Professor Xu Yuanchong, renowned translator, winner of China’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation, alumnus of Tsinghua, now a retired professor at Peking University, discussed about centenary Tsinghua with students from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.

Professor Xu recollected the history of the National Southwest Associated University, and his own experience of studying there in the Department of Foreign languages and Literatures, sharing stories of his teachers Professors Wu Mi and Qian Zhongshu, and also his fellow student Yang Zhenning, to encourage students to learn from their predecessors and make best use of the golden opportunity of study today. He emphasized the importance of carrying on Tsinghua’s academic tradition of integrating ideas from the East and the West, the past and the present, the humanities and sciences, to bring about new success in the new century. Based on his experience of more than 50 years of practicing multi-lingual translation, Professor Xu told students that it is important to ask questions in their studies, and it is necessary to cultivate an acute awareness of questioning so as to make innovations and realize the leap from one plus one equals two to larger than two.

After the talk, Xu received a bouquet of flowers as his 90-year-old birthday present from the students.