Slow People Can Also Live Well
There is a peculiar phenomenon in my family: the children in our clan were all very lively and talkative when young, but after adolescence most became taciturn. I am no exception. Of course, when I say this, readers may find it strange — would someone who writes so well be taciturn? In fact this is not unusual. The literary master Shen Congwen was like that: his essays were beautifully written, but when he stood at the lecturing podium his students yawned, because not only were his lectures dry, he stammered as he spoke.I am much the same, though perhaps not as severely as Shen Congwen. I can manage basic verbal communication, but fluent, unbroken debate or speech is too difficult for me. Someone very close to me once said my eloquence is less than one-tenth of my literary skill.I am shy. Although I am a giving partner in love, I lack the courage to make the first move; only after a woman shows interest in me and approaches me first do I dare converse freely with her. In this I am not like Mr. Shen Congwen, who is said to have dared to strike first when pursuing women.A cousin of mine is typical of our family's temperament. He barely speaks a word, always burying himself in his work; he is now a fine architect who makes a living by his craft.In middle school I often went onstage as a student representative to give speeches. Looking back, my eloquence then was somewhat better than now, though it probably was not that great; it was just that my grades were so excellent that the school chose me to speak based on academic performance.Besides being a poor speaker, I am also slow on the uptake.Examples of my slowness are countless; even as a child I was much slower than my older brother. For instance, one summer noon we were cooling off at home, and I had claimed a bamboo couch first. My brother wanted to snatch it; I would not let him take it by force, so he stood at the door and pretended: "Zhichao (the name of one of my childhood friends), you've come to play with my little brother? He's sleeping at home. I don't know if he's asleep; maybe come another day?" I leapt up from the bamboo couch and ran to the door, only to find no one there. When I turned back, my brother was already sitting on the couch with a triumphant grin. I then made a scene, but of course he would not give it back.During the busy farming season, my father sometimes left a note on the door: "Eldest son, second son — whoever comes home first makes dinner." My brother, wanting to slack off, would hide as soon as he saw it, waiting for me to get home; then he would suddenly jump out, point at the note, and say: "Look at Dad's message — you came home first, so you cook."In contests of wits with my brother, I never won. Every New Year's Eve, when my parents gave our three siblings lucky money, I would lose it all to my brother that very night. Then, aggrieved, I would run to tattle to our parents, and my father would say I had it coming: knowing I could not beat my brother, I fell for it every year.Of course, these were just harmless pranks between brothers. In reality my brother loves me dearly. He is more than two years older, and as children we slept in the same bed. When my grades were poor, he went to great lengths to tutor me. When I was play-loving, he supervised me more diligently than our father, stopping me from going fishing and sacrificing his own recreation time to watch over me at home. When I missed my first-choice university on the college entrance exam, he hurried back from Shanghai to comfort me.Speaking of my brother, my present poor eloquence is partly his doing. Around age twenty, to correct my careless speech, he trained me to pause three seconds before every sentence, to think before speaking. This training made my speech and writing far more rigorous thereafter, but when someone who is already inflexible pursues linguistic rigor, their speech can no longer flow freely. So the little eloquence I had in high school was done in by my brother. As for him — he, feeling his own eloquence was poor, later kept asking me to practice speaking with him, but I had no interest at all. He ended up drawing human faces on paper, hanging them on the wall, and practicing his elocution to the portraits. Back then we were both Beijing drifters, living together in the same single-story room; my ears were worn numb from listening.My father-in-law once called me a rare combination of cleverness and clumsiness; my mind does not make quick turns. Once, when my brother-in-law and I were paying New Year visits in my father-in-law's village, my brother-in-law's next stop was our village to pay respects to my father. After dinner I wanted to head back early, but my brother-in-law was drinking and chatting at my third uncle-in-law's house, and I did not feel right pressing him to leave. Stuck for a way out, my father-in-law said to me: Go to your third uncle's house to say goodbye; your brother-in-law will understand at once. It struck me like a revelation, but such a solution I could never have come up with, however hard I racked my brains.I used to deny that I was slow; before thirty I was quite conceited, thinking I had some talent. But in recent years I have realized that my reaction speed is considerably slower than average. Not every part of my brain developed perfectly, and I am always lost in thought, oblivious to much of the outside world; over time I have become a bit absent-minded.In Beijing, cars have run over the tops of my feet twice, both times because I was thinking while walking. I was so absorbed that when the car came I failed to step aside in time, and the wheel rolled over my foot. I cannot blame the drivers; I simply did not hear their horns. Strangely enough, I was not really injured and felt no obvious pain.Once a female driver rolled over my foot; she was terrified. When she got out of the car, she was weak at the knees. This female driver was rather timid and thought a terrible accident had happened; whenever she got nervous she seemed to get stomach pain, and she clutched her upper abdomen, her face pale. I moved my foot, felt no sharp pain, and found my function unimpaired, so I said to her: "Miss, it's nothing serious, you can go." Only then did she feel relieved.Such is my slowness. My mother once worried whether I had the ability to survive in this society. In fact I am very satisfied with my current life: I have achieved financial and time freedom, and spend most of my time reading, doing research, and practicing clinical medicine — exactly what I love to do.I do not have very complex social connections, but I am not so inadequate that I cannot handle everyday socializing; getting along with people is no problem, and I have a sense of humor — I am just a bit slow. Not only that, I have some teachers and friends with whom I share deep bonds; when I need help they always go all out, and they speak highly of me, which shows my social relationships are well maintained.I know I am slow and cannot handle many complex matters, so whenever I do something I am not good at, I turn to friends and relatives around me, sincerely asking them to advise me on what to do. They generously guide me with their rich life experience, so I have made few mistakes. When some of my relatives and friends criticize me, their words may sound harsh to others, but I do not mind; I gladly accept their advice and sincerely thank them. They therefore think I am broad-minded, modest, and open to good counsel.I know my left brain is underdeveloped; although I also know this could be improved through study, I have not done so, because my time is limited and I cannot be distracted by too many things. I am not good for nothing, though: in high school I independently derived the inclusion-exclusion formula, which led my math teacher to mistake me for a math prodigy. I invest a great deal of time in the things I love, and as a result my grades were decent and my writing is passable, compensating for my slow reactions.Slow people like us are often the objects of parental anxiety; when we are young they worry about our future. In fact, being a bit slow is not bad; slow people may be better suited to being long-termists. Their flexibility is not as strong as that of clever people, but they have perseverance and can persist; usually after the age of forty the advantages of slowness begin to show. I even suspect that true professionals must be a bit slow.I always tell parents who are anxious about having a slow child not to worry so much. Educate children by playing to their strengths and avoiding their weaknesses, give them room to grow on their own, and trust that every child will develop a skill sufficient to make a living.I am fortunate that from seventh grade onward I was a left-behind child; my parents went into business out of town and left me in my hometown to attend school. I lived in a boarding school and took care of myself completely. On weekends when I came home, I mostly still took care of myself. I was under very little supervision and had much more autonomy; although I am a bit slow, I am more than equal to life. Today's children are too tightly controlled by their parents; even in high school they are over-supervised and over-cared for, with parents anxious about their exam scores. I venture to say this is actually bad for children's development.