Essays ⁽³⁴⁹⁾

Former Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said that before taking up a post he went to ask his teacher, Mr. Ji Xianlin, for instruction. Old Master Ji gave him a phrase: "Do not speak falsehoods; do not speak the whole truth." Master Ji is a national-studies…

My father has been very depressed lately. This old farmer, who lived his whole life in the Hubei countryside, now lives with me in Beijing, yet his heart is forever set on our rural hometown in Huanggang, Hubei, and on how hard this year has…

If you ask me where I most want to be right now, I would say: in my rural hometown. I really want to advise the young and middle-aged people who are now unemployed and back in their rural hometowns to start businesses in their own…

I will remain silent for a very long time on many issues. This "very long time" may be one year, or two, or longer. Because I have come to know that sometimes silence is the best language, and words are but a burden. Ten thousand…

Today, I can finally slip into the mode of taking my annual leave. After a whole year of drudgery, body and mind have borne a great deal of pressure, and it is time to take a proper annual leave. I just cannot let my guard…

Everyone must die, and it is understandable that relatives are unwilling to give up on the dying. Yet sometimes one has to let go—for example, when a loved one's condition is so critical that medicine and surgery can no longer help. Modern people hand over…

Today is New Year's Day, 2020. Here I wish all my readers a happy New Year! I wish that in the coming year your minds may grow more mature, and that you may live more happily and more at peace. A news item I saw…

Tonight is Christmas Eve, and tomorrow is Christians' most festive day of the year, Christmas. Here I wish all my readers and patients a merry Christmas Eve and a merry Christmas! I also wish all readers and patients a lifetime of peace, good health, and…

I love growing plants. None of what I grow is especially rare or expensive, but watching these plants flourish makes me genuinely happy from the bottom of my heart. My gardening skill is moderately above average; more than 80% of the plants I grow survive.

Recently I went for a series of physical checkups and was found to have several minor problems: multiple gallbladder polyps, renal cysts, fatty liver, and the fairly rare lumbosacral spinal epidural lipomatosis. Most of these caused no symptoms; only the lumbosacral epidural fat overgrowth gave…