The reluctant master

By Xiao Dao (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-13 08:51

The young fellow thanked him and left, only to find the same old man sitting on the rostrum on a welcome ceremony the next day.

He realized the minder of his bags was the vice-president of Peking University.

"For a new student to Beijing, the luggage was his most precious belonging. I must treat his trust seriously," Ji recalled the story to his friend, journalist Tang Shizeng.

In his 2007 book Memories from the Hospital Bed (Bingta Zaji), he urged to remove three titles he had long been honored: master of traditional Chinese culture, academic maestro and national treasure.

In an interview with CCTV, he said it was because the titles were not "truthful" and he was not that great.

Mou Jie, editor of some of Ji's books, remembers Ji as a very modest man.

"He was never arrogant, although people call him a master," she recalls.

"He was always low key, and always believed more efforts were needed to improve the process of study."

Peking University, where Ji worked for 63 years, announced Ji's passing in a statement calling him a "senior professor" instead of "master", a title Ji urged the nation's top university to remove many times.

They remained true to his wishes.

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