Knowledge is infinite and exploration is endless

Tang (hereinafter called Tang): Hello, Huang teacher! You engaged in academic study for more than 40 years and gained today’s achievements. So how did you enter into the academic road?

   Huang Changzhu (hereinafter called Huang): Due to paternal teaching relations, I started to learn English from my father when I was a child. My father graduated from English major of Peking University, and was very strict with me on languages, especially poured more efforts on my Chinese and English writings. My father began to teach me English when I was nine years old and conducted systematic English training when I was twelve years old. At that time he almost let me read one original English story with pictures everyday, and let me write what I had learned from reading, and then he carefully amended, touched up and returned to me. As time passed, my vocabulary increased and writing ability also had greater improvement. Though I suffered a lot in my childhood, it laid a good foundation on my later growing up, such as my English writing benefiting a lot from this. When I was a middle school student, we are taught Russian in school, so I only learned English at home. My best lesson at that time was not Russian but Chinese and Math. I was always thinking of learning engineering or engaging in literature, but I graduated a year early when I was a high school sophomore, and I was submitted to learn Russian in Sichuan University of Foreign Languages. After graduation, I was assigned to work in language institute. Therefore, my tight relationship with foreign languages and linguistics started truly, and my academic road also started.

Tang: compared with some contemporary, you are still very lucky, because it was very rare to have this kind of environment and condition in the time that you grew.

Huang: actually, people in our generations are very lucky, because we all had rigorous education in school. As for me, parental learning also laid a foundation for me, but we are the same as some intellectuals in China, we all experienced some twists and turns, and disturbed by political movements in different degrees and delayed lots of time. "Culture Revolution" was a typical example. In that age, even if you read "Quotations from Chairman Mao" in English version, you would possibly reviled as "have ulterior motives", "only concern for academic research but not care about politics", let alone reading professional books. It seems ironical today, but I experienced to recite foreign language words secretly when I went to WC and was afraid to be found and thus caused many unexpected misfortune. The environment faced by the scholars today is better than we had at that time. Although we face so many temptations, the objective environment for learning knowledge is better than that at that age, so we should cherish our environment.

Tang: you mainly engaged in "machine translation" study when you just worked in language institute. After "Culture Revolution", your study mainly focused on contemporary language theory, especially the problem "distribution, use and classification of world language". How did you start to transfer this field?

Huang: in the 1950s and 1960s, the language institute was divided into several research groups which seemed as the current research office, I was in the third research group at that time. This research group was responsible for Chinese phonetics research and machine translation research. The exploration for machine translation started in mid 1950s. Cooperated with other units, we respectively developed machine translation system of Russian to Chinese and English to Chinese in late 1950s and early 1960s. But "Culture Revolution" stopped this research when it started. In 1972, as scientific researchers returned Beijing from "cadre’s school" and as scientific business gradually developed, the scientific work in language institute had some adjustment on structure. I also gradually transferred to the research on contemporary linguistics theory. In mid 1970s, the language institute sent me to learn French in Linguistics College, where I had the chance to learn Spanish and Italian with Argentina and Italian international students for a period of time. Meantime, I made use of the condition that there were so many overseas students in the Linguistics College, began to investigate the situation for world language distribution, use and contact as well as interactive influence, especially developed the investigation of African language among overseas students in Africa, which not only improve application ability of English and French, but also accumulate data for later research work. After a few years, I published a long article “African Language Overviews” with about thirty thousand words, which was finished based on the investigation data at that time. In the beginning of 1980s, when compiling work of “China Encyclopedia for Language Volume” started, Mr. Xu Guozhang took as the deputy editor of this volume and as the editor of the two subordinated discipline “Linguistics” and “The Languages of the World”. I and Professor Wang Zongyan in English department of Zhongshan University took as deputy editors for the two subordinated discipline. In more than six years of time, I was lucky to become the assistant for Xu teacher and worked under his direct guidance, and I gained a lot through immersion, and then I entered into this field truly. 

Tang: during ten years of “Culture Revolution”, the academic research was destroyed unprecedently. The compiling for “China Encyclopedia” (hereinafter called “Encyclopedia”) was at the time when society was undone, scholars’ academic passion were very high, but there were some renowned old experts with excellent achievements in the editorial board member of “Encyclopedia”, meantime, there were also emerging some energetic young scholars, these young scholars have become famous scholars in the renowned field. At the same time, participating in compiling “Encyclopedia” has a great effect on their (including you) academic levels. Can you talk about that for us in details?

Huang: it was the time when academics was undone and researchers were in temporary shortage, it was very urgent to train a group of academic successors, and continued the good tradition and academic findings from older scholars. At that time, older scholars did their utmost to cultivate young people. For example, my participation in the compile for “Encyclopedia” was recommended by them. Most of the participants were famous older linguists at home and abroad, such as Ji Xianlin, Lv Shuxiang, Zhou Zumo, Xu Guozhang and so on, including Mr. Wang Zongyan who was also the famous older scholar with excellent achievements. I was the true “youngster”, but Mr. Xu Guozhang and other famous scholars did not take people with qualification, after discussion with Mr. Ji and Mr. Lv, they appointed me to draft the framework and entry of “The Languages of the World”. After entry was confirmed, Mr. Xu not only invited famous experts and everybody, but also invited young scholars when selecting copywriters. For example, in these two sub-disciplines that I was in charge of, there were several long entries with over ten thousand words. As for the two entries “The Languages of the World” and “Indo-European”, Mr. Xu, Mr.Ji and Mr. Lv decided to let me write after their deliberated discussion, which made me surprise. The similar entries of Encyclopedia Britannica and in other great encyclopedia were all written by very famous scholars. I was only a assistant researcher at that time, so I felt great pressure on whether I could write well or not, therefore, I did not accept immediately. Mr. Ji and Mr. Xu as well as other famous scholars encouraged me and made some good suggestions, which built up my confidence.

When I was hesitate to the task, Mr. Xu and others encouraged me passionately; but after I finished first draft, they were very strict with me. For example, after I finished the first draft of “The Languages of the World” with special long entries, I thought that I read many original works, collected many data and made great effort on writing, so I would pass the draft only by small refinements. However, I never thought Mr. Xu made many modifications, maybe he saw what I thought, so he smiled and said to me: “I like to use intensely. If there are different opinions, we can discuss.” After I carefully checked what he modified, I was convinced. Just as Mr.Xu’s modification for three times, the draft was shortened to ten thousand words from thirty thousand words of the first draft. He made bigger modification on structure and format. The part of “pedigree classification”, according to the suggestions from Mr. Ji, Mr. Lv and Mr. Xu and so on, was amended to explain by lists and words from pure words description, which was clear and easier to understand than before. “Indo-European” was shortened to ten thousand words from original twenty thousand words or so, and Mr. Xu revised the concluding paragraph, which enhanced coherence of the context. The two specially long entries and some other entries I wrote were not only passed smoothly, but also gain higher evaluation in the academic circle at home and abroad, which was condensing the efforts and hard work from Mr. Xu Guozhang and a group of older experts. And through writing, revising and finalizing as well as actual experience when working around Mr. Xu, I myself gained experience for meticulous scientific research and obtained basic academic character with the combination of human and wisdom.

Tang: you recalled the older scholars’ important influence on your academic growth more than once, do you think which scholar has great influence on you?

Huang: in 1950s and 1960s, there were many famous scholars in language institute, Ding Shengshu, Lv Shuxiang and other scholars all worked in language institute. Because I worked earlier in the institute, I had the chance to contact these older scholars. They all loved young people and were very concerned about our academic growth. In early 1970, after we returned to Beijing from “Cadres school”, when the “Culture Revolution” did not end, our business work did not resume, so the young people often felt hesitate and did not know what to do. At this time, Mr. Lv Shuxiang, Ding Shengshu and other older experts timely reminded me of “Be still to read books carefully”, and proposed suggested readings, such as Syntactic Structures and The Languages of the World and other books were all the ones that they suggested us to read. Mr. Lv Shuxiang helped us youngsters who learned foreign languages a lot. He not only appointed the original work, but also suggested to read carefully and get better results through translation one paragraph to another, and to make notes in important places, if we did not understand, we could discuss or consult older scholars.

The condition was very bad at that time, we who were single young people built some “room in the room” by several cabinets and bed plate in hallway of the office building, where could just put down the single bed and one small table. I and a comrade in Spanish department of Peking University began to learn and translate in this condition. Except unified arrangement for political learning, we used the rest time to learn and translate books. I translated for 4 to 5 days each week, and use the rest two days to discuss, check and revise my own translated draft. We would consult Mr. Lv Shuxiang and Ding Shengshu to solve the problems that we did not solve by ourself, and they always helped with pleasure. Frankly, when I first translated these books, I did not think of publication. My translation aim was to learn and improve, and put into the case after finishing. Several years later, as “The Gang of Four” collapsed and scientific research gradually developed, Mr. Lv suggested me to find out the translated drafts from the case and sent them to the publishing press. Therefore, many translated books appeared at a time.

In those years of early 1980s, it was a time when I had the most findings, and my energy was enough and would publish one to two papers almost each month. My articles appeared in the main linguistics publications in domestic, meantime, translated work appeared continuously, from which I was pleased with myself. One day, Mr. Lv called me to talk with him face to face, then he took Lu Xun’s “Homeland” and let me translate it into English within two hours as possible as I could. I did not understand his meaning, but due to inconvenience ask, I only followed his requirement. Two hours passed, I thought I translated well and then submitted to him. Mr. Lv read it and did not make revision, but ascribe some with red pencil and let me think carefully whether it need modification or not. Then he asked me what I did recently, I told him one by one and felt ashamed. However, Mr.Lv listened and spoke slowly: “as your age grows, your fame will increase, more and more people will invite you to write articles, but you should treat it carefully, especially did not write something appropriate to the moment. You should be careful for translation, do not translate everything and only translate famous works because translating famous work will make academic progress. You should master this principle at least before you are fifty…”. Mr. Lv still said: “I have studied English for fifty years, but there are still some problems I did not completely understand, so learning was endless. You have learned several European languages, so you could find time to learn one or two eastern languages such as Japanese and Tagalog, from which you can find many phenomena different from European languages and thus make comparison…”. Before and after this conversation, I had talked with Mr.Lv for several times, but this time was the longest time and gave me the greatest influence. After that I carefully recalled our conversation contents and carefully checked against myself, then made check, adjusted learning and research methods, slowed writing speed, focused on improving paper’s quality, made use of more time to learn and increase academic accumulation, and gained good results. Mr. Lv was very strict with young learners and had increased concern for them. Every time when I recalled this, I was deeply touched in my heart. In 1980s, I was promoted with an exception as the researcher, Mr. Lv wrote recommendation opinions for me, though the words was not so many, I burst into tears as long as I read it.

Another older scholar who influenced me greatly was Mr. Xu Guozhang. Besides commonly compiling “Encyclopedia” with Mr. Xu as well as often gaining detailed academic guidance, he also talked learning and experience of life with us, he talked about his views on some major problems in the European Renaissance. Mr. Xu ever said to me more than once: “you must read more and read famous works such as How to Do Things with Words of J.L. Austin. Though it was hard to understand, if you insisted on, you would obtain many gains.” He liked the works such as Shelley and Shakespeare, for contemporary linguists, he recommended Ferdinand de Saussure and W.P. Lehmann; he asked me to read Mr. Jin Yuelin’s “Theory of Knowledge”, whose unique view would surely give us some beneficial enlightenment; he also advised me to read “The Treatises of Translation” compiled by Mr. Luo Xinzhang, said Mr. Luo’s preface was very wonderful. He often said: “insist on reading everyday, study then knows the insufficiency. A person who leaves books aside cannot make progress. Writing article should have new ideas and new views and should not write articles with repeat contents. Each article should try to give new atmosphere to the reader and should not use empty conventional talk…” I cannot use several words to express Mr. Xu’s help and guidance on my academic. His concern on me was condensed a small paragraph in the “preface” of his clumsy: “…as for a seventy-year-old person who is lucky to see your academic growth from young to your prime stage, and lucky to record your growth, his heart filled with joy, needless to say…”

Tang: the old people often said reading, learning “approach” should be high, it is admirable to gain instruction and help from so many academic experts. But there was also an old saying: “the so-called master from entry, the individual self-cultivation mode”, you yourself also worked very hard!

Huang: when the older scholars were alive, when they persisted in working on academic research, we as younger generation did not have any slack. Now some of them have passed away one after another, but their encouragement and great kindness still inspired and influenced me. In these years, no matter how busy and tired, I still persist in reciting 10 to twenty foreign language words before sleep or after get up everyday and read foreign language for about twenty minutes; I still try to find the time to read more and pay attention to knowledge accumulation and training of rigorous studying attitude; being a low-key man and learning with high standard; I would use at least one rest day to read in Xinhua bookstore or foreign language bookstore, knew situation of book market; I persisted in publishing one or two articles on foreign academic publications. As my age increased, my response speed began to be affected, in order to exercise my response ability for foreign language, even if I watched Television programs in Chinese Channel, I also tried to interpret program contents or dialogue contents by the way of simultaneous interpretation, to check my response was quick or not, and check my knowledge that lacked, etc. Once discovered, I must make up the missed lesson afterwards. I have insisted on those for so many years, which became an important part of my life habit. Though sometimes I also wanted to relax myself, and felt how tired I lived, when I thought I should shoulder responsibility and entrust from older scholars, I dare not stop and have any slack.   

Tang: this diligent learning spirits reflected in the older scholars and you is very precious. In my understanding, one scholar not only has the disposition of staying realistic, toward kindness and tendency to beauty, but also has indomitable and permanent will; after all academic research was a very rigorous and hard career.

Huang: in deed, learning cannot be careless. First it is to review and distinguish materials carefully. Just like our translation work, sometimes if I did not know the correct word, I would repeatedly refer to related data and select the most proper expression. Sometimes it often took long time to look up a word, or a place name and personal name, even should consult in library or foreign language bookstore. It was impossible to be afraid of hardships and trouble. Opportunistic and taken for granted are not acceptable. Writing articles should have new ideas, but new idea was not appeared by beating cerebral door but established on the basis of numerous studies. For example, as for the problem involved in world language classification and world language statistics, I raised an objection against the internationally popular traditional way which corrected statistics numbers of the language of the world to single digit. I indicated, under the circumstance of non-uniform language division standard now, unclear boundary of language and dialects, especially in the condition of insufficient investigation, recognition and description of many languages in today’s world, it was not only impossible but also had no actual meaning for the so called “accuracy” statistics. Even if the statistics was made, it was subjective and with low reliability. These views were agreed by more and more linguists. This conclusion was not ominous but had based evidence, which was formed through years of reading and thinking in the beginning of 1970s. I had written many papers related to this problem. Now our society encouraged innovative ideology and the academic circle also called innovation. This was good, but I still insisted that innovation must be established on the basis of evidence.

Rigorous requirement for academic even presented on the style of academic works. I gave you an example that I experienced. In late stage of 1970s, I was invited by China National Radio to write an article about world language, and sent it to Mr. Lv Shuxiang who rested in Mount Lu for check and approval. When Mr. Lv returned to Beijing, he talked with me and directly criticized: “this is a academic article not a literature description. Academic article should use scientific style and can be repeated. For the article with thousands of words, it is uncomfortable to use ‘speak…language’ for a little while, use ‘talk…language’ for a little while, ‘use…language’ for a little while and ‘operate…language’ for a little while.” So I never forget that and dare not have any slack when I write articles.

Tang: actually, learning not only had the ability of theory thinking, but also paid attention to details including “style”, and details were often be ignored. It were so many things that were ignored or given insufficient attention in academic circle. For example, as far as I know, the research of world language classification that you engaged in was a very strange field in linguistics circle. How did you treat the meaning of this research?

Huang: "World language classification" is a branch in the direction of "Modern linguistics theory". Currently, it has about 4,000 to 6,000 languages (or 4,000 to 8,000) in the world, but most of the language situations are not optimistic. According to a investigation issued by America Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) in 1999, there is one person in the world using more than 50 languages, and fewer than one hundred persons using about 500 languages, fewer than 1000 persons using 1,500 languages, and fewer than ten thousand people using 3,000 languages. We should remember more than 96% languages in the world are used only by 4% of the world population (Chinese is the language that is used by the largest number of people in the world, English and Spanish are followed close behind). This analysis gives us a correct signal: most languages in the world are facing death threat increasingly. This threat comes from the development of modern commercial civilization and globalization to some extent, globalization lets a new culture of including different civilization being formed, but meantime, cultural diversity and linguistic diversity are being weakened consciously or unconsciously. But cultural diversity and linguistic diversity make our world more varied and graceful. The decline of one language or culture means cognitive system of language environment and user of this language, even culture heritage presented by means of language will lose to great extent, which is the disappearance of certain component part for the whole human civilization.

Therefore, from this point, taking various measures to rescue the languages that are slowly dying out is not a pure problem of language theory, but also has meaning of "language ecology". To know world language's classification, distribution, use and its developing change and other situations, we can well realize its diversity and take effective measures to protect endangered language. I have called more than once: "protecting those slowly dying out languages and cultures and letting them continue to be together with other languages and cultures and thus flourishing in the common world are unshakable responsibility and mission." if some species disappear, we will sigh, outcry and call for strengthening ecological protection, but now one human language will disappear in each two weeks, which seems it does not get common emphasis and precaution by human. We should protect human languages just like protection of panda so as to reduce their occurrence frequency which is considered as "the greatest intellectual disaster" in the world by linguists. When engaging in humanities study, we must have deep humanistic concern, and even the relatively remote field, we will discover the meaning closely linked with contemporary world.

Tang: I notice that you are very excellent in the research of social linguistics, especially in the aspects of bi (multi) lingual phenomenon, language contact, interactive relations between language and social culture, you have made important achievements. And you are one of the scholars who first wrote and discussed bi (multi) lingual phenomenon. You have published some articles such as "Some Problems of Foreign bilingualism research", " "Language and Culture Fight in Canada and Danger of separatism", "Thought of Language, Society and Culture", "Bilingualism Phenomenon in Canada", "Multi-culture in Canada", "Development of Human Linguistics" (a &b). Especially in March of 1994, during the "Seminar of cross strait Chinese and vocabulary and words" held in Taiwan, you read a paper "See difference and unity of cross strait language use from the Chinese version of some proper noun of foreign language", which had a large response. From "language ecology" to "social linguistics", it can show linguistics cross with other subjects. So you greatly focus on research of interdisciplinary. 

Huang: according to the view form social linguistics Roy Harris, "Experience cannot be divided into two parts: language experience and non-language experience...words cannot separate from situation and isolate from social environment. Words are a part of social situation and a part of psychological situation. If the words do not conduct basic integration, people cannot learn one language and cannot conduct effective activities like language users." That is to say: language behaviors exist correspondence among other behaviors in human communication. Language interweaves a complex communication space with the behavior and features such as human recognition, ethnic, race, social class, sex, age, social network, social group, attitude, politics and ideology and so on. Therefore, it is necessary to study language communication from society, culture and other perspectives.

I always think, scientific knowledge can be connected in many places, on one hand, today's subjects are splitting up gradually, on the other hand, an important trend for the development of contemporary humanities and social science is intellectual integration, the latter's trend may be more obvious. I once wrote an article and indicated: "this phenomenon not only has the factor of social need, but also has relation with the development of each subject for contemporary humanities and social science. Take anthropology as an example, once its research scope and research direction extend, such as extending to study political phenomenon and economic phenomenon in post-industrial society, anthropology at this time not only crossed with research field of sociology, but also crossed with politics and economics. With the development of humanities and social science, this trend does not slow down, but becoming more and more obvious. Since World War II, it had so many intellectual overlapping and crossing phenomenon between several subjects, between humanities and social science, among each subject of social science, between humanities and social science, between humanities and social science and natural science. This is an inevitable trend for social development and human progress.

Tang: in 1984, you transferred from linguistics institute to literature information center (called "literature information center" at that time), you gradually adjusted your study energy to the direction of information science and library science, and in person hosted or organized some subjects in the aspects of social science policies and information science of library, made lots of achievements, and got wide recognition in the circles of library science and information science. For example, you hosted a major national subject "research of library information network toward the 21st century"; your "Studies about establishing planning and review group of social science books, information and philology" submitted to the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the CPC and the national social science planning office was adopted; not only that, you once on behalf of China attended the first expert meeting of social science information network regions in the Asian-Pacific region held in Bangkok, which organized by United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, and attended the first and second meeting of regional advisory panel and was elected the second vice chairman; your speeches in several international meetings were all gained higher evaluation, later you also hosted some subjects assigned and entrusted by higher organizations for several times, and was considered as "a rare talent in documents information work" by professor Lv Shuxiang. How did you finish this academic transformation?

Huang: When I just worked in document information center, my work was editing "Newsletter of Foreign Social Science", the aim of this journal was to search, collect and accumulate academic information materials of foreign humanities and social science. Because my foreign language foundation was good, I did not have much in adaptation. But later I took the administrative position; I also needed to participate in management and study work of library literature. My experience was to humbly learn from experts and scholars in this field, meantime to go over and study massive materials of library information science at home and abroad, especially the first-hand important information at home and abroad, to know the latest development of related fields. Moreover, I took the opportunity of attending academic meetings and visiting abroad to know advanced experience for library construction actively. In a word, I should keep learning, only which I would reduce the chance of being fooled academically.

Tang: in the leading positions of document information center, you always concerned the growth of young scholars, and were very strict with them academically. Meantime, you fully gave everyone a chance for further education and practice. Why did you emphasize the growth of young people?

Huang: I myself benefited a lot from the concerns of older scholars. And I have been touched by their spirit of encouraging the young scholars. After I finished "Encyclopedia", when I was exceptionally promoted as the researcher, Professor Xu Guozhang specially wrote a recommendation letter for me and indicated: "in 1982, the Language words volume of encyclopedia was created, the languages of the world and foreign linguistics, subjects and experts, you were the main force. You yourself carefully prepared first draft, revised draft and confirmed final draft. Twice corrections were all determined by you. If there was something unclear, you always checked for several times. Your industrious work was much of the credit. Mr. Lv and Mr. Ji knew me the best. ..." actually, without Mr. Xu's guidance and help, I cannot finish this task. Therefore, I also always hoped to use this attitude to help young people. In recent years, some undergraduates, postgraduate and doctor students went to work in document information center successively. I sincerely expected them to do better and exceed us in the future. So I was pleased to share my experience and feel in the process of my growth, of course, I was also willing to tell them my mistakes and lessons and let them avoid detours. In the meeting of the institute, I told the center leaders at all levels to strengthen the training, support and education for young people. As for some undergraduates who graduated from foreign language universities, but relatively lacking social science knowledge, as well as for the situation that their foreign language knowledge learned in universities had difference with actual application, I would select English, French and Russian academic articles for them and let them read or translate, gave necessary explanation for what they did not understand. Sometimes I had a mind to absorb young comrades to attend the subjects that I hosted, and gave them chance and pressure. The purpose of doing this was to let them grow up academically and quickly and to train vigorous and new forces for documents information center.

Tang: do you think how young scholar should improve their scientific level?

Huang: when the young scholars began to engage in research, they should do well in three aspects: first, they should select their own research direction according to their own specialties, interests and work, and should be willing to sit “an indifferent post” and get down to study problems, remove rash mentality, avoid desiring for quick returns and avoid blindly ape. Second, they should learn foreign language well. Foreign language ability is one of the basic skills for scientific research workers in modern society, is the tool for academic communication and dialogue, therefore, young scholars should at least master one foreign language. It requires great perseverance, read more original works, look up and ask diligently when learning foreign language. Perseverance will get gains, if they stop when facing difficulties, they will never improve. Finally, they should take notes and records, which is the core premise to improve their own academic ability. Mr. Zhang Shoukang once said to us: “never putting cards, never reading”. Only taking academic notes well, scholars can effectively increase their own academic accumulation, insist on rising abruptly based on accumulated strength, they can make academic articles with depth and weight, and thus improve their sensitivity for research subject and comparative analysis ability, as well as achieve self growth for academic exploration ability.

As for writing academic papers, I advise young scholars to start from small subject and small problems, do not bit off more than perfection. After finishing collecting data, they should give an outline around the theme, then started to write. Meantime, you must be careful and hasty when drawing conclusion. Mr. Wang Li even reported Mr. Zhao Yuanren’s words “Speak something that is beneficial, and speak something that is no difficulty”, these words became a principle we followed when we conducted academic research. Moreover, when referring to others’ research findings, it should respect others’ labor and strictly follow academic norms, and should emphasized foster good style of study in the beginning of learning.

In one word, during academic research, we should always insist the principle of honesty, diligence and seriousness; always require ourselves to be a “minded man” for academic exploration. Honesty is the most basic qualification for scholars, and cannot claim to know what we do not know. Furthermore, a diligent scholar should insist on reading more, accumulating more and writing articles without repeating contents. We should combine human and wisdom: human should be low keyed, and learning should be with high standard, avoid desiring for quick returns and only thinking of fame.

Tang: Thanks you for your help and guidance for the young scholars, at the end of this interview, I think you should give some remarks to the young scholars?

Huang: I always push myself, regulate my academic life based on the Mr. Xu’s “Learning is infinite, and exploration is endless”. Now I also like to use this sentence to encourage young scholars!

In the existing writings, this interview refers to the articles from the following two comrades, thanks!

Huang Changzhu: “Grow in the older scholars’ care” published in “Journal of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences” in September 23, 2004; Wen Xian: “Diligent work and Assiduously Study” published in “Journal of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences” in September 19, 2002.

Tang Lei: male, 1977. he studied in Lanzhou University, Wuhan University, Graduate school of China Academy of Social Science respectively, and successively gained bachelor’s degree of electronics and information science, master and doctor of ancient literature. In July 2006, he entered Literature Information Center of China Academy of Social Science, currently, he is engaged in research for foreign China Studies as well as information and intellectual management in this research department of the center.

Translated by Xu Qiyuan.

Editor: Wang Daohang