Einstein Ignited Zhou Youguang

By Jian Ai

Einstein Ignited Zhou Youguang

By Jian Ai

After the anti-Japanese war, Zhou Youguang,an economist, was dispatched by Xinhua Bank to work in New York, where he happened to meet Mr. He Lian, once his superior and colleague in Bureau of Agricultural Finance. At that time, He Lian was honored as a distinguished visiting professor in Princeton University.

One day, He Lian talked to Zhou: ‘Einstein is free,are you willing to visit him if he wants to chat with you?’’

Zhou agreed with pleasure and paid a visit to Einstein. Einstein had heard a lot about Zhou before,so they seem old friends at the first meeting. What’s interesting was that neither Zhou was interested in the relativism of Einstein nor Einstein was interested in economy and finance that Zhou was expert in. They just started their conversation by picking up a topic of the newspaper without any prior consultation, or laughing when they had the same opinions, or arguing when they had disagreements.

When referring to “accomplishment”, Einstein said that how people make use of their spare time really counted. Although seemingly normal, the words did ignite Zhou. He maintained that except eating and sleeping, a man has much more spare time than work time when he reaches old. It is absolutely possible that a man could be an expert in some field by studying in spare time. Being aware of his experiences in language studying in spare time,he decided to give priority to language study after pondering for a while.

Sure enough, Zhou Youguang became an expert by making good use of his spare time in studying language and drawing advantages from others.That’s why the Chinese government would appoint this over-fifty-year-old economist especially to be responsible for the national language reform.

(From Speech and Eloquence, Issue 14, 2017.Translation: Feng Yuhong)

抗戰結束之后，經濟學家周有光被新華銀行派往紐約工作。在這里，他巧遇曾經的農本局領導何廉。當時，何廉作為國際知名學者，任普林斯頓大學特聘客座教授。

有一天，何廉對周有光說：“愛因斯坦空閑很多，想找人聊天，你愿意去嗎？”

周有光欣然應允，轉身趕往愛因斯坦的住處。愛因斯坦對周有光早有耳聞，兩人一見如故。有趣的是，周有光不懂愛因斯坦的相對論，愛因斯坦對周有光的經濟與金融也不感興趣，兩人不約而同地從報紙上的話題聊起，時而觀點一致相對大笑，時而為分歧爭論得面紅耳赤。

談到“作為”這個話題時，愛因斯坦說：“人的差異在業余。”貌似很隨意的一句話，卻讓周有光觸動頗深。他想，一個人年紀大了，除了吃飯睡覺，業余時間要比工作時間多得多，通過業余時間的學習，完全可能成為某個領域的專門人才。想到自己曾利用業余時間學習語言，經過一番思索，周有光決定以后把所有業余時間都放在語言研究方面。

果不其然，利用業余時間搞語言文字研究的周有光，不久就成為專業人士，而且博采眾家之長，以至后來中央直接委任這個年過半百的經濟學家專門搞起了語言文字改革。

（摘自《演講與口才》2017年第14期）

愛因斯坦啟發周有光

文 |簡愛