Chapter 5 If you go back to before the age of 5

One-third of a person's personality is formed before the age of 5, and I think that is the most important period in my life. ——Zhang Yaqin One day in March 1999 was originally a very ordinary day, but it was like a festival to the teachers and students of the University of Science and Technology of China. A student who studied here 20 years ago came back today, and everyone wanted to see him. In the evening of that day, people poured into the lecture hall on the campus, occupied every seat, crowded in the corridor, and then stretched towards the front desk until they were less than one meter away from the podium.Outside the hall, there are more teachers and students coming this way.

He came and stood in front of the podium in full view. He was not tall, with a round face resting on his broad shoulders. It rushed towards him, like a tide, and broke the glass on the door.Before he could say anything, applause broke out.All eyes are on him. The teachers he respects are now gray and submerged in the sea of ​​young people, looking at their greatest "pride" in this life with emotion. He is not only proud of his alma mater, his Chinese teachers and his alumni, but also Bill Clinton.Clinton wrote to him during his tenure as President of the United States, saying that he was "an inspiration".There is also his mentor during his studies in the United States, Remande Bickholz, a fellow of the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, who once praised sincerely: "He is really the wealth of the world." There are also his colleagues and peers.There are hundreds of thousands of these colleagues and peers, distributed in dozens of countries in Asia, America and Europe.When they talked about him, they all kept sighing: "Cough, cough, that's a great man."

At the age of 12, he became a student in the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China; at the age of 17, he chose a career for himself; at the age of 23, he received a doctorate from George Washington University in the United States; at the age of 25, he became the director of the Sanaford Research Institute in the United States. In 1996, at the age of 30, he already had dozens of patents and published hundreds of papers.At the age of 31, he became the youngest fellow in the 100-year history of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.Two years later, in 1999, he became the vice president and chief scientist of Microsoft China Research Institute, and at the same time won the "Outstanding Young Electronic Engineer Award" in the United States.He is the only Chinese to receive the award.The achievements he has achieved are difficult for most people to complete in their lifetime, but he is only 33 years old this year.

"I have to look at my resume every once in a while," Zhang Yaqin said to those eager students, "Have you learned something? Have you become stronger? Have you done more valuable work?" Zhang Yaqin's "starting line" is not at the University of Science and Technology of China, but in a small town in Shanxi. This is the first scene that Zhang Yaqin can think of today: "The time I acted like a baby in front of my mother ended very early. I lost my father when I was two years old. My childhood was almost all in a small town in the south of Jinan. Spent at my grandmother’s house. The first school I went to was like a rural elementary school.”

The audience was deeply fascinated by it, so they heard him continue: "I have never had a sense of superiority since I was a child, and I still don't feel the same now." Yaqin was born in Taiyuan, Shanxi. The transfer from Taiyuan to Yuncheng was a tragic experience for him, but it is an understatement. In the second year of the "Cultural Revolution", when he was only two years old, his father disappeared inexplicably.Yaqin lived without a father for several years and longed for him.One day, the family was suddenly in a mess, and in a sad atmosphere, he knew that his father had died.He was 5 years old that year. At this age, he still couldn't fully understand the meaning of death, but he knew that a dream would never come true, and his father would never come back.His future can only go by himself.

His mother remarried after his father's death, perhaps because he didn't want to bring the shadow of the past into this new family, so he seldom talked about his father.He misses his father very much, but he doesn't even remember his father's appearance.He has never had a father's love in his memory, nor can he understand what "father's love" is. "Because it never was," he said. “So there was no comparison.” Years later, he had a daughter of his own.Seeing his daughter cheering happily under the warm sunshine in New Jersey, Zhang Yaqin finally realized the "father's feelings" accumulated in his heart for a long time. "My daughter wouldn't have been able to do it without me," he said. "It didn't occur to me until then that my childhood might have been different if my father had been around."

In Zhang Yaqin's memory, 5 years old is a deep imprint.He once described his understanding of the 5-year-old in this way: If I could go back to before the age of 5, I would think that was the most important period of my life.One-third of a person's personality is formed before the age of 5, one-third is in elementary and middle school education, and the other third may be some later experiences. very important.I've seen a lot of people in the exact same environment, like siblings, even twins, grow up with completely different personalities. If the human body is compared to a computer, then the brain is a chip, the body is other hardware, and your personality is like an operating system.The computer is bought, the operating system is installed, and it is almost finalized.The same is true for people. After birth, basic education first, and then higher education, just like adding new application software to the operating system.Application software is university education, and university is very important, but if your operating system is poor, then the potential of application software will not be realized.

When he was 6 years old, Yaqin left Taiyuan to live with his grandmother in a small town at the southernmost tip of Shanxi Province.Grandma was Yaqin's first teacher. "My primary education was given by my grandmother," he said once. Grandma has some education, not too much, she can read and understand accounts, which is rare among Chinese women of that generation.But the most important thing is that my grandmother knows many interesting stories and has a very firm belief, "She often told me to be independent and not to depend on others." Like most children, Yaqin also loved to read comic books when he was young.If you don’t understand, you have to ask your grandma to talk about it, but grandma said: “You need to know the words, and if you know the words, you don’t need to ask others to talk about it.”

Grandma is very open-minded. Although she is old, she thinks very young, and what she says is the most pleasant.Even now, Yaqin still thinks those words make sense.One of my grandmother's favorite sayings is: "As long as it is knowledge, you can learn anything." Once my grandmother especially encouraged him: "Don't follow the school textbooks, but follow your own needs. After learning addition and subtraction, If you feel that it is not enough, learn multiplication and division, no matter what grade it is." Yaqin spent his childhood like this, during which there were countless trips alone.Mom and stepfather live in Taiyuan, grandma

I live in Yuncheng, my grandma and aunt live in Xi'an, and my uncle lives in Beijing.The kid has been running between these cities for as long as he can remember.Always been alone. "I remember running around when I was a child." He recalled many years later, "I was very independent since I was a child." He still remembers traveling more than a thousand miles by train to Xi'an to find his grandmother's house when he was 7 years old.It was dark and raining when we arrived in Xi'an, but no one came to pick him up at the station.He went to grandma's house alone, not afraid, and felt that it should be like this.He also remembers the first time he saw Beijing that year: "It can be regarded as gaining insight. I suddenly felt that the world is so big. Compared with Beijing, Taiyuan, where I live, is really a small place."

Every time I walk into a strange city, I always live in someone else's home. Although they are all relatives, they are not mothers after all.At a young age, this child can understand the feeling of being dependent on others, knows how to restrain his desires, dare not be willful, and deliberately show his good side, and even try his best to understand other people's thoughts. "It's an uncomfortable feeling to be dependent on others, but it's good for people's character development." He described his childhood in this way, paused, and continued: "The most important lesson I learned when I was a child was to put myself in a position that is more suitable for me. Those children who grow up under the meticulous care of their parents can't learn this lesson when they are young, and they still have to grow up. Learned. Because it is impossible for them to receive the meticulous care of others all their lives, and it is impossible for them to be in the position of the stars and the moon in any place." Therefore, if you want to stand on the starting line of "E-students", the first idea you should establish is: you don't need meticulous care and go to find grandma's house alone.