Reported by: SHANG Yankai, LI Shiqi
Photographed by: SHANG Yankai, LI Shiqi
Translated by: REN Shuman
Edited by: Jennifer Taylor
“If you have a dream, go bravely pursuing it without wavering, maybe next success will be you." October 9th, a sharing meeting with the theme of “My Chinese Dream - the most beautiful struggling youth” was held at HIT. Three youth representatives who are well recognized by society in their respective fields shared their stories of struggling youth to pursue their dreams.
This meeting was organized by the Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of Communist Youth League, sponsored by Youth League Committee of HIT and the Young Radio of Heilongjiang. The secretary of Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League, LI Haoyan, the Vice Secretary of the Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of Communist Youth League, WANG Shubin and HIT Vice President ZHANG Hongtao attended the event. The meeting was in the form of interviews. The three interviewed guests were: A 90s undergraduate who is honest, kept struggling and paid for his father’s debt. He is LI Yong from the School of Life Science and Technology. The young entrepreneur who stuck to his dreams starting from scratch and seized opportunities. He is the chairman of Harbin Double Goods and Materials Distribution Corporation. The young teacher who has firm beliefs, concentrates on academics, and constantly pursues excellence. He is the Vice Dean of the School of Management of HIT, Ye Qiang.
Everyone has fought or is fighting with their lives in order to achieve their dreams, and we are helped by these efforts. Tall and thin, wearing black-rimmed glasses, senior student LI Yong is such a faithful dream-seeker. When he was a Grade 2 student in high school, his father left home and left 120,000 yuan in debts. Since then the 18 year-old boy has shouldered the burden of the family. The mother of LI took care of a small barber shop, the income was far from meeting LI and his two sisters’ basic needs. He didn’t ask his family for money. Instead, he worked while studying to pay his tuition and living expenses. The huge debt began to affect the normal life of LI’s family. He assured the debtors by his integrity: "Please give me a few years, I will pay off the debt." During the past four years, he has been tutoring, working in the restaurant to do odd jobs, and worked on a long-distance truck. Through these he has paid off 60,000 yuan. Compared to his peers, LI Yong lives a hard life, but he always sticks to the dream of a better life for the whole family. He said: "I came from the countryside, so I never knew what giving up was!"
From a chef to a chairman, from earning five yuan working for others to possessing hundreds of millions of assets, LI Zhongshuang who dropped out of school because of the burdens of his family always had faith in his dreams. Initially, his hands bled due to long exposure to caustic soda washing the dishes when he worked at the restaurant. But he still practiced his cooking skills, and successfully passed the Certificate of Chef Band one. By chance, LI came to know the steel business, and gradually transiting it to his present work. At the same time, he never forgets to help the weak. LI said: “No matter what you do, be sure to see the opportunities and trust your own strength, and stick to it. After finishing my youth dream, I have a new dream. I hope that in the future I will be able to build a nursery school and a nursing home. The most important thing to success is having both the old and the young in the family. This is my biggest dream.”
YE Qiang who admired Einstein and dreamed of becoming a physicist when he was a child failed the College Entrance Examination, and instead came to study Aquatic Products. The non-ideal major once disappointed him, until an English exam aroused his fighting spirit. "I spent more than a year learning English. I went to the English classroom every day to practice my listening skills, and finally ranked first in the CET4 of the whole department. I found that as long as we stick to something, we can be good at it." Later, YE gradually developed an interest in Economic Management and Computer Science, and chose to study at HIT to finish his PhD. He has been engaged in research in E-commerce. In 2008, one of YE’s published academic papers was named as the only best paper of the year by the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS), one of the three major International Academic Conferences in the field of International Management Information Systems. It was the first time in history for a Chinese mainland scholar to win this award. YE said that in the past 20 years, electronic commerce has developed rapidly. The rise of this field will provide a new world for his and his students’ dreams.
The stories of the three outstanding youth touched the audience a lot. A sophomore GUO Yue from School of Astronautics said: “After listening to the story of YU, I am inspired. Although he was not admitted to my favorite Physics Major, he never lowered his self-discipline, and achieved great results in the field of Information Management. It tells us that no matter what field are we in, as long as we have strong faith, we will be successful." Another Sophomore HUANG Beicong was moved by the story of LI Zhongshuang. She said: “His practical and hard-working attitude towards life is worthy learning. As contemporary college students, we can’t just dream high, only in this way can we achieve our goals.”
