From 1980 to 2010

Abstract

In 1980, when I was 16, I started¹ my post-secondary education in the Department of Mathematics, BNU. It was then—at the early stage of China’s reform and opening up policy—that a variety of academic ideas from abroad began pouring into China. In the first five to eight years of my life at BNU as a student and later as an employee, I read almost all the articles of every journal in the fields of philosophy, social science, psychology, and education available in BNU’s library. I took several hundred thousand notes and attended every academic lecture and seminar that I’ve heard of. I cannot believe that I am a student from math department. A key question haunted me: How on earth are human thoughts generated? Where are human’s inspirations and creativities coming from? With such questions, I stepped out of the ivory tower and have been walking through, till the present day.