A story on Yangzi, a deaf girl, who spent her 15 years on learning how to speak, by observing the mouth behavior and feeling the vibrancies of throat with her hand, was introduced in a documentary broadcasted tonight in CCTV 4. It is so moved a story that I am fully impressed. Just imagine the difficulty for a girl to learn to speak without any direct information from her ears! What’s more impressively, she can talk to the journalists with comparatively fluent Chinese, and getting to know what the question is by observing. An early news report in 2004 is avilable online by clicking here.
Since very young, we were told by our parents that we should be determined individuals. What is determination? In a dictionary that is formed since our naive brain when being a lad, it means permanent sticking, without allowance on simple giving up and unapproved failure. I don’t know if it is related to a special culture or a generally accepted virtue. But I am for sure on its root in Chinese culture with the proof of the early education that is from my grandma and parents. Numerous stories in children books tell us to be determined. In my mind at that time, all the great scientist are of great determination.
Admittedly, such story is a great power for my later study, though they have been gradually eliminated from my mind with the growing on age. But the story that I got on CCTV today bring me back to this topic. And unfortunately, I found I am not that determined when I get older. An accidental search on Douban.com for the read books bring me back to the old days when I was study at high school. At that time, my brother received his offer to University of Ohio, and then his American dream started. The event is a great shock for me, and I was getting aware that I should learn English well. Such belief and strong motivation directly bring me inexhaustible power, and thus render my determination of studying English. The result for my efforts are quite pleasant, my English was boosted, and the benefit from my English excellence is available even today!
But such determination is not available for me anymore. I don’t know if it is the reasons on social environment or just some personal reasons. I am not that ideal and naive any more for imagine my future life in decades after, and I would never set a remote purpose that I shall fight for, like my English study in high school. What I am caring more is about the present situation, e.g. job seeking, graduate school entrance, PhD programs overseas, etc. Admittedly, concern on present situation is not a fatal mistake, it reflects the fundamental desire for the survival of an individual. But the problem is, I have lost my desire on remote plans, only a confusing framework for my present situation is available.
We are living in the emerging market, and incomplete human characteristic may be partly an important feature to such setting. But I don’t know if it would be of severe consequence when increasingly social members are losing their remote plans and then belief and determination. Indeed, such effect can be widely amplified.
PS:Since today, The QQZone would be synchronized with the blog, but I would not take any adjustment for synchronized posts on QQZone for any format settings.