school days, was similarly outlandish. There was a teacher at school who sexually harassed female students; the other students dared to be angry but not to speak out, but my elder brother, in indignation, slapped that teacher across the face.

So my son's conduct, which to ordinary people seems a bit too flamboyant, is not at all strange in my family. Our behavior may not be acceptable to everyone, but it is a trait carried in the genes, an endowment we cannot control or change. That being so, we may as well let it be.

When a child has such a firm ambition, I believe he will manage himself well. Both my brother and I are extremely self-disciplined people. So I do not care much how he scores on exams; if his grades fall short of his own ideal, I trust he will work to adjust and surpass himself.

I worry that he is putting too much pressure on himself, so I never miss a chance to ease that pressure and help him understand the relationship between life's ideals and the college entrance examination. I do not want him to chase a famous brand-name university for its own sake; I tell him that choosing a career he loves is far more important than getting into a prestigious school. As long as he keeps learning for life, whether or not he goes to a famous university does not matter. Academician Yuan Longping did not come from a famous university, yet he achieved what the vast majority of graduates from prestigious schools could not. For a person, what matters most is lifelong perseverance, not a glossy diploma.

In educating my child I follow the TCM principle of supporting the righteous qi and dispelling the pathogen. I praise and support his aspirations, while warning him against the vain, externally influenced notions that creep into his ideals. I hope he will become a pure person, a person capable of independent thought, a person not swayed by social trends. The outer world is inevitably restless and stormy; only when we have a bedrock-like stability can we hold to ourselves and not be moved. Only such a person can truly immerse himself in his own world and be happy for a lifetime.