I went to Seoul, South Korea to receive language training twice. Professor Zhao Xianlong’s rigorous and humorous lecture style left a deep impression on me.
Professor Cho’s new book “Understanding Vocabulary” is a book explaining the meaning of Korean vocabulary. Especially the understanding of Chinese words (words that have evolved from Chinese and localized in Korea. Chinese words account for 70% of the total Korean vocabulary), and I have a new understanding of
Professor
. Do what the other person really wants you to do
I’m not good at giving gifts, although I know that the word “gift” itself has the meaning of “expression of kindness”. I also never gave anyone anything because I thought gift-giving was a mere formality. What’s more, sometimes I knew that I would regret later because I didn’t give a gift, and I never changed myself deliberately. I am who I am.
In this way, the dull days also quietly left in my perseverance.
Suddenly one day, I suddenly had an idea to give my teacher Xu Tingfan a gift on the Mid-Autumn Festival. I think: if you want to give it, give the teacher’s favorite thing. So, I frankly asked my mentor what kind of gift he thought would be good.
”The article you wrote last time was good.”
After listening to the teacher’s words, my heart was warm and speechless.
For repayment, we seem to have fallen into a misunderstanding, and unknowingly will borrow the amount of material to measure its true value. My teacher’s words woke me up from a dream: writing good articles and existing as a scholar is the best reward for him.
If you want to repay someone who has given you a favor, think about whether the way you choose is exactly what the other person wants. Calm down and think about how to repay your parents? How to repay your teacher? How to thank your lover? How to thank your brothers and sisters?
It is time for us to reflect.
Sympathy
- empathy for the pain of others
The word “sympathy” is a combination of the Chinese character “tong” which means the same and the word “qing” which means the idea. That is, how to understand my own plight is how to understand the plight of others. From this point of view, this is really a semantically good vocabulary. However, in real life, perhaps because we do not understand its original meaning, we often just look down on the unfortunate opponent from the standpoint of comparative advantage. In this way, what we give to each other, I think, is not “sympathy” but only “pity”. Because we didn’t stand on the same level as the other party, and we didn’t really think about his business as our own.
As a human being, sympathy or compassion is one of its nature, and it is innate, and it does not need anyone to teach it deliberately. Whenever we see a child who has lost a parent, our hearts ache invariably; whenever we see a dying person, we naturally feel pity and sympathy. Although I am not a person who blindly advocates “nature is inherently good”, I believe that pity for the weak is the nature of human beings that has never changed.
But sympathy just staying in the heart and putting it into action are quite different things. How to turn sympathy into action? In my opinion, it cannot rely on human nature and can only hope for acquired education. I don’t know if it’s because we haven’t learned how to help others since childhood, but we seem to be very unskilled in helping others in our daily life.
I once visited Vietnam War orphans at the Peace House in Hanoi, Vietnam. Those innocent children suffer from the aftereffects of leaf litter. Defoliant is a criminal tool that not only harms one generation but continues to inflict this harm on the next generation. Not to mention the physical pain, the mental harm to the children is even more astonishing. Whenever I think about this, my heart hurts to the extreme.
Looking at those children, compassion, no, it should be compassion. Because I really feel my heart is hurting. But unfortunately I didn’t get any closer to them; I couldn’t stretch my arms to hug–get them. I blame myself for what I did to this day.
Turn sympathy into emotion, and emotion into action. This is another purpose of my life. I’ll start with a small practice.
memory
- memory of thoughts
Recently, the words of a father who lost his daughter in the Daegu subway disaster have often echoed in my ears. “I used to smile when I thought of my daughter, but now I can’t help but sigh and cry when I think of my daughter.”
These are really heart-wrenching words. I’ve researched the word “memory” more than usual. I think its power is really great. Because it brings joy to some people, and sorrow and grief to others.
I took the time to think about it carefully: I would be happy, happy, and unwittingly smiling when someone came to my mind. I remembered a few people. I thought about it again: what I look like in other people’s minds. What will my parents think of me? What will my wife and children think of me? What will my friends look like when they think of me? What will the students who listen to my class think of when they remember me
? people. Joy or anger or even outbursts of anger because of them. But what about the memories we left to each other? Think about it from time to time—isn’t this topic more important?
Reflecting on my past self, I hope all I leave others is joy and smiles.
