Two days of studying-trip starts expectantly. Not like any other times of business trip or tourism, this time I keep wondering. Why we came to Tianjin? And what should we learn? Before this trip, our company has organized several times studies of <Liao-Fan’s Four Lessons >. Cooperating with this study tour of Liao Fan Memorial Hall, it will definitely make our team more impressed with the previous learning.Everyone in this trip work overtime last night willingly in order not to delay their own works. We set off at 5 am that day, because it’d cost more than two hours from Jiangmen Guangdong to Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou. And after 3 hours of flight, we arrived at our destination--Tianjin.

We took a short break before we went to the Tianjin Global Magnetic Card Co., Ltd. in the afternoon, learned the entrepreneurial spirit of an old state-owned enterprise. The next day we set off from downtown to the Liao Fan Museum, which was in Baodi Tianjin.

On the high way to Baodi district, there were many rolls of hays on the field ground alongside the road. We started to discussed whether those were rice hays or wheat hays. Most of us from the very south of China , without doubt, would deem that there were no rice can grow in such northern place of China except Northeast area. But one of my colleagues said that the wheat was planted in autumn and harvested in spring, so there must be rice hays. 

With this puzzle, we arrived at the museum.We met the cicerone ,who told us that all of them were volunteers and part-time, as soon as we reached the museum. Therefore, the museum only opened in Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, advance appointment was available, coincidentally that day was Saturday, how lucky were we!

In order to implement Liao Fan’s thoughts, the both of visiting and introduction were free. Then , we began to visit the museum in a vivid and meticulous introduction by the cicerone.After entering the front gate of the museum, we saw the Notice of cooking porridge to relieve refugees which was written by Mr.Yuan(Liao Fan) himself. In the notice, he especially mentioned that the porridge must not add water(adding unboiled water may cause diseases), must keep clean, people who came to get porridge should be orderly. As a magistrate, he will considerate so many details in this kind of work, no matter how big or trivial, isn’t this attitude exactly what we need to learn ?

For me, as a technician, it’s my duty to take responsibility for our products and clients,and be more careful in the process of manufacturing and quality control.We followed the cicerone’s step into the hall of the museum, began to learn Liao Fan’s whole life, meanwhile, we found the answer for the puzzle of hay during our way here. The fact is, those were rice hays. At that age, Liao Fan was trying to solved the problems of grains resources for the local people, he innovated southern rice planted north and promoted paddy farming system. As a result, the salt and alkali land with potholes became rice granary with high and stable yield. And this kind of rice was named as Liao Fan Rice for his reputation, it also became the specialty of Tianjin. In order to promote rice production in a large area, a field investigation was carried out in Baodi in that year. According to the natural conditions of Baodi, a thought was put forward to promote paddy field in the eastern depression of Baodi and develop agricultural production in accordance with local conditions. Moreover, according to the local production practice, on the basis of absorbing the experience of the southern region and previous people, a book named Advice on farmingwas written by Liaofan.

In the aspect of water conservancy construction, he advocated river dredging, water storage and irrigation, and wrote Jingdu water conservancy research. People who had ever learned the life of Liao Fan, must know that he was a doctor at first, and later changed to be an official in the imperial examination because of Mr.Kong's reminder. He has never been a farmer or learned water conservancy, but he has become an expert in agriculture and water conservancy through field investigation, thinking and learning by himself. 

Thinking about ourselves, we may often complained things that we have not be in this field and so this cannot find the solution. But we never reflect that we should learn and do those things. Since our society is improving every day and our products are updating with each passing day. If we don't work hard to learn and do more, our products will be eliminated by the society and we will be eliminated too.

Five years as an magistrate in Baodi, he developed agriculture, dredged rivers, reduced taxes, and contained a plague for the people. However, when he left, he did not take away any property. Such a kind and altruistic person, is exactly what we need to respect and learn from him.

After this study tour in Tianjin, I made a deeper understanding of responsibility and persistence. At the same time, no matter in our life and work, we should be meticulous, should keep a grateful heart, should think more for others, what’s more,we should altruistic before self-interest. 

By engineer Jane Zhang