Preface
I’m starting a new series, inspired by the previous post “Treat Others as Yourself, Treat Yourself as Others”, with even earlier inspiration coming from my girlfriend’s discovery—“Why do you never talk about your past?” Overall, I realized that I was consciously trying to forget something, probably as a form of self-protection. This is quite common and often hard to notice by oneself; I am no exception. If I keep avoiding looking at the past and keep hiding, I will never get past it. So, I started this series titled “Seeing Me.” This first piece begins with the part of my youth under the Hengshui System that I least want to recall.
Note, what I write next is not intended as criticism of the Hengshui System. I don’t want to negate any part of my past (which I used to do, blaming parents, schools, society, etc.), because it is precisely those experiences that have shaped who I am today. My goal is to see, understand, accept, and transcend. Whether I can ultimately achieve this goal, I do not know, but now I am starting to try, attempting to see.
Recalling my high school
If you ask me what my immediate impression of high school is, I would say it is running around hurriedly to eat, classrooms densely packed with classmates noisily reciting, teachers lecturing that I can’t really pay attention to while dozing off, commuting students whose moms cook breakfast in the morning, and so on. The images are very chaotic and starting to blur; it’s really scary. It has only been six or seven years, but I have almost forgotten my high school years, which took up nearly one-eighth of my life (writing this at age 24).
Next, I try to dig a bit, starting from one point to see what it triggers. For example, the scene of reciting: hmm, like reciting Chinese. The Chinese class had a mandatory recitation list. During morning self-study, everyone would definitely memorize several ancient poems, and during class the teacher would randomly check.
Our Chinese teacher was very strict, a slim woman about thirty years old (most teachers were about this age; older teachers in their 40s and younger teachers in their 20s were rare). She often punished us if we recited incorrectly, though I don’t remember the exact form—palm slapping? standing punishment? something else? I was probably among the frequently punished because I have never been good at rote memorization—from childhood until now. I really admire those who don’t even know what they’re doing but can still keep going. The piece I memorized best was Qu Yuan’s “Li Sao,” especially the part “Sighing deeply while wiping tears, lamenting the hardships of life” (though now I’ve almost forgotten it), and also “Guo Shang,” which was not on the mandatory list. How did I memorize it back then? I imagined myself as Qu Yuan 
, feeling that sadness deeply, reciting it while angry at myself—that’s how I memorized it. As for “Tengwang Pavilion Preface,” which looked very dazzling, I couldn’t memorize it at all. I recited, forgot, recited again, forgot again (I might have mixed up middle school and high school knowledge - I think the “Tengwang Pavilion Preface” was from middle school?).
Similarly, in math, I couldn’t remember many formulas at all, and every exam I would derive them on the spot by drawing diagrams, such as various trigonometric formulas like sum and difference formulas (I’ve forgotten all of them; I looked them up first—please let me know if I’m wrong).
Sum formulas
Difference formulas
This characteristic of needing understanding to memorize forced me to dig into many layers of knowledge. I remember there was a geometric formula whose derivation was in the textbook’s extension section. The teacher never explained it, nor did the classmates care. Only I read it from start to finish, understood it, and repeatedly derived it with the book closed until I could use it at any time in the exam room—otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to remember this formula.
In terms of exams, a person like me was at a disadvantage: others might get the answer in a couple of steps by plugging in formulas, but I had to spend several minutes deriving the formulas before solving the problem. This directly caused my math exams to often run out of time—not because I didn’t know how to write the answers, but because I truly couldn’t memorize. Just like the “Tengwang Pavilion Preface,” memorized, forgotten, memorized again. I didn’t spend less effort than others (I couldn’t solve those final top-difficulty questions either, which had nothing to do with deriving formulas. Even if I could derive them, I still couldn’t solve those problems).
Now, as a graduate student, I still face various exams in medical school. My rote memorization ability remains poor, but this trait still pushes me to dive deeper at many levels. For example, learning an herbal formula, I might have to review the original text, later scholars’ annotations, and the teacher’s notes thoroughly to understand before memorizing. For example, when learning about jaundice, I have to thoroughly understand the physiology of bilirubin metabolism to grasp why “jaundice turns yellow,” a seemingly simple question that shouldn’t be overlooked. But it is precisely this pressure that causes me to have particularly deep impressions of the knowledge I have seriously studied—so in the future, I can quickly connect related knowledge because I have laid that foundation. This is also why I feel that learning medicine now really suits science students, as this reasoning and derivation ability indeed aligns well with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). I also increasingly feel medicine gets easier as you go, as long as the basics are solid; clinical problems are just about building links between knowledge, never escaping physiology, pathology, and diagnosis (though now I’m gradually learning to prioritize because there is too much knowledge—I can’t do it all like this).
End
Unconsciously, I’ve already typed about two thousand words. This text has gone from fuzzy initial memories to my personal learning characteristics. As I said at the start, no judgments here: my Hengshui System youth is part of me. What I want to do is see, understand, accept, and hopefully transcend.
It’s strange—after writing these things, I feel much lighter inside. Maybe my subconscious has dissolved some knot. Thank you for reading this far. I wish you smooth liver qi and balanced spleen and stomach!
More
Looking back, the ending feels a bit abrupt. I will continue later.