On the morning of March 31th, 27 undergraduate party members from the party branch of the college students majoring in plants protection of grade 2015, the party branch of 2016 college students and the elder party members of retires party branch of plant protection department took a tour of our university altogether. Beginning from the monument of “Huazhong Agricultural College” inscribed by Xu Teli, who was the teacher of Chairman Mao Zedong, the tour ended enjoying the beautiful scenery nearing the experimental field, which is full of rapeseed flowers. It was a fascinating theme activity of the college students’ party branch. During the activity, the elder party members talked about the development history of our university and recalled the passionate past time with the young students.
Rong Xiulan, the secretary of the retired party branch of plant protection, said at the monument they gathered, "There was only one shuttle bus from school before. If we missed it, we should stay out or walk back.” Other elder party members also agreed, “More than fifty years ago, when the school being moved to Mount Shizi, it was desolate and remote. But now, the architectural style and garden facilities in the school have been done in great efforts by predecessors, which totally can be described as a hard work.”
Li Xiang, who is now retired, is the first-year graduate of Professor Yang Xinmei. He witnessed the great change of HZAU over the past fifty years. “The next year after the movement of our university to Mount Shizi, I began to take roots here.” He said, “Although I didn’t do much for the contribution of our university, I am familiar with and in love with every grass and flower here.”
Zhu Damei, at the age of eighty-six, is the eldest man of plants protection department. Many pictures used in the course of Ordinary Entomology now, were drawn carefully by Zhu. He told the students, “When the school just being moved to Mount Shizi, there were only three buildings in the school.So we should share one building with soil chemistry department in School of resources and environmental science. At that time, each class had 30 mu of farmland where the students worked on the ground. It was a hard time but we enjoyed it, because we can both feed ourselves and improve our understanding of theoretical knowledge through practice.” He also said, “It is not so bad to go through a hard time but exactly, it will become precious treasure in our life.”
When walking to a small and clear land next to the International Academic Conversation Center, Rong Xiulan recalled the hardships of learning life in the past, “It used to be an outdoor movie theater.At that time, we only can see a weekly movie without any other kinds of cultural activities. However, sometimes we even couldn’t afford a five-cent movie ticket.So we had to see the movie outside the bamboo fence.”
Oriental plane on both sides of College Road reminded the two elder party members of their old days of planting trees and their photos with the trees, which they planted about a half century ago. The trees wasn’t much higher than them at that time but now they can nearly reach the sky after more than fifty years’ growth.
Sheng Yifeng, a college student party member said, “I finally understand what this old saying, ‘the predecessors planted trees, descendants to enjoy the cool’, means. Our predecessors have left us not only the material wealth, but also more precious mental wealth, such as the spirit of hard work and fearlessness of difficulties.”
And Ge Yang, who is also a college student party member, said, “We are walking slowly, not only for caring about elder professors, but it’s more important to walk carefully and make the HZAU’s road more solid and strong. Elder professors are all old party members.In their era, they not only took part in construction of new school, but also laid the foundation of the development of plant protection department nowadays.”
At the end of this activity, Rong Xiulan told the students, “By the opportunity of our university’s 120th anniversary celebration, we expect that you can feel the overwhelming changes over 120 years through the activity. The purpose of the activity is to let you cherish the happiness you own at present and become an outstanding heir of HZAU in the future.”
