Just heard the news that Jiaqi Guo has passed away, after fighting with leukemia bravely for almost a year. Life is so short when you look back at the exit. Yet she left us a beautiful story, about a girl fighting with death, so defiantly, so undauntedly, that it just make the ending so sad.

I’ve always believed in that we’ve been familiar with lies and big talks in everyday life that a little truthful piece of thinking can be very moving. And indeed so. May her rest in peace.

Her last words:

我很遗憾，我不能坚持下去了，我尽力了，朋友们尽力了，家人都已尽力了，我最后的愿望。

第一个愿望，最放不下的当然还是父母了，我希望他们在我去的时候能过上轻松愉悦的生活，还上那些人情债，我希望他们晚年幸福安康。

第二个愿望，是洗个澡，这个愿望是死后妈妈来完成了，因为肺部感染已不能洗澡了。

第三个愿望，把我写的童话故事出版，已写了一半，我相信幼幼会帮我完成的。

其他的希望是祝愿大家幸福安康，如果真的有灵，我会保佑大家的，保佑我的家人朋友们，保佑天下善良的人。如果有机会我能表达我的愿望，我相信你们都能理解我的，我相信它们都会一一实现的。

2009年10月8日凌晨

国家琪口述，妈妈执笔

Just two weeks away from the 60th Anniversary of the establishment of his motherland, for which he had such a deep love, indeed, the love impelled him going back to China right after he finished his postdoc research here at Northwestern University, to accept a starting faculty position at Zhejiang University, to persuade his wife rejecting the faculty position she got in the US to go back with him lest the family be split up and their 3-years old child can only see one of the parents, Dr Tu jumped off the top of the building in which he lived, and terminated his promising research career.

Our last encounter was almost half a year ago, one or two month before his departure for China. At that time, I was impressed by his smile that was always on his face and his politeness. And we chatted for a little while, as both of us are alumni from Tsinghua University, the conversation was very easy-going and a little bit nostalgic.

We say requiescat in pace to him, and hope him find peace in Heaven.

Pundits on TV screens, columnists in their little gardens of letters, professors on podiums, and independent writes in their blogs, quite a majority of these people keep saying that the trends of freedom and democracy cannot be stopped, as if these two intrinsically unrelated things, freedom, and democracy, were Siamese twins that cannot be separated, and you either get both or get none. It is not the truth at all. Not because they speak of them together so often, that they become glued together by their saliva. 自由民主 (freedom and democracy) is a fine word, like all the other words we Chinese people like to speak, made of four characters. People tend to treat it as of the same structure as 一生一世, but that’s just naive thinking, and I think it fits perfectly into another category of words such as: 九牛一毛 (nine bulls and one hair), 党和国家 (party and state), words in which the leading part is the predominant one and the trailing portion means really nothing.

Democracy by itself has no real value, strange this might sound to a lot of people who have been reciting the four-character spell of 自由民主 (freedom and democracy) for thousands of times without everthinking about the relationship between the two entities they so freely mix, its existence serves as a determent of evil things like dictator and authoritarian government. Yet, by rigging the ballot and using media to wash again the already heavily-washed brains of common folks, it can lose its only value as stated just too easily. After all, politicians really don’t give a fuck about how random guys on the street think. If the election is near the corner, maybe they will stage some shows of how close they go with John the plumber, but after the voting boxs are closed, come on, people, get out of my lawn!

Freedom, quite the contrary, is a beauty by and of itself. The freedom of speaking what you think, the freedom of sharing ideas with other people by organizing meetings and publishing pamplets, the freedom of doing whatever you feel up to in your own space without annoying other people, the freedom of moving to new places you like in your country as a free citizen, the freedom of keep silence when everybody else is ranting crazy words, the freedom of choosing a job which suits best both your interests and abilities, the freedom of criticizing the government without risk of being thrown into prison secretly, the freedom of having a trial in a court of justice. Living in modern China, we have so many different kinds of freedom to pursue, to fight for, to stick up to, to stand behind, I just can’t understand why so many people are wasting their time and energy in risking their necks for democracy, which has never been proved a good thing to have in the first place and which the vested interests cannot bear.

So I say, our strategy should be  this: ditch democracy, fight for freedom, and one by one, we can turn China into the land of the free. Sixty years ago, our fathers fighted to their death to free us from invaders. Sixty years has passed, which is treated as a cycle of time in Chinese calendar, yet we haven’t gotten the basic freedom yet, though they have been in our Constitution for nearly sixty years. How weak are we, how shameless are we, how stupid are we, that we can boast our bravery of street fights, of domestic violence, of beating our own children, yet we cannot stand up and get the basic freedoms, which we long deserved and has been deprived of us for sixty years.

I have heard a lot of my friends comment that they are surprised by the neck-breaking development happened in Japan after WWII, given the havoc wreaked there by the war, and they compare it to the fast marching of the Dragon economy.

They didn’t know that  the single most important factor is human resources and the postbellum Japan still kept their developed human power. I say there is no comparison between the postbellum Japan and the China today, and the reason rests on the fact that due to stupid policies, the human resources part are still not well developed and that will be the bottleneck of China’s development.

留放，是留学放洋的简称。去澳洲的人老以为“放洋”是“放羊”的变体，其实不然。“放洋”这个词，古已有之，巴金在《沉落》里也有用到：“你知道云先今天 放洋么？ 云先平日很用功，所以有这个报酬。”这句话很像舅妈拿我教育她儿子的口吻。不过，我舅妈的话比巴金来得生动，学过来大概是这样的：“嗯国咋鬼崽子！一天到 黑只晓得在外边吊儿郎当，偷鸡摸狗。我造答末子孽，生出一咋嗯果嗷不孝子来打咯。野不晓得学学嗯哥哥，别个在美国哈佛大学吃香的喝辣的，到时范一咋蓝眼 睛，黄头发的外国老婆过来，嗯看有多风光！！”当然，其实我并不在哈佛，但是我舅妈在乡下教小学二年级，知道哈佛，已属不易，我也就不强求了。她对我生活 的描述更是只能算美好的祝福，也全然信不得。
忽然有兴致写这个，既不是因为功德圆满，修成正果，也不是因为突生变故，留学生涯要暂告一个段落，不过是看到夏宝分享的一篇日志，叫《留学回国的人会有的 习惯》，一搜索，果然是一篇热帖！一篇雄文占尽前八十页结果，好久不搜中文材料，这股久违的王者之风着实吓了我一跳。我就来凑热闹，写写美国这边的情况。

1. 人力资源奇贵。中美生活习惯上的差异基本上一大半可以用这个来解释。
2. 在 餐馆吃饭，不能大叫“waiter”，须耐心等候，待其观察到这一桌用餐已毕，自会过来殷勤问候“Is everything all right?”，礼貌性地忽悠一通，再用“May I have the check, please”收尾。让人怎生不怀念在北京饭馆里大呼小叫“服务员”，座中喝高者还要和服务生小姐打情骂俏一番的热闹劲儿。
3. 网购方便之 极。乱七八糟的东西都能方便地买到。连水果和蔬菜这些perishable的货品都有网店专营，还专车送货上门。饿了就订pizza。登峰造极之举是 amazon的one click buying，整个购物过程就是点一下鼠标。一两天功夫ups包裹就送上门了，真是网购成瘾者的地狱。
4. 生活中彻底没有了烧水的概念。连泡面都是微波炉加热即食。
5. 断绝晒衣服的概念，烘干机出来立马就可以穿了。
6. 美 国啤酒很棒，不但瓶小显得饮者量大，而且种类繁多，口味各异，稍好些的牌子都是德国英国瑞士进口过来，为了一瓶啤酒真是不辞辛劳。最不济才沦落到喝bud light或者blue moon的地步。记得去教授家吃饭，照例拿出各色瓶酒待客，其中竟有绿色小瓶装Tsingtao，爱国豪情在心中澎湃，招呼周围美国朋友都试试。当时喝得 高兴，没有问及他们的感受。隔了几天，superbowl在师兄家喝酒看球，说起啤酒，一美国老兄怯生生评价青岛，说是“watery”，竟让我觉得说得 有理。以前拿大绿瓶酒席饭桌上灌下去的如今回味，果然有些酒精兑水的嫌疑。
7. 美国人爱狗成癖。大小超市至少都有一个aisle卖的宠物相关的商品。漫步回公寓，常看到有带着墨镜的老美遛狗。狗大多数生龙活虎，活蹦乱跳，人其本上面无表情，无精打采。在美国工作还是比较辛苦的。据 说，欧洲比较悠闲，尤以法国为胜，动不动就操家伙上街去了。这么爱狗，想来自然无法忍受吃狗肉这样一种“灭绝人性”的兽行。网友还支招教你当美国人问起在 中国吃狗肉的情况时要如何有效应对。但我过来许久，或许是处于礼貌，竟没有朋友问起我对狗肉的爱好有几分，然我憋得慌。只好一到有机会和美国朋友聊起中 国，我都忍不住主动谈及吃狗肉，还说“you should try it when you travel to China!”, 似乎大部分人也不置可否。毕竟吃的不是自己养的狗，也是别人杀的，吃到嘴里是也没有太多的罪恶感可言。只是有些人自己会养狗，所谓的“肉狗”，养伤一年左 右然后杀了享用，这个未免残忍了一点。起码也得张三李四家的狗换过来吃，才不至于落下“虎毒不食子”的骂名。

回想起在北京呆的几年，掐指算来，午夜时仍在街头游荡的日子并不算多。想来倒是上高中的时候半夜出来通宵上网的次数要多一些。印象最为深刻的莫过于凌晨三时许，漫步街头，沿街店铺全部门窗紧闭，然后月光如洗，倾泻在柏油路面上。或有凉风戏动墙角旮旯的断烂报章，成为寂静环境里唯一的响动。那时或多或少算是体味了一些忙里偷闲，众人皆睡我独醒的闲情。但忽忽地便到了北京。

到北京之后，人地生疏，刚开始的岁月总是过得那样慢慢悠悠的。课业占据了大部分时间。忽而到了圣诞节，有罗K兄提议上网吧庆祝这个老外的传统佳节。响应者推上自行车一起从紫荆园侧列队出师。不过果然是出师未捷，这伙受过高等教育的帅小伙子们漫漫寻网吧而不得。一路在狭窄的自行车道里列队骑行，有一句每一句地自嘲这圣诞夜欲通宵上网而不得的奇遇。现在回想起来，倒是别有一番滋味。不过其间说的话，走的路已经全不记得。

后来折腾了总得有一两个钟头，在回学校的路上，眼瞅校门就在跟前了，居然发现路旁赫然是一家通宵达旦生意红火的网吧。后来的事已没多少印象，记得最清楚的倒是为了锁自行车颇费了一番功夫。三两成群，一定要和别人的车锁在一起才多少觉得安稳。似乎当时我只能把自己的自行车锁在最外面，虽然和张Y还是小罗的车锁在一起，但总还是觉得在外侧显眼招贼，让我颇有些悬心。进了网吧，要看身份证，大家都亮了学生证表示一下。这么一大班子来自于五道口技术学院的帅小伙子们齐集来到这个无名小网吧通宵，实在是让店主高兴了一把，想来真是觉得蓬荜生辉吧。

后来大家玩CS，算是岩色和李ZY比较出色。我多半是早早毙命然后换视角看别人怎么死。记得竟有一次失手把高手岩色给灭了，岩兄无法自已，大呼：“我竟然给PS给灭了！！！”。向来对游戏不是太感冒的我竟然颇有一些高兴，算是发现这个玩意竟是如此有意思。

后来不知怎的出了网吧，发现自行车全都在，真是高兴了一把。大伙乘兴回巢，一大清早见到人总是那么高兴，被别人误会成勤学上进，清早就起来在校园里驰骋的感觉总是不错的。后来如何真是彻底忘了。丁兄似乎是坚持要吃完一碗泡面才肯睡，认为要保持健康的生活习惯。我也忘了自己吃没吃，上铺倒头睡了。