Professor Zhang Weiying had just returned from an inspection trip to Germany, and as soon as he stepped into Beijing's Capital Airport, he was shocked by the huge, brand-new terminal. A journalist friend who traveled with him also joked, "Look at this facility, airports in developing countries can be so luxurious!" ”
Let's recall Professor Zhang's landing at Newark Airport in New York. Compared to Shanghai's Pudong International Airport, Newark Airport is like jumping from a modern city to a backward town, and this contrast is eye-opening.
Not only the airport, but also the distance from Brooklyn to Manhattan doesn't look as exciting as the view of Lujiazui from the Bund in Shanghai.
Professor Zhang's travel experience is that he mentioned that the construction of a smart city is being promoted in Hamburg, Germany, but he found that the Internet technology there is not more advanced than that of Beijing. These experiences made Professor Zhang wonder what are the standards of developed countries?
He believes that the real developed country is not based on how many high-rise buildings you have, but on how you treat the weak in society. In Hamburg, buses roll sideways to make it easier for passengers with reduced mobility to get on and off the bus;
In Tokyo, Braille on subway doors can help the visually impaired; In New Haven, a government subsidy allows poor people to live in the same apartment as Yale PhD students. These are costly but extremely friendly measures for the weak.
Professor Zhang is a witness to a selfless humanitarian spirit. In Hamburg, a Cisco manager showed him a medical service program to help refugees who were not welcome in the area but who were still willing to lend a hand. This kind of spirit cannot be measured by money.
While Tokyo's Narita Airport may not be as modern as Beijing's Capital Airport, the level of comfort you'll find in Shinjuku's public toilets may not even match that of a five-star hotel in Beijing. This attention to detail reflects a country's level of maturity and development.
Behind the development there are also unknown hardships. In Brooklyn, New York, a friend of Professor Zhang's introduced him to a wasteland that had been left unused due to pollution from a chemical plant.
Even when land is expensive, the government has had to commit to rebuilding and spend huge sums of money on soil remediation. This cost-defying action is costly, but it also reflects a sense of responsibility for the future and the environment.
Professor Zhang realized that whether a country is developed or not cannot be measured only by material wealth, but more importantly, whether the country's system can accommodate every corner of society and whether it can care about the well-being of everyone.
This reflection brings us back to the starting point: should a country's degree of development be judged in terms of how it treats the most helpless?
When we talk about the development of a country, we focus on the economic growth rate, GDP or the development of science and technology, but Professor Zhang reminds us that these are not the ultimate measures of whether a country is truly civilized or not.
These insights and experiences of his make us rethink the true meaning of "developed country". In Professor Zhang's view, the real progress of a country is not only the vigorous development of the economy, but more importantly, the realization of humanistic care and social justice. This care and justice is based on deep compassion and practical support for the weak.