Deeply remember Elder Yuan
"My greatest wish is that the rice bowl should be firmly in the hands of our Chinese ourselves!" He immersed his whole life in rice paddies and wrote his exploits on the earth. The nation is unparalleled, salute, remembrance!
The farewell ceremony for the remains of Academician Yuan Longping, the "Father of Hybrid Rice" and the recipient of the Order of the Republic, was held today (May 24, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. at the Mingde Hall of the Mingyang Mountain Funeral Home in Changsha City, Hunan Province).
The picture shows the scene of the farewell ceremony. Photo by Bai Zukai
The farewell ceremony was solemn and solemn, and the mourning was low. Above the main hall of the Mingde Hall hangs a banner with white characters on a black background that reads "Mourn Comrade Yuan Longping with Deep Sorrow", and below the banner is a portrait of Comrade Yuan Longping. The body of Comrade Yuan Longping lay in a bush of flowers and cypresses, covered with a bright red flag of the People's Republic of China.
People from all over the world went to the funeral home to bid farewell to Academician Yuan Longping on his last journey. The picture shows a large number of people waiting in line to enter the funeral home to bid farewell to Academician Yuan Longping. Photo by Yang Huafeng
People lined up in a long line to send Elder Yuan with tears, and the hall of condolences was crowded with people. It is not difficult to see from the photos outside the venue that the people who bid farewell to the elders are holding flowers in their hands and tears in their eyes.
Sooner or later, a person will leave this world, but Yuan Longping's departure can be said to make the whole world sad. Because he used his hybrid rice to feed one-fifth of the world's population, not only for China, but also for the whole world.
And Yuan Longping's success in hybrid rice
In fact, it is inseparable from the hard work of the mother.
Wise mother, guide the "city baby" to love agriculture
Yuan Longping was born in 1930 in Peking Union Hospital, and his mother Hua Jing was an intellectual youth in the new society. Born in Yangzhou to a wealthy merchant family, she was sent by her father to a Church School in England from an early age, received education in Western etiquette, culture and art, and spoke fluent English. After graduating from high school, Hua Jing taught at a school in Beijing. The principal of this primary school was Yuan Xinglie, who was later Yuan Longping's father.
Hua Jing learned that Yuan Xinglie's ancestral home was De'an, Jiangxi, and he graduated from the department of Chinese of Southeast University. After a long time together, the two fell in love and soon married, after marriage the two had five sons, the second of which was Yuan Longping, whose name was Ermao. At that time, the society was in a stage of rapid turmoil, and the whole family fell into a life of wandering everywhere, leaving Beiping and traveling to Hubei, Hunan and other places. The couple attached great importance to their children's education, and in the chaotic era of war, no matter where they went, they had to send their children to school.
In the autumn of 1936, Yuan Longping's family moved to Hankou, and his father served in the Pinghan Railway Bureau (after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Yuan Xinglie threw himself into the pen and served as a colonel's secretary in Feng Yuxiang's Second Army). With no one at home to take care of the children, her mother, Hua Jing, quit her job as a teacher and focused her energy entirely on educating the 5 children.
Once, Hua Jing took the children on a tour of the "Shennong Cave" not far from Hankou. At that time, the autumn harvest was approaching, and there was an endless stream of people who came here to worship. Yuan Longping saw so many people praying sincerely to the statue of Shennong, and couldn't help but ask his mother, why is Shennong so loved by people?
His mother told him, "The grain we eat is all grown by the Shennong clan to teach people!" Mom also explained that the Shennong clan, the Yan Emperor, was the ancestor of the Chinese. Legend has it that more than 5,000 years ago, people ate meat and suffered from diseases. To this end, shennong created cultivation, planted five grains, tamed animals and animals, tasted hundreds of herbs, and healed the people's diseases, and was a sage respected by all generations.
Looking at the crowd of worshippers and hearing the stories told by his mother, Yuan Longping could not help but bow three times to Shennong respectfully under the guidance of his mother to express his admiration for this sage. This was the first time Yuan Longping had heard the legend of Shennong, and this incident had deeply marked the suffering of grain and people's livelihood in his heart.
Yuan Longping (in the arms of his mother) when he was a child, yuan Longping's older brother on the right
Another thing left a deep impression on Yuan Longping. Since he had lived in the city since birth, he had never seen a rural orchard. When Yuan Longping was 6 years old, his mother took him to the suburbs to play, walking in the lush orchard, he felt the fragrance, only to see the clearing between the fruit trees, planted with tomatoes rare in that era; green grapes, which looked like precious jasper; bright red peaches hanging from the branches, seemed to smile among the green leaves. It made Yuan Longping salivate.
My mother took the opportunity to tell him that the grain we ate was grown in the soil, and the clothes we wore were also made of cloth woven from cotton harvested from the yellow soil... In short, people's food, clothing, shelter and transportation are inseparable from the land. Therefore, the land is the source of life. Yuan Longping felt that nature was really magical and wonderful. Since childhood, he has begun to have a sacred respect for the land. Later, I made a beautiful dream in my heart and wanted to study agriculture in the future.
At the age of 19, Yuan Longping was admitted to southwest agricultural college with excellent results and specialized in learning scientific knowledge in the field of agriculture. Many years later, her mother told Yuan Longping that the people take food as the sky, in fact, she has always hoped that her son will love agriculture and be a "contemporary Shennong" to keep everyone away from hunger! Therefore, he constantly led him to close contact with nature.
Became the "father of hybrid rice" and was most influenced by his mother
Yuan Longping is versatile, not only can play the violin, but also won various awards in the school's swimming competitions. In college, he was a "celebrity", which made his mother very happy. After graduating from university, with the ambition of "going to the place where the motherland is most needed", he came to the Agricultural School of Anjiang Town, Qianyang County, Hunan Province, as a teacher. Because the school is located in a remote mountain village, the mother chose to go with him in order to help him take care of the children. Hua Jing has been living in the city for a long time, and it is certainly difficult to adapt to suddenly going to the countryside to live. But no matter how Yuan Longping persuaded, her mother still did not change her mind.
Few people know that when Yuan Longping was an agricultural teacher, he once had a "difficult to look back" experience, and now Yuan Lao still remembers this matter vividly. Yuan Longping loves sweet potatoes the most, in order to increase the local sweet potato production, Yuan Longping began to study the hybrid method of sweet potatoes, but due to the limited knowledge and experience at that time, hybrid sweet potatoes eventually failed, and he did not eat his ideal "sweet and delicious big sweet potato". At that time, Yuan Longping was very depressed, and it was his mother's understated sentence "Failure is the mother of success", which made him suddenly cheerful and regain confidence. Later, he came into contact with the field of rice cultivation and began to devote himself to it wholeheartedly, and has been insisting on it for more than half a century.
Yuan Longping said that he was most influenced by his mother in his life, "When I was a child, she taught me English and checked my homework at night. She is religious and meticulous in her work. Yuan Longping was able to make remarkable progress in the field of rice research, also thanks to his mother's sincere teaching of his childhood.
To the surprise of many people, although Yuan Longping did not study abroad, he could speak very fluent English. It turned out that when he was very young, his mother began to read English to him and let him read along. Thanks to his mother's enlightenment, Yuan Longping has a solid foundation in English, goes to school when he grows up, has the best English score in the class, and will get high scores even if there is no revision before the exam.
At the age of 16, Yuan Longping transferred to the high school of Hankou Boxue Middle School. The school has a century-old history and is a church school founded by the British Church church in London, and was originally founded by the British missionary Pastor Young Gefei. In addition to English being taught by foreigners, physics and chemistry are also taught in English by European teachers. In an almost all-English learning environment, Yuan Longping's English level has been consolidated, reaching the point where he can understand english movies.
Learning English with his mother since he was a child has benefited Yuan Longping a lot in his work. A good foundation in English has played a great role in Yuan Longping's direct access to foreign language materials in the future hybrid rice breeding work and his ability to quickly grasp the latest foreign scientific research directions. Yuan Longping said: "English is a very rigorous language, and rice breeding is a professional discipline, if you want to introduce rice breeding in English, you must apply a lot of professional vocabulary, even if it is a professional translation, it is difficult to do." ”
In international academic exchange activities, whether he participates in academic seminars or cooperative research, he can communicate in English skillfully, and use English for technical guidance and paper reading. Once, in a letter to his mother, Yuan Longping sincerely asked a rhetorical question: "I can't imagine, without your English enlightenment, in the closed environment of that year, how could I read the world's most advanced scientific literature in English, and use the vision beyond that era to search for the genetics masters Mendel and Morgan?"
Yuan Longping said that in the mother's view: "The child's IQ is like a treasure house, and only virtue and sentiment are the keys to opening the treasure house." Therefore, she pays special attention to the moral education of children, develops children's IQ according to their talents, and passes on the knowledge learned in her life to children.
Among the 5 children in the family, Yuan Longping is the one who likes to use his brain to think about problems and ask questions, and often breaks the sand pot to ask the end. His mother saw it in her eyes and was happy in her heart, and often targeted him with timely education, paying special attention to cultivating his thinking ability.
Elder Yuan and his wife Deng Zhe had breakfast
Yuan Longping still remembers that on the summer nights of her childhood, her mother often took them to the courtyard to cool off, which was her fixed storytelling time, and the brothers moved small stools to sit around their mothers. "Che Yin was a Jin Dynasty man, and his family was extremely poor, he had to go to the fields during the day, and there was no sesame oil to light the lamp at night, resulting in the inability to read." Yuan Longping listened to his mother tell the story of "Sac Firefly Night Reading", "On a summer night, Che Yin caught dozens of fireflies, packed in a transparent bag made of white cloth, and hung on the wall of the bench, the fireflies would emit a snowy light, and under the bright light of dozens of fireflies, he could read with relish. With his persistent study, Che Yin's knowledge became more and more profound, and he later entered the imperial court and eventually promoted to the official Shangshu. When her mother finished telling the story, Yuan Longping asked with great curiosity: "Where did the fireflies go in the end?"
The mother did not give Yuan Longping an answer, but let him think about it himself. The most valuable thing about Huajing is not to give the child a standard answer, and deliberately reserves room for the child to think. They can make their own choices in many possibilities, so that the story told is full of creativity and endless extension of meaning, leaving room for children to imagine.
In this way, under the cultivation of his mother, Yuan Longping has the ability to think independently, and will rack his brains to analyze problems. When Yuan Longping set his sights on the field of hybrid rice, international authoritative scientists completely denied his views, believing that there was no advantage in hybridization of self-pollinating crops, and if anyone proposed the topic of hybrid rice, it was ignorance of genetics.
Yuan Longping was not disturbed by the judgment of authoritative experts, but was not afraid of authority, thought independently, continued to observe, experiment, and find answers by himself. Finally, he successfully developed three-line hybrid rice, two-line hybrid rice, and super hybrid rice. He has published more than 60 papers, published Chinese, and 6 English monographs, becoming the "father of hybrid rice" of a generation that shocked the world!
The story of the fat fox foraging for food, so that the son knows how to "temper desire"
The hybrid rice cultivated by Yuan Longping has been greatly increased due to the continuous increase in yield, so that the Chinese people have lived a "grain worry-free" life since then. In people's minds, he has always been a thin and dark "old man", which is far from the image of a "national treasure" scientist wearing a white coat and glasses. In fact, this is caused by his long-term insistence on facing the scorching sun under the rice fields. However, this spirit of desperate Sanlang was unexpectedly "reprimanded" by his mother. What's going on here?
It turned out that when he was working at Anjiang Agricultural School, it was the bottleneck period of the research on hybrid rice between the two lines of French subspecies, and Yuan Longping braved the scorching heat and the scorching noon sun to fight in the rice field in order to complete the project as soon as possible. It wasn't until dinner in the afternoon that I dragged my tired body back home. At this time, he was sweating profusely, his white shirt was tightly attached to his body because of the sweat, and the boots under his feet were also covered with thick mud, which was exactly the image of an old rice farmer.
His mother had already prepared a fragrant meal, and when he saw his son entering the door, the 87-year-old man was very unhappy. He said bitterly: "Ermao, you are also a 60-year-old person, don't work hard every day, you should pay attention to your body." Yuan Longping comforted her and said, "Mom, it's all right, your son's bones are still hard!"
The mother said with a reproachful tone: "I know you are a scientist, but the rice farmers still know that you have a noon break, you have been working so hard, sooner or later your body will be exhausted!"
Yuan Longping smiled and said, "Mom, you don't understand!" The peasant brothers are racing against the clock, but we are racing against the clock in our scientific research work, and missing a research clue may make a year's hard work in vain!"
Unexpectedly, my mother was very angry when she heard this, and said: "If you don't know how to combine work and leisure, you can't do a good job!"
Seeing his mother's resolute attitude, Yuan Longping had to express his attitude to his mother that he must pay attention to rest in the future, and must not be tired, which coaxed the old man to eat with peace of mind.
Yuan Longping said that in fact, it is precisely because he has always adhered to the "combination of work and leisure" taught by his mother, and in the next 30 years, his body has always been great, and there has never been a major obstacle.
Few people know that after Yuan Longping became famous, many large companies at home and abroad saw the amazing wealth hidden behind hybrid rice seeds and came to him to cooperate. Some friends said that if Yuan Longping had "gone to the sea" in those years, he would have been a billionaire long ago! But in the face of temptation, he was unmoved. Elder Yuan said that this was mainly influenced by a very philosophical story told to him by his mother.
Mom said: "One day, a fat fox was foraging for food, and when he heard a flock of chicks chirping and salivating in the fence, he looked around for an entrance. Finally, in the corner of the fence it found a small hole. But the opening of the cave was too small for its fat body to enter. So the fox went on a hunger strike for 5 days, starved and thinned himself, and finally passed through the small hole and greedily ate all the chicks in the courtyard. However, at this moment, it found that its bulging belly could not get out of the small hole. Helplessly, it went on hunger strike for another 5 days, and once again starved and lost weight. As a result, the fox who returned to the outside of the courtyard wall was still the same fox as before. At that time, Yuan Longping was still young and did not quite understand the meaning.
It wasn't until I grew up that I understood my mother's good intentions, that is, to tell him: "Learn to restrain your desires." Yuan Longping also gradually experienced the truth of the ancients that "no desire is just". The story told by his mother, he firmly remembered, these subtle education, but also has been affecting his life.
In 2004, Yuan Longping won the "Moving China" Person of the Year Award. In its acceptance speech, the conference wrote: "He is a true cultivator. When the world is full of fame, it still only focuses on the field, indifferent to fame and fortune, a farmer, sowing wisdom, and harvesting wealth. ”
Yuan Longping often said to his students: "There is no grain written on paper, no rice can be knocked out by the computer, and only in the test field can the rice I hope to grow." Although he has reached the age of 90, he still has not given up his rice field.
In 2019, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China, yuan longping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was awarded the Order of the Republic in the Golden Hall of the Great Hall of the People and was cordially received by the national leaders. Interestingly, the next day he returned to the test field. He said, "I can't sleep in the book of merit!" ”
For decades, Yuan Longping has always supported himself with a belief that his mother has established for him, and this belief is to "concentrate on doing one thing well in his life, and find the true meaning and value of life in it."