On May 11, the famous lectern of the 2024 Literary Campus series activity of Xiamen University Xiang 'an Campus - "Big and Small in History" was held in the lecture Hall 1 of Dewang Library. Mr. Ma Boyong, winner of "People's Literature Award", "Zhu Ziqing Essay Award" and "Mao Dun New Talent Award", was invited to give a lecture. Chen Guang, Assistant President of Xiamen University and Director of the Administration Committee of Xiang 'an Campus, presented a commemorative plaque to Ma Boyong.
Ma Boyong made a theme entitled "Big and small in history" to share. At the beginning of the lecture, he began with a humorous introduction of his own personal experience, which led to the theme of this sharing - to explore the significance of history through small events, and to emphasize the importance of small perspectives for historical understanding.
In the lecture, Ma Boyong shared some interesting medical stories from the early 20th century which he found in historical records with photos: American doctor Peter Parker invited Lin Guan to paint the tumor of a Chinese skin tumor patient with oil; Young Schneider, a polio patient who rely on the "iron lung" for almost his entire life; The story of Penicillin and two dentists; The story of Zhong Shifan, the father of Academician Zhong Nanshan, and Wu Shaoqing, president of the Central Hospital; How the Yan'an medical team found and cure endemic infectious diseases during the Anti-Japanese War, and the "autograph" of Xu Beihong's hospital record that he accidentally found in his friend... By focusing on the micro details of history, Mr. Ma Boyong opens the curtain of big history with small people, excavates the big history, insights the truth of human nature, and makes people think deeply.
The atmosphere of the interactive session was warm, and teachers and students actively put forward questions related to Ma Boyong's daily writing, reading, and historical research, such as the determination of the direction and intention of literary creation, the response to the development bottleneck in life, the traditional cuisine which inspired his latest fiction “The Journey to the South”, and gave advice on writing to college students. Ma Boyong answered each questioner based on his own experience，much to the satisfaction of the audience.
The event was co-sponsored by the Administration Committee of Xiang'an Campus , Xiamen University Student Affairs Office, Center for Aesthetic and General Education, Fujian Xinhua Distribution Group Xiamen Branch, Zhongnan Boji Tianquan Culture Media Co., LTD., more than 500 teachers and students from Siming Campus, Xiang 'an Campus and Zhangzhou Campus participated in the event. In recent years, Xiangan Campus has deeply carried out the construction of the humanities campus, launched a series of activities on the Literary campus, invited famous scholars inside and outside the school to share the theme of reading, improve reading literacy, form a strong atmosphere of love reading, reading good books, good reading, and strive to shape the first-class education ecology of the campus, promote the all-round development of students, and cultivate new people who can be worthy of the great role of national rejuvenation.
(Yufang Chen, Student Affairs Office of Xiang 'an Campus)
