He Jiang, Harvard graduate and commencement speaker. (Photo provided to China Daily)
Zeng Xianhua has barely enough time to put in a full shift at the piggery these days, not since last week when her son, He Jiang, gave the commencement address at Harvard University.
The previously sleepy village of Tingzhongxin in central China's Hunan Province is now besieged by reporters from home and abroad clamoring for interviews, eager for the story of her son's journey from a rural Chinese backwater to center stage at the world's finest university.
BITTEN BY THE KNOWLEDGE BUG
He Jiang began his address with an anecdote about how, when he was a child, his mother used a traditional remedy to cure a spider bite. An unusual way to begin a speech to world's brightest minds, but an excellent introduction to his the theme: unequal distribution of scientific knowledge throughout the world. Moreover, it is an extremely strange topic to go viral on Chinese social media, especially considering the speech was made in near-perfect English.
Acclaim is virtually universal. "I thought it was brilliant," said a village official after watching the speech online.
With the speech has come a most unusual kind of fame, as He Jiang's story has captured the hearts of many who know nothing of Harvard University and have precious little scientific knowledge themselves.
More than anything, He Jiang is thankful to his parents for not letting him becoming one of the millions of "left-behind" children. "My parents did not use any special tricks in bringing me up," said He Jiang during a conversation on WeChat. "At a time when many people from rural China were leaving their children behind to seek their fortunes in the cities, they gave up that opportunity and stayed home to look after me and my little brother."
Even during the years of the one-child policy, rural residents were allowed two children and, as if one brilliant mind in the family was not enough, "little brother" He Jiaolong is a graduate of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, one of the country's finest.
All this academic glory was funded from 10 pigs and three fields of rice.
