--Experiencing the news scene is a kind of happiness
Life's accidents and inevitabilities
Life has a kind of strange trajectory, to the left or to the right, to happen or not to happen, and it's full of accidents. Nine years ago, I never thought I would be a reporter in the future, I have no knowledge of this profession, at that time I was a senior student of the Department of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Like other students, I spent almost every day in computer programs, and I didn't even take any language classes in college. As a student cadre with very good grades, I was expected to stay in school and continue my education. But one day, a small accident changed everything. I happened to step into a room on the fourth floor of the school library, a place I seldom came in before, and in my careless browsing, I turned to the last page of the Beijing Examination Catalog, and a few black words "China School of Journalism" casually broke into my eyes. Later, in an article, I described this moment like this: "I froze, closed the book, closed my eyes, and my life changed forever." It was true. This moment was a "fuse" that ignited a volcano in my heart. The next day, I took a bus most of the day, across half of the city, to this school I had never heard of. After talking to a group of classmates and a few teachers for a few hours, I simply made my decision. One day, six months later, I was sitting in a large conference room at the China School of Journalism during a graduate school interview. A white-haired scholar calmly asked, "You are studying in a good program in a very good university, four years can't be considered a short time, don't you feel pity for giving up what you have learned?" When I heard this question at that time, I was actually lost in thought, and I suddenly remembered my father who passed away two years ago. My father's specialty was also electromechanical engineering, and his education was a junior college. When I went to college, my major was chosen by him, saying that it was his son's father's work. My father was a typical farmer-born intellectual, who was persistent in his search all his life, and never left the coal mine in his life. He treated life extremely seriously and work extremely desperately, he wasted no time to put his passion into the construction of the mine, and eventually took his life prematurely. In the remote ravine, he has been an ordinary worker, but also the leadership of the mine. He once reigned supreme, but also suffered injustice, in the time of departure, but also full of human warmth and cold. I did not see him last, but he left me the only last words, is to bury himself in the original he drew the mine boundary. My father left, in a very short time, sophomore I felt endless human warmth. I knew that this was only a small part of my father's feelings, and that he had endured much more than I had. A few weeks later, on the train back to Beijing, I suddenly realized that my father's last words to me were actually a longing, a longing for career, a longing for passion, a longing for life. At that time, I wrote the first real article in my life, "The Scarlet Sunrise", the main character of which was my eternal idol, my father. My father's death made me think about the meaning of life, and indirectly led me to the path of writing. The Scarlet Sunrise" was published in the school's journal, which caused a great response. I realized that I could express my feelings through words. Every semester thereafter, I would write an article in the school publication. Although the output was low, I took it seriously and enjoyed it. Returning to the scene of the interview, in fact, many things happen for a reason, and many choices are both accidental and inevitable. Just like in one's life, one is faced with many choices, in fact all the time. Who to eat with at lunch, what to eat, what to say? What to do in the afternoon, what to do first, what to do later? ...... Questions such as these stay with a person throughout his or her life. Some unintentional choices accumulate, some unintentional accidents appear, and at a certain point, life-changing changes will be born, and even fate-determining changes. What is an accident? It is the catalyst for these changes and an essence of life. The accident itself is unpredictable. But what else happens after the accident is perhaps a given. At least, one thing is valid, how you treat the accident, how the accident to you; in other words, you treat the accident attitude is different, the result may be different; in other words, you want to become what kind of person, it is possible to become what kind of person. Of course, figuring out what kind of person you want to be is not easy, and may take a lifetime. For me, the only thing I can do until I have it all figured out is to take my life seriously and my career seriously. In fact, when you are serious, you have passion and another taste for life. Grove, the former chairman of Intel, said, "Only the paranoid survive!" This is another confession of the same meaning: one needs passion to live. In a book, I also once read an analogy: if the 4.6 billion years since the birth of the earth is assumed to be a day and night of 24 hours, then, in the first 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, human beings did not show up. This last second is, in fact, the entire history of mankind. By analogy, if human history is assumed to be a 24-hour day and night, then one's life is also this last second. Human life is only one second, how can we not savor it.
The mind can pass through life and death
In the savoring of life, I finally chose to give up the profession that my father chose for me, and became an ordinary person who records history.
In my not-so-long career as a journalist, I witnessed many major and breaking news events. Some people have asked me why you have been able to catch up with so many great events. In fact, it is very simple, because you put your heart and soul into it, because you were willing to go, because you were willing to give up, so you grasped it, and then you surpassed yourself. I often think about what makes a good journalist. The duty of a journalist is to report news, and a good journalist should be able to tell readers about the newsworthy facts you see in a good way. This is not complicated to say, but it is not easy to do. First of all, it is not easy to tell it in a good way, it means that the reporter should have a good level of business, and should be good at storytelling, and this ability is not formed overnight, it needs a long time of practicing, practicing and accumulating. Secondly, to see the valuable news facts, even less easy, means that the reporter has to go to the news scene, to the front line, to feel and experience it personally. Whether or not you have gone to feel and experience it firsthand makes all the difference to a reporter. Just hearsay, no matter how imaginative and creative you are, you can only stay on the surface of the news, it is difficult to write works with flesh and blood. Only in-depth field, deep into the front line, deep into the masses, and news facts face to face, with the news object heart to heart, in order to listen to the voice of the heart, in order to make their own moving, in order to stimulate the enthusiasm to produce inspiration, in order to find the most essential, the most real thing, in order not to be confused by some of the illusion. In the process of going into the field and the front line, journalists often encounter difficulties, encounter hardships, encounter accidents, encounter touched, encounter shock, encounter surprise, and will even encounter life-threatening. When all these become your life imprints, journalists increase not only experience, but the purification of the soul and the sense of life, something that can cross the fame, money, life and death, into the soul behind the work of journalism, a lifelong use. I often think of the first time I lost my voice and cried during my interview experience, which was on December 27, 2003, in the earthquake-stricken area of Bam, Iran. The day before, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake had struck this 2,200-year-old city on the Silk Road, killing more than 40,000 people, and I had traveled more than 30 hours to reach the scene of the disaster. The conditions in the disaster area were very harsh and difficult, the whole city was in ruins, most of the residents were dead or injured, the government was paralyzed, aftershocks kept on occurring, water, electricity and communication were completely cut off, and the first batch of relief materials brought by our Chinese rescue team could not even be found to be received by the official agencies. As the situation was critical, the rescue team decided to hand over the relief materials to civil organizations immediately, but it needed someone to escort and witness the handover, and it was better to take photos of the handover. As a reporter, I was duty-bound to leave the team with another rescue team member to carry out this task. After completing the handover and photographing the entire process of handing over the relief materials, the team member and I got separated on our way back to the city and thus lost contact with the rescue team. Alone, I searched for the rescue team on foot while covering the disaster area. I saw many tragic scenes in the shocking disaster area, and when I arrived at an open space, I was stunned by the scene in front of me. Unable to help myself, I fell to my knees and burst into tears. Here were uncountable remains, thousands of them, wrapped in white cloth and spread out in front of me, stretching to the distant sky without end. In front of them are rows and rows of densely piled remains, many bulldozers working simultaneously, covering them with a thin layer of yellow soil, rows into a "ridge". There are also large and small pits, which are densely packed with white. In a large pit with hundreds of remains, only a 10-year-old boy, kneeling in the middle of the pit next to a set of remains, eyes red, staring blankly. Above the boy's head was a bulldozer's dumper, filled with earth and ready to be dumped. Time suddenly stopped, the boy did not move, the machine did not move, for a long, long time, the whole world seems to be fixed into such a strange picture. At that moment, I suddenly understood a lot of things. Anyone, no matter who you are, without exception, have to face the same problem of Hamlet, no one can cross the life and death, but the mind can. Often, when the mind travels through the process of life and death, the body will also be tested. 2004 August, in Tibet, Ali Namunani snow peak glacier, I experienced such a life and death test. That is to participate in the 50-day Sino-US joint Himalayan glacier research, I was the only reporter, the focus of the research area is the highest peak in the western section of the Himalayas, 7694 meters above sea level, Namunani Snow Peak, where there is China's thickest valley glacier. That was the day we charged the main glacier, where scientists had to climb from 5,600 meters above sea level to 6,300 meters above sea level to knock down ice cores and obtain scientific information. Before that, we had already endured ten days of climbing and preparation, and due to poor equipment and problems with my shoes, the heels of both my feet were severely abraded. The vice-captain then issued me two pairs of thick felt pads and a pair of high-waisted rubber shoes to wear to travel with a few other team members, but we got separated on the way. It's good to take care of yourself in a place like that, it's hard to take care of others. After completing the interviews on the main glacier, I was left alone at the end of the journey back to the camp due to a variety of reasons including stamina, equipment and injury. I had thrown away dry food, water and anything else I could after walking for more than 10 hours after 9:00 p.m. I was nearing the end of my fitness, when it was gradually getting dark. I was lucky that when I was at my most difficult, a bright moon rose from the summit of a snowy peak, helping me not to lose my general direction. I continued to feel my way step by step, at an altitude of about 6,000 meters, every step was a kind of torture, due to the extreme physical exhaustion, I had a strange feeling, every pore of my body seemed to be banging, which may be a manifestation of an overloaded heart. I can't remember what I was thinking at that time, but only remembered that I kept telling myself that I must not stop and must not rest. In this way, I walked for another 5 hours, and finally, I reached the entrance of the campground at 2:00 a.m., step by step. At that time, all the team members were waiting there, and they hugged me one by one to welcome my return. I will never forget that moment.
Not to be happy with things and not to be sad with oneself
Journalism is a very special profession. Journalists are the watchers of society, the participants of the times, and the witnesses of history. Journalist's field of vision dazzling, the world of journalists colorful, the reporter's life ordinary ordinary. Journalist is a very common profession, with all other professions, the process of being a journalist is the process of being a human being. Can be a good reporter, just like a good person, the most difficult is to transcend themselves. A netizen once asked me, "I am going to change my profession to become a journalist, can you give me any advice?" I was reminded of Fan Zhongyan's saying in the Northern Song Dynasty, "Don't be happy with what you see, don't be sad with what you feel", which is one of my favorite sayings, and one that I have learned the most over the years. Perhaps it is difficult for everyone to do this, but undoubtedly this is the guiding light of life and the aphorism for journalists. To be a good journalist, you can't do it without a normal mind. Because you chose this profession, means you have to face many, many. In terms of people, up to the government officials, billionaires, down to the people, beggars and criminals; in terms of things, perhaps difficult, perhaps difficult, perhaps dangerous, perhaps ordinary ...... have a normal heart, in order to treat people as equals, calmly treat things, in order to scientific, reasonable completion of your work. Of course, having a common mind never means losing passion, which seems to be a contradiction, but contradiction is the nature of life. For a journalist, this nature is more concentrated and amplified. To be a good reporter, you need to have passion, but also need to have a common sense, the degree of art between the two, may take a lifetime to experiment, to figure out, to sense, to taste. In the process of savoring, there is one more basic thing needed, which is courage. When things come up, the ability not to hide, the ability to walk up, the ability to take the initiative to do what you should do, this is the inevitable choice of a good journalist. Like many others, I am pleased with myself for having made that choice. In Aceh, Indonesia, the worst disaster area of the Indian Ocean tsunami, facing swarms of naked and rotting corpses, facing the suffocating stench, I, without any equipment, walked up under the infection of Chinese international rescue team members. ...... In the Everest retesting operation of 2005, in the snowy Qinling Mountains, in the cold and biting Tibetan North In 2005, during the Everest resurvey operation, in the snowy Qinling Mountain, in the cold and biting northern Tibet, in the high altitude area of Everest where the wind is howling and the temperature difference between day and night is nearly 60 degrees, I insisted on interviewing for more than 100 days, and I saw how a group of ordinary and common surveyors had accomplished a very extraordinary cause. ...... In the space survey ship of Yuanwang III, during the 76 days, which were almost "isolated from the world During the 76 days of almost "isolation" on board the Farsighted 3 space survey ship, I insisted on recording the interview process and feelings of the voyage every day in the torment of wind and wave, and in the boring and monotonous life, and I insisted on taking pictures every day, accumulating tens of thousands of words of "Farsightedness Diary" ...... and I've been underwater at Fuxian Lake in Yunnan Province, on the reefs of the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea, in the hinterland of the Coco-Cecilia uninhabited area in Qinghai, in the forests near the McMahon Line in Southeast Tibet, next to the dead poplars in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, in the pile of century-old dinosaur fossils in Ningxia, and in the seven days and nights of the Beijing Space City, when I was holding on to Shenzhou VI... ... As long as you give, there will always be a harvest. Perhaps, the harvest will suddenly appear, when you least expect it. Just like when I was on Far Sight 3, I was warmly welcomed by the local Chinese when I docked at Cape Town Harbor in South Africa for resupply at the end of the mission. Several Chinese people came on board to find me and took out the "Far-sighted Diary" printed off from the Internet, saying: Thank you for your article, which let us see the real life of the crew members, who are too hard and too great! They are the pride of our Chinese people! Many Chinese overseas Chinese and international students in Cape Town are circulating this diary, and everyone is touched to see these down-to-earth words." At that time, when I heard them say so, my eyes also moistened, I think, this is the highest reward for a journalist.