院长寄语 | 贲圣林：行远自迩，不以山海

回首2020年，世纪疫情与百年变局交织。我们正处于全球又一次政治经济文化技术变革的前夜，人类历史即将迎来大的跨越。在这样充满挑战和机遇的时期，2021年，我们要站在新的历史起点，总结过去，谋变破局，蓄势未来。

2020年9月13日，ZIBS院长贲圣林在开学典礼上以《行远自迩，不以山海》为主题寄语新生，他从历史中汲取走向未来的智慧，勉励同学们把握机会，立足当下，积跬步以至千里，勇往直前不畏艰难，便可“危中寻机”，促成社会新的变革。

值此新旧交替，万象更新之时，让我们将时光倒流回那天，完整重温贲院长的殷殷寄语。

以下为致辞英文全文：

Today, the theme is, “行远自迩,  不以山海”. The idea was from my colleagues at ZIBS. For me, I could not understand it at the beginning. The situation in Chinese was called“不明觉厉”. And then they showed me the English translation, “Big Journey, Small Steps”. I thought it was a good translation and it helped me regain my confidence. But I am an engineering student by training and I wanted to get it to the bottom. Therefore, I did my homework. What exactly does this mean? Where did they come from? And this is what I found.

First of all, the first line is, “千里之行, 始于足下”. I know this well though I was an engineering student. I always share this with my international friends, saying “A journey of thousand miles begins with a first footstep”. That is probably all I know about the four lines. That was two thousand and five hundred years ago. And then the second tells us a little bit, about two thousand and four hundred years ago——我们的“四书五经”,  我们的《中庸》提出了“行远自迩，登高自卑”. 我看到“自卑”这两个字的时候, it means that you feel inferior in Chinese. 但是“自卑”在这儿,  显然不是我们所理解的那个“自卑”,  it actually means that you should start from the humble beginning, from the ground floor to climb the grand mountain. 所以国学特别重要, 四书、五经，also known as “the 4 books, and 5 classics” in English. And 《中庸》, I realize it is called “the doctrine of the mean”, “the mean”, 就是指中间. Again, meanings are lost when we translate it into other languages like English. And the third one, is from twenty-three hundred years ago, 来自战国时期的荀子. “故不积跬步，无以至千里；不积小流，无以成江海”, for those who are good at English, please do the translation as it is too much for me. And finally, the second part of our theme, is about “志合者，不以山海为远；道乖者,  不以咫尺为近”. 这是我们1700年前的古语. 行远自迩,  不以山海,  而“不以山海”其实有前置条件,  就是“志合者”, the ones who share the same vision.

So I want to thank Haidong for transcending the time, but also, the Sino-foreign cultures and languages, 跨越中外文化与语言. And thank you Joshua for simplifying all those translations. It is difficult, even more difficult for me. And I remember many of you have watched the movie called “Lost in Translation”. That just tells us, when you are trying to explain something in a different language or a different culture, it is very difficult. So, we should be extremely careful when we do the multi-cultural communication. In today’s world, a lot of challenges we face are because of the lack of proper communication in multi-cultural context. As a Chinese, obviously, I am so proud of the ancient wisdom from China, from our ancestors. We don’t have enough inspiration and we have to draw inspiration from our ancestors who lived in two thousand years ago. Those ideas are great, and of course they have survived so many years. I am sure in between, 老子跟今天, 多少人都在说了很多有趣的事情, but not too many have survived. How to sustain? 有无数的人来过, 有无数的事情被用无数的语言说过, 真正留下来的, 是精髓. I am not a historian, and I am not good at history, but I just thought, maybe I can talk to you a little more about something closer to us. Not two thousand years ago, maybe eight hundred years ago.

Let’s start from the 13th century. 那时候是属于南宋左右的时间, when the South Song Dynasty was and Hangzhou was the capital. It was our glorious moment, for Hangzhou and for Zhejiang. And of course, there were a few milestones and some key moments in light. You know, in 1295 when Marco Polo left China, he took at least 20 years and published his travel notes about China. So that’s why when we talk about Marco Polo, we are talking about Silk Road. 我们的一带一路, our Belt and Road Initiative today, started from that time. Of course, then we have the Renaissance period in Europe. Before then, it was like the dark ages in Europe. We have some big shots, like Dante, Da Vinci and Shakespeare, three big shots, representing the whole era, almost two centuries starting from Italy. At that time, Italy of course, was the center of the universe. And in 1348, I highlight this point because of Black Death, a serious pandemic. Black Death caused a lot of problems and called for a lot of scientific research: how to treat the diseases. And then, we were in Ming Dynasty. ZHENG He, made his first overseas voyage with much bigger ships. But he was making a peaceful voyage. He gave out all the gifts and invited the compliments from those countries. So they were a series of peaceful voyages. And I also highlight WANG Yangming as he was from Zhejiang. His famous motto was 知行合一, just like what Professor He said, 创新实践. Knowledge is good, but action is more important. 知行合一, so knowledge and action are in unity. Then 1492, Christopher Columbus, now very controversial, unlike 30 years ago. He is very controversial today, because we were taught that he discovered America. But before him, many people had been there already. Thus, we are reflecting about our history for human beings. And in 1517, at that time, it was pretty much Catholic. I am not going to get into politics or religion, but these are historical facts. In 1517, Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation in Germany. At that time there was no Germany as a country. 那时候德国还没有建立. And it started questioning the sacredness of some doctrines taught in some of the books. And then of course, Europe, went through a torturous period of time. They fought against each other, for 30 years. After 30 years, they said “Let’s have peace”, therefore in 1648, the Peace of Westphalia was signed. The treaty that was signed is still considered today as the first treaty for international relationships. That means respecting the sovereignty and the independence of each country. More than three hundred years later, we are still struggling between nations whether we could respect each other’s sovereignty, independence and so forth. And in 1688, that was the glorious moment for Britain. Because after that, Britain started taking off as a nation. Then of course, during that period of time, it was our High Qing, 我们的康乾盛世. Today, people start questioning what happened during the High Qing, 康乾盛世, could they have done better because the storm was on the horizon and the industrial revolution was coming. So in 1776, important things happened. After Britain, another new country that would succeed as a world superpower was founded, the United States. And of course, there were also the French Revolution, Napoleon and so on. And in 1848, for those who are communist party members, you should always remember this date, this year, 1848. 共产党宣言, Communist Manifesto. Because of a lot of inequalities, because of a lot of things that were not working, Karl Marx, the visionary, predicted that the things must change. And of course, after seven decades roughly, 1917, another key moment during the period when World War I was happening, the Soviet Union, the revolution, somehow was successful. That started another round of debate about which system could be better. Then of course, People’s Republic of China was established in 1949. And I am sure you will say “Professor Ben, you have omitted too many other people, too many other years”, but I just thought, for about eight hundred years, this is good enough for us to show some of the key moments for us.

And more importantly, because we are an educational institution, about eight hundred years ago, University of Cambridge, our partner, was founded in Cambridge. And then, the first shareholding company, was established in Netherlands in 1602. For those who are working for companies, we didn’t have companies as human beings four hundred years ago. Then in 1776, the steam engine was invented, presenting the beginning of Industrial Revolution. And in the meantime, Adam Smith, published his book, The Wealth of Nations, to tell us how trade can help make every nation better off. And around 1870, we had the Second Industrial Revolution and so on, so forth. Of course, as you are Zhejiang University students, we would love to have 1897 between 1870 and 1917 as the historical moment of the human history and the journey to conquer knowledge and difficulties we face as human beings. So with this map, I was just sharing with you some of the political developments, religions, globalization, ideological things, international diplomacy and relationships, how we can co-exist and stay in harmony with each other. But I also shared with you some key developments like education, technology, economics and business. These are important. Over these eight hundred years, you could say this is the moment, the period of the rise of The West including Europe and America. So, over the last eight hundred years from what I know as a finance professor, there were three major empires in terms of finance: Holland, then Britain, and then US today.

But today, we are in 2020, the COVID-19 period, we face a lot of challenges, the populism, the unilateralism. People are questioning about democracy, the governance, the climate change, the technology which is disrupting many things, the COVID-19, the inequality in terms of income, and whether the government should regulate certain things, which becomes a controversial thing. Frankly speaking, we are living in a crisis period of time, we are in crisis. 我们在危机之间. But we are Chinese, we are smart, crisis, 危机 means danger and opportunity. So that’s why I choose to be optimistic and positive, and I am quoting what a Huawei ad says, 没有人能够熄灭漫天的星光,  我再加一句,  没有人能够阻挡历史发展的大潮流,  我们非常荣幸. I feel lucky, even privileged that I am witnessing all the changes and potential help with the society we have. So looking back, over two thousand years or eight hundred years history, as I mentioned to you, you will find that the small steps, also the theme today, the small steps meaning ordinary folks and small potatoes, are often forgotten or lost in the big journey and in the memory of history. 历史记忆里,  我们忘却了太多的人. Just imagine, the long match, 两万五千里长征, do we still remember each step? Do we still remember some unsung heroes? Probably not. And as we think about the big picture, some of us forget the small details. The small details are also forgotten and lost in the big vision that we have. Because if you focus too much on details, you may forget the big vision. So, though we all know detail is important, in English that is called “The devil is in the details” or “The beauty is in the details”. In Chinese we call, “细节决定成败”, so all the details, all the small steps, all the small potatoes and ordinary people, they are still critical and essential; they are an integral part of the big journey, of history. In the meantime, when we look forward, we have big vision as Professor He said, the vision for ZIBS, for Zhejiang University and so forth. We have big picture, we have big vision, but sometimes in daily struggle, we forget the big vision and the big future. So the big journey can also be forgotten and lost in our daily small steps. We may forget what we want to achieve. We forget where we are going. We forget why we are doing this. 忘掉了初心, 忘掉了去哪里. Therefore, we must balance, to a certain extent, we must balance the big journey versus the small steps, we must balance between the small details and big pictures, we must balance between the big visions and real actions. Also, we must not forget the big trend, the mega trends. Today, what are the biggest trends for us? It is, as what I see, what is the rise of China, to a certain extent, that’s the big trend, probably one of the biggest trends. It may take a long time, but that’s a trend. But also, digital technologies, are disrupting so many things in the field that Joshua mentioned, FinTech, financial technology. I’ve been a key advocate for technology application in finance, that will be a financial revolution driven by the technology. And at ZIBS, we have not forgotten our vision, we embarked on our journey about two years ago. Professor He has already mentioned that ZIBS welcomed about 88 students last year. This year, the number doubled to over 160, representing 35 countries. Last year we had only 2 programs while this year we have 4 programs. But more importantly, we also know the trend. We want to build a premier global business school from China to support and capture the opportunity of the rise of China as a big trend. But also, we start from the day one, say, Digital ZIBS. We want to build something with digital technologies. And the COVID-19 is only going to accelerate the trend, moving many things to online space.

志合者,  不以山海为远. If you share the same vision, you will not be too far. I want to thank you all for joining us on this incredible journey, on this big journey. But we must start from the small steps, like we are taking today. Together, our vision is what is being shown here, that is, connecting the world, shaping the future. 改变世界,  引领未来.

谢谢大家, thank you!

没有人能够熄灭漫天星光，何其有幸身处变革的前夜，我们的点滴将凝成无垠的江海。

英文发言稿整理｜朱昀朗

编辑｜杨吟之

责编 | 庄彦

图文排版｜杨莹

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