[Sowing the Future · Zhong Yang's Story]
Editor's Note
Why does Zhong Yang's leaving leave so many people reluctant? The scientific and educational circles...... Countless people spontaneously miss him and recall him. We follow the seeds he sowed on the snow covered plateau, on the seashore of Shanghai, and on the Fudan campus, constantly explore his spiritual world, and gather the sweet fruits of his tree of life. Through them, a more abundant Zhongyang in the spiritual world comes to us.
"In August that year, our investigation team crossed the Qiangtang Grassland along the muddy path... In the middle of the night, a chest tightness woke me from my sleep. I quickly woke up the doctoral student Lao Wang who was in the same room and said, 'Open some windows.' He got up in response. In the darkness, there was a loud bang, and a cold wind was blowing against my face - bad, Lao Wang pushed the whole window down from the second floor... The next morning, the team started again, and the car drove to look back. The familiar earth wall, Mani flagpole hung with prayer flags, and the hotel owner's family waved goodbye arms. Behind that, a ray of morning light just happened to throw into the open window, and my heart suddenly swelled with warmth. "
The above passage is excerpted from the "Window in Northern Tibet", which is Zhong Yang's daily record of work and also witnesses the biologist's "literary spirit".
Zhong Yang's article is well written, and his colleagues and friends all admire it. According to his middle school classmates, when his peers were still ignorant, he was able to talk about everything. His compositions in middle school were almost model essays, which were often posted at the school gate. Later, although he did not study liberal arts and became a scientist, his "literary heart", which he learned from childhood, laid a solid foundation for his scientific research career.
The most direct embodiment is that his popular science articles are particularly good, and his popular science lectures are particularly good. He can be called one of the best experts in biologists who can do popular science. He can use the most concise words to make complex scientific knowledge easy and interesting, so that you can "turn the road into a fan" every minute. Maybe he will follow him on the path of ecological research.
He is also not modest about this "special" ability: "After all, science popularization is a family name, and people who write science popularization have a high scientific literacy. If you don't work in the front line of science for a long time, your ideas will be out of the mainstream. Now, first-class scientists generally don't write science popularization articles, and many of them write old scientific ideas; Second, the carrier of science popularization belongs to the category of literature, and your literary literacy should be high. Now many scientists write science popularization articles that are too straightforward. When I was writing poetry in college, I felt that the 15 yuan per month student aid was not enough, so I wrote a poem and published it for two yuan. If you write well, you can buy three friends a drink for ten yuan. I know to be straight, but to write a poem is to be melodious. The man in heaven who writes is called Wenqu Star, not Wenzhi Star. Writing popular science also requires innovation, which is exactly the same as doing scientific research. "
Zhong Yang recites poems from childhood, and also writes poems; He also practices calligraphy, likes painting, plays erhu and sometimes learns some music knowledge. As a teenager, he had a strict sense of time management and tried to "be the master of time". However, most of these hobbies were drowned by the busy work. But if you look at his blackboard writing carefully, you will be impressed by his beautiful handwriting. When he was a visiting scholar in the United States, his calligraphy expertise came into play. Whenever he had a chance, he taught his foreign friends to write "China" with a brush. His wife Zhang Xiaoyan said that he was very proud at that time.
Behind the "literary and artistic heart", there is a strong feeling of family and country.
He once recalled a scene in junior high school: "It was a beautiful morning. I took an English book and went to the mountain outside the city to read early. Later, a young man from the countryside came to the mountain, carrying a load of dirt and dung to send it to the hillside. He ran very fast and sweated heavily. After the dung was sprinkled, he looked at me with envy, took up the empty burden, and slowly went downhill. It seemed that he was thinking while walking. Looking at him, my heart suddenly turned up a wave - Chinese farmers are still so bitter, the way of labor is still so backward, how need to use science and culture to change this situation ah! It touched me a lot. Later, I wrote a poem based on this material and published it in Zhongyue magazine. "
Juvenile feelings are always poems. At that time, Zhong Yang thought deeply and far.
This "literary heart" is the "Chinese heart".
Therefore, the window of northern Tibet and the ray of morning light made him feel excited.
The seeds let him travel for half his life and write eternal poetry among the mountain gravels.
(Our reporter Yan Weiqi)
