Image. Picture. Kaiping Diaolou

Author: Yu Peilian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: playing the violin, leading his sister playing the cello. The soaring music transcends time and the mist of history, making one feel as if they are witnessing the lightning-fast trains racing between Boston and New York. A young Chinese man, on the swaying train, preaches the doctrines of Christianity to the passengers. He is none other than. At the age of 17, he crossed the ocean alone, facing exceptionally difficult living conditions due to the lack of help from anyone. With his sharp mind and the innate flexibility of a Cantonese, he used the fluent English he had learned from a priest in Shanghai to eloquently preach the Christian doctrines on the train. During the long journey, when he was about to finish preaching the Christian doctrines, he suddenly had an idea and began preaching Confucianism and Mencius, which surprisingly became very popular.
In the early days in the United States, despite the unfavorable environment, still persevered with remarkable determination, completing the university preparatory program with excellent grades and passing the United States' most rigorous college entrance examination (College Entrance Examination), eventually enrolling in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). To secure more funding, he had to work part-time while studying, taking on jobs such as "Part-Time" and "Sunday evening" work. One day, he saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a company in a small town near Boston, and hurriedly went there, only to find that someone had already beaten him to it. Frustrated, he wandered aimlessly on the streets and accidentally spotted a poster about a math competition, with the date coinciding with that very day. He thought, "Since there's no registration fee and there are prizes, why not give it a try?" So, he entered the exam hall.
A few days later, a very noticeable announcement was published in the Boston newspaper: "Boston Math Competition, 'Tangshan' (China) youth ('s American name) wins the championship." The news reached Wu Tingfang, the ambassador of the Qing and Nationalist governments in the United States, who was overjoyed and immediately summoned this young "Tangshan" man. Wu Tingfang learned that this young man had to take on multiple part-time jobs to earn tuition fees and lived a very difficult life. Deeply moved by his perseverance, he immediately called for administrative staff to check the roster of government-sponsored students and found that there was still one vacancy in the naval architecture program at MIT. Esteeming his talent, Wu Tingfang immediately offered this scholarship to.
Thus, became the last government-sponsored student of the late Qing Dynasty. With the scholarship,'s financial situation improved. To show his gratitude, he took on some part-time jobs for the embassy, such as being a clerk (recording and organizing documents), doing miscellaneous tasks, and also responsible for liaising with students in the Boston area. In this way, the socially awkward, who only knew about working and studying, had the opportunity to interact with the local students.
Many of his classmates from MIT and Harvard who returned to China later became scholars and celebrities in various fields. Song Ziyuan, who studied at Harvard, met and even asked him to teach his younger sister Song Meiling to play the violin, though she did not continue with it. At this time, had not completely lost his passion for music. Besides