On the eve of the visit of President Obama to China, The 11/23/09 ( This is not a misprint. See reply to comment #2 below) issue of the Time magazine has a feature article with the above title. The lessons are:

1. Have ambitious goals

2. Education is important

3. Take care of your elders

4. Save more

5. Take the long view

These may be second nature to Chinese citizens by culture or by necessity but are well worth repeating and apply to everyone in the world.

COMMENT BY A READER: “Thanks, Daniel & Prof. Ho. After reading this article (http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=266505) I find my Tofel writings are really awful. College is the place where people share wisdom, so is the blog. Well, I’m curious that if you have a whole plan for your college study and the later life when you leave the college. As we’re often asked to layout a long-term programme, I wonder if you have already had one, and what about the average American students,do they always have a clear idea about college? Since speaking out and sticking to a planning is so difficult, it’s quite easy to get confused and tired of study. How to come out of confusion?”

Because of general interest and possible further benefits to students and young scholars in China, Tsinghua University Press decided to publish a collection of my articles on ScienceNet for the past two years (2007 – 2009). Both the English texts and their Chinese translation will be printed side-by-side to provide aids to language learning. Publication date is scheduled for November 15, 2009. Here is the cover of the book and my preface.

I went to US colleges more than 50 years ago. Things were very different then. Thus, I thought my experience will not be relevant to the increasing number of Chinese youth who are coming to the US for UNDERGRADUATE studies. Similarly, their parents would also find more assurances from reading writings directly from someone who is currently going through college than from me. (see also notes added 11/16/09 in article #5 in this series http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=270393 )

Something happened to my Chinese writing software/hardware on the PC. Thus until I can get it repaired (which probably have to wait until my next trip to China around this year end), I have to write and communicate in English even for short messages/answers.

(Clarifications added: What I have learned from reading Science Net Blogs for the past 2.5 years:

1. Even though I consider my ability of reading Chinese is adequate, I still find reading a long blog article in Chinese laborious. In fact, I even miss, misunderstand, or am ignorant about something or phrase during the first reading. Thus, I realize the same thing may happen for Chinese reading my English articles. Consequently, I try to add Chinese phrases and idioms wherever appropriate to improve comprehension.

Here below are two very sensitive (unedited) articles from two young persons (different in ages from me by more or less half a century) about their feelings on attending our golden wedding anniversary. The first is by my eldest grandson whose father, our beloved son-in-law, passed away prematurely four years ago. The second is by my first Tsinghua student and now colleague (not yet married) from Beijing.

“Thank you” to our friends and relatives at our golden wedding anniversary party

Last year I wrote about my forth coming 50th wedding anniversary ( http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=15979 , http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=15663 ). Well, the day finally arrived1. It was exactly half a century ago to the day (10/10/59 was also a Saturday) that my wife, Sophia, and I were married.

Every ten years, most universities and colleges in the US go through what is known as an accreditation process. An outside group of scholars and administrators unconnected with the school in question are asked to visit the school for three days, ask questions, and issue a verdict/report about whether or not the school meet the standards to award the undergraduate and other graduate degrees. The process is quite a rigorous one and requires a great deal of preparation on the part of the university/college being thus examined. In preparation for the accreditation process for Harvard next month, the university did a 141 pages two year self study and evaluation report which is a treasure drove of information about every aspect of the University you can think of. It even contains information, historical and/or obscure, that I did not know after being here for 50 years (employed for 47 years). The URL for this report is

However, if NYT is currently blocked in China, then tell me and I'll try to post them here (there is nothing controversal or politically incorrect in these articles).