Seventeen Years Studying Medicine, a Lifetime Loving It

In 1998 I failed the college entrance exam. My first choice was not filled, but because my score was high, I was freely reassigned to an engineering university. Though it was a key university above the first-tier cutoff, my major was mechanical engineering and automation. My teachers told me our school's mechanical engineering ranked among the top in the country and that if I studied hard I would have a bright future. But I could hardly imagine spending the rest of my life in a workshop holding a wrench and pliers; that was not the ideal life I wanted.

During my first month at university, I began borrowing all kinds of medical books from the school library—six heavy volumes at a time, stacked beside my bed—and often skipped class to bury myself in medical books in the dorm. Our school had no medical school, but the library did have quite a few medical books, which is truly praiseworthy. However, my department leaders and counselor got headaches the moment they saw me. While other students were in class, school administrators doing dorm hygiene inspections would always find me alone in the room reading and writing, and would criticize me. Teachers and parents then did not pay much attention to students' personal interests, hobbies, or aspirations, only to diplomas; so they could not understand me, and I could not understand them. Years later, when I returned to my alma mater and met the teachers who had not understood me, we apologized to each other and finally reached a mutual understanding we had not reached before. But at the time, the school environment was an ordeal for me, so I very much did not want to waste time and money there, destroying my youth.

I am the kind of person who fears neither heaven nor earth. After less than one semester of university life, I firmly took all sorts of excuses to suspend and then drop out. I wanted to walk my own path with no ties, and I had become utterly indifferent about credentials. In 1998, when Chinese people still generally valued university diplomas, my action caused a huge uproar. My parents, relatives, teachers, and classmates all urged me to turn back. But with the spirit of "though ten thousand oppose me, I will go," I left school. Even when my father economically blockaded me, barred me from coming home, and threatened to disown me, he could not stop me from insisting on my own path.

In Beijing, with no diploma and relying on my ability to write decent articles, I finally got my footing and survived. When I first came to Beijing I rented a room in Shucun, near the Old Summer Palace—a gathering place for itinerant artists, writers, and thinkers, home to a flock of the most idealistic young literary people, and I mixed among them. Later I moved to a small house in Wutasi Village, directly opposite the National Library, a place said to be inhabited by free scholars. There I could walk a few minutes to read at the National Library, and I spent nearly ten happy years there. Later, when I bought my own home in Beijing, I again chose to live near the National Library. I doubt I can leave this area in my lifetime; studying until my hair turns white and writing without ceasing will be my destiny. Because in this life I found my true self—a real self with an everlasting thirst for and love of knowledge.

I used to like writing in large communities such as Tianya, and later I liked blogging on Sina; now I like going nowhere and just writing articles to post on my own website, though I still maintain the relationships built up on Tianya and Sina. I used to be an angry young man, but now I have gradually withdrawn from the world and returned to my study, liking only to read works of medicine, Buddhism, and the humanities and social sciences. Having reached middle age, I increasingly dislike going into noisy crowds and prefer, content in poverty, to do the things I most want to do. Though there are not many meaningful things in life, I do not want, at my deathbed, to regret having idled this life away.

After my mother fell ill with cancer, my study of medicine grew ever more focused. Many famous physicians in history had life experiences similar to mine: moved by the pain of losing a loved one, they devoted themselves to medical research and never turned back, finally becoming great masters of medicine. I have no interest in becoming a great medical master, but I cannot let go of disease.

Over these past years my life has struggled through all sorts of turmoil; I have long wavered between doing business and studying medicine. To support my family I must do business, but I no longer love it; my once-eager heart for the colorful outside world has cooled. My human relationships grow ever simpler and my life goals ever smaller. These years I have not wanted to buy a single new garment; I wear old clothes and old shoes, unwilling to throw away socks with several big holes, and have my shoes mended again and again. I eat plain food and, except for buying medical books and daily necessities, refuse to spend a single cent recklessly. I have truly entered the state of being content in poverty and delighting in the Way.

In this process, my family, like me, went through a long struggle and gradually accepted my commitment to my life's ideal. Everything I have been through has made my love of medicine unforgettable. Unlike most people who treat medicine as a job to make a living, for them the practice of medicine is a profession, but for me medicine is a need of the soul. So, despite the unpredictable risks, I still walk ever farther and deeper along the road of medicine without looking back. Medical classics from all times, both Chinese and foreign, I collect and study.

Because disease took away my loved ones.

Medicine has made me realize the smallness of humanity and the fragility of life, and also the illusory nature of fame, wealth, and position. Medicine made me set down arrogance, and set down my desires for material things. Medicine brought me back to the simplest, purest person, and gave me new life experiences. The experience of studying and practicing medicine has changed my view of life, the world, and values.

If there is still anything worth my passion, it is probably medicine. That being so, why make things hard for myself? Let me simply study medicine well.