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)

抗战结束之后，经济学家周有光被新华银行派往纽约工作。在这里，他巧遇曾经的农本局领导何廉。当时，何廉作为国际知名学者，任普林斯顿大学特聘客座教授。

有一天，何廉对周有光说：“爱因斯坦空闲很多，想找人聊天，你愿意去吗？”

周有光欣然应允，转身赶往爱因斯坦的住处。爱因斯坦对周有光早有耳闻，两人一见如故。有趣的是，周有光不懂爱因斯坦的相对论，爱因斯坦对周有光的经济与金融也不感兴趣，两人不约而同地从报纸上的话题聊起，时而观点一致相对大笑，时而为分歧争论得面红耳赤。

谈到“作为”这个话题时，爱因斯坦说：“人的差异在业余。”貌似很随意的一句话，却让周有光触动颇深。他想，一个人年纪大了，除了吃饭睡觉，业余时间要比工作时间多得多，通过业余时间的学习，完全可能成为某个领域的专门人才。想到自己曾利用业余时间学习语言，经过一番思索，周有光决定以后把所有业余时间都放在语言研究方面。

果不其然，利用业余时间搞语言文字研究的周有光，不久就成为专业人士，而且博采众家之长，以至后来中央直接委任这个年过半百的经济学家专门搞起了语言文字改革。

（摘自《演讲与口才》2017年第14期）

爱因斯坦启发周有光

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