Liu Yadong: "Reference News" changed my life

One day 20 years ago, it was as autumnal as it is now. Shang Yong, the then president of Science and Technology Daily, had a dignified face and hurried to my workstation, when I was the director of the news center. While knocking on his desk, he said to me: "Zhao Qizheng, director of the Information Office of the State Council, asked Science and Technology Daily to interview Zhao Haosheng, who has been in Beijing these days. You're going to do it yourself! Probably afraid that I would be lazy and assign the work to someone else, he repeated the four words "personally handle the knife." He turned around and took a few steps, then turned back to me and asked, "Do you know Zhao Haosheng?" ”

Of course I knew Zhao Haosheng, and I knew it when I was very young! I first heard the name from my mother. In my memory, my mother once circled the articles signed "Zhao Haosheng" on the "Reference News" and let me read them. At that time, I was still in elementary school, and I was looking at the world with curious eyes.

Really nutritious reading

In the early 1970s, as Sino-US relations improved, China's national door had just opened a crack. At such a special historical moment, Zhao Haosheng, a famous Chinese-American journalist and professor at Yale University in the United States, entered the vision of the Chinese people through the "Reference News". At that time, the "Reference News" often published Zhao Haosheng's articles, such as "Overseas Chinese in the United States Watch Nixon's Visit to China", and Zhao Haosheng's conversation record with Chinese soldiers in the United States, "It is difficult to answer the question of Returning from China". Zhao Haosheng brought a breeze of "looking at the world from China, looking at China from the world", and this breeze blew to his mother, to me, and to countless Chinese.

Later, I also became a journalist and worked in the United States for more than five years in the 90s. Although my residence was less than an hour's drive from Zhao's home in Connecticut, I never had the chance to see each other. In November 2001, when I was ordered to interview the elderly Zhao Haosheng in Beijing, my mother had been dead for more than a year. The first thing I thought about was, if my mother was still there, what questions would she ask me to ask Elder Zhao?

In a room at the Palace Hotel, I met this kind elder as promised. Elder Zhao was very interested, and before the formal interview, we chatted in English. I recounted the past of reading the "Reference News" as a child, and greeted Elder Zhao on behalf of my deceased mother. Unexpectedly, this made Elder Zhao open the conversation box.

Elder Zhao said with emotion: "The child has been encouraging him from falling to the ground, learning to speak with his teeth and teeth, to toddlers? It's mother! The encouragement of the mother will affect a person's whole life. When a person succeeds or fails, he can feel the encouragement and expectation of his mother. ”

At this time, Elder Zhao suddenly asked me: "At that time, I could read the "Reference News", your mother was a high official, right?" I quickly replied: "Not a big official, just able to read the kind of "Reference News"." ”

Elder Zhao's words made me reminisce for a long time. I was particularly fond of reading as a child, but unfortunately almost all the books of that era were about education in the class struggle. In today's view, there are only a few truly nutritious readings. Luckily, Reference News is one of them, and I've benefited greatly. Now, whenever I recommend a good book to my son, but I don't get the expected response, I can't help but dig my heart and lungs to compare the past and the present, and persuade him to cherish the good reading environment brought about by China's social progress.

When I was a teenager, I often read "Reference News", which made my interest point shift, so I seemed "different" among my peers. Isn't it a teenager who is obsessed with international events such as the first phase of the U.S.-Soviet negotiations on strategic arms restrictions, the détente between the East and the West, the oil crisis in the Middle East, and the Vietnam War? It's all the trouble caused by "Reference News"!

The teacher advises "must read"

Inspired by the National Science Congress in March 1978, I was later admitted to the Department of Radio Electronics (now the Department of Electrical Engineering) of Tsinghua University. But I always have a humanistic feeling in my heart that is difficult to let go, especially international politics and international relations. "In Cao Ying's heart in Han", I thought of Peking University next door, and I made up my mind to take the exam again.

Who says one heart can't be used together? When I was a master's student at Tsinghua University, I began to contact the doctoral supervisor of the Department of International Politics at Peking University. When I first met Professor Xue Mouhong, a well-known expert on international affairs, he gave me a lot of encouragement, opened a book list, and let me find a way to make up lessons. When he was parting, he gave a special explanation and asked me to order a "Reference News". I gritted my teeth and stomped my feet: "Okay! ”

So, every day at noon, the Reference News will be delivered to my dormitory in Building 15 of Tsinghua University on time. Back then, for financially strapped graduate students, ordering a newspaper was not an easy task. I paid for my own subscription to the "Reference News", and I had to cut newspapers and take notes in the dormitory. My roommate often stared at me with suspicious eyes, and I told him to roll and he scolded me for being neurotic.

After eight years of hard study, I successfully obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in engineering from Tsinghua University. After graduation, I worked for two years at the Center for International Studies of the State Council, and in 1989 I became a doctoral candidate in the Department of International Politics at Peking University. During my studies, according to the training plan, I went to the Center for Chinese and American Culture Research of Nanjing University for a period of time, and collected doctoral dissertation materials there.

The night before leaving, Teacher Xue still did not forget to explain that although there are many English newspapers and books in the Sino-American Cultural Research Center of NTU, "Reference News" can play an indexing role, so it is still necessary to insist on reading. He told me in Fuzhou Mandarin: "To study international issues, I will read the "Reference News" all my life." ”

Writing my doctoral dissertation, "The Vietnam War: Historical Origins and Its International Context," I peeled off several layers of skin. Thanks to the specific guidance of Professor Wang Jisi of Peking University, he finally successfully completed the thesis. Professor Wang Tieya, a leading chinese jurist of international law, served as the chairman of the defense committee. The defense committee fully affirmed my thesis, believing that my thesis "filled the gap in the relevant research field in China". In 1992, I received my J.D. from Peking University. You say, is there any credit for the "Reference News"?

After working at Science and Technology Daily, I worked as a foreign correspondent, director of the news center, editorial board, deputy editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief. As a newspaper leader, I can read not only the "small references" (i.e., "Reference News"), but also the "Big References" (i.e., the References). At the end of each year, when the secretary delivers the order form to my desk, I always fill in the first column of the "Information". The reason for this, to be honest, is not just to obtain information, but a deep complex at work.

Because I often changed my profession and field of work, my mother said when I was alive that I was "out of tune." But I think, if it is too "tuned", where is the current knowledge and vision! In the first two years, I was transferred to Nankai University to engage in journalism education and served as the dean of the School of Journalism and Communication. My mother was long gone, and I couldn't hear her old man's nagging anymore.

Coinciding with the 90th anniversary of the founding of "Reference News" this year, I am grateful and rewarded with this short article to accompany me for decades of "Reference News". (The author is a second-level professor of Nankai University, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication, and former editor-in-chief of Science and Technology Daily)

Source: Reference News Network