Too early to tell Impressions from working for 5 years in China A personal account by Andreas Dress
Too early to tell Impressions from working for 5 years in China A personal account by Andreas Dress Fakultät für Mathematik, Universität Bielefeld (since 1969) External Scientific Member of the MIS, Leipzig (since 2003) CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai (since 2005) Scientific Advisor, Science Center, infinity 3 GmbH, Bielefeld (since 2010)
1971 Too early to tell ! was Chou En-lai’s answer when asked what he thought about the French Revolution (1789-1794), wisely avoiding to either applaud it (in which case he would have been reported to also welcome the revolution’s terror) or to condemn it (in which case he would have been confronted with the fact that all later revolutions including the Chinese one would have been impossible without that one). .
Dag Hammarskjöld on Chou En-lai So it may be no surprise that, around 1955, Dag Hammarskjöld (murdered in 1961 in an assassination plot involving some combination of the CIA, the UK’s MI5, a Belgian Mining Company, a South African paramilitary unit, and British intelligence), declared :
Dag Hammarskjöld on Chou En-lai “It is a little bit humiliating when I have to say that Chou En-lai to me appears as the most superior brain I have so far met in the field of foreign politics... so much more dangerous than you imagine because he is so much better a man than you have ever admitted.”
The first Sino-German Combinatorics Conference, May 1989, in Shijiazhuang jointly organized by DING Ren, Hebei Normal University Tudor Zamfirescu, Dortmund University
The first Sino-German Combinatorics Conference, May 1989, in Shijiazhuang WHAT IMPRESSED US MOST: The Overwhelming Chinese Hospitality ! !! !!! Beijing, the Bicycle City The train ride Shijiazhuang: An enormous village The Student Dormitories The Official Banquet: 海参 Meeting ZENG Zhenbing, then a student from Sichuan who quickly solved a problem I had posted in my lecture
The first Sino-German Combinatorics Conference, May 1989, in Shijiazhuang A present from XI'AN, now in our garden in Bielefeld:
2002 + + Mathematics at Nankai Chern Shiing-Shen (1911-2004, PhD from Hamburg in 1936) The Center for Combinatorics: Chen Yongchuan (Bill Chen)
CAS and MPG 1974: Mutual visits, discussions about: How to get back on track after the damages caused by the Cultural Revolution? The answer: Exchange scientists!
CAS and MPG Scientist exchange From 1974 to 2000 1/3 of all senior scientists at CAS had been studying and/or doing some research for some time in Germany Their token of gratitude: 2011: The EHEC was sequenced at the BGI (as proposed by a Chinese Humboldt Fellow, then working in Hamburg)
CAS and MPG, the 1980s 1980s: The Max Planck Guest Lab was established at the CAS Institute of Cell Biology in Shanghai
CAS and MPG, 1995 1995: Max Planck Research Groups also called Independent Junior Research Groups were established
CAS and MPG, 1995 PEI Gang on his move as MPG-supported Young Independent Researcher to the SIBS: “Naturally, I had always wanted to return to China, because I am Chinese and China is my home. But I only wanted to return if I could find a position where I could make a difference. When I saw the ad in "Science”, I could hardly believe my eyes. Here was the very position that enabled me to do both these things: to return home and to make a difference.”
CAS and MPG, 2005 Cas and MPG establish the PICB, that is, the P artner I nstitute for C omputational B iology
Welcome to CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology 8
The Aims of the PICB
The educational mission of the PICB Our ambition is to be recognized as a place where science is driven by curiosity. Wen Jiabao, Science, 17 October 2008: We advocate free academic debate under a lively academic atmosphere, where curiosity-driven exploration is encouraged and failure tolerated. On advice from CHEN Zhu who partipated in our inauguration ceremony?
The educational mission of the PICB Our Motto: Sapere aude ! Dare to use your own brain !
The educational mission of the PICB This goes back to Horatius Flaccus (65 – 8 BC): Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet: sapere aude, incipe! (Half has done who has begun: Dare to be wise, start!) In 1784, Immanuel Kant translates this request as Have the courage to use your own brains ! and declares it to be the Motto of Europe’s Enlightenment
The scientific mission of the PICB We want to explore the potential of computational methods in the life sciences
The Logo of PICB
The Logo of PICB 社 稷 坛 She Ji Tan: The Altar of Land and Grain Five kinds of colored earth :from all over China are spread over its surface The logo is meant to reflect PICB’s gratitude to the Chinese soil and the Chinese people who, after all, sustain us all and our work at the PICB.
The PICB Family VERY IMPORTANT: We are family ! !! !!! So, we help each other And we respect each other.
The PICB Family PEI Gang, in 2005, proposed my very honorable Chinese name: 德乐思 But our students gave me an even nicer name:
老爷爷 l ǎ oyéyé This was the name, the Shunzhi Emperor used for his German Jesuit advisor Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592 – 1666) whom he made the Director of the Imperial Observatory and the Tribunal of Mathematics
老爷爷 l ǎ oyéyé and part of the PICB family
Two Main Conclusions, both equally true In China, all is different from the West ! In China, all is just as in the West !
Further Conclusions After 30 years of “Wirtschaftswunder”, young Chinese are torn between high aspirations and deep desperation. This needs to be addressed!
Any advice? Just follow the advice from Tan Kah Kee, the great humanist and philanthropist from Xiamen: Improve education in the Chinese countryside, in particular vocational training and Foreign-language instruction
And finally: An advice for further fostering the international ties of Chinese science: Create a Chinese version of the Humboldt Foundation! Why not a XU Guanqi, a XU Xiake, or a LI Shizhen Foundation?
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