Setback. Adjustment. Another attempt.
A Different View of Hardship
Perhaps one of the most revealing things he said after his story became public was that he did not particularly want to describe his life through the language of suffering.
According to China Daily, in comments reported by Haibao News, he played down the significance of the physical labor he had endured and said those experiences had helped him develop perseverance.
That perspective does not make poverty, child labor or dangerous work less serious.
Nor should hardship be glorified as something people need in order to become successful.
Instead, it reveals how he chose to interpret his own past.
He appeared unwilling to allow the hardest parts of his childhood to become the entire meaning of his life.
He focused instead on action.
His advice to students was practical rather than sentimental.
He argued that remaining trapped in anxiety and confusion accomplishes little by itself. His emphasis was on understanding the situation, choosing a direction, working decisively, developing professional skills and preparing for opportunities.
As he put it in comments reported by China Daily, “Anxiety and puzzlement are useless, while action is the most important.”
The message was not simply:
“Believe in yourself and everything will work out.”
It was more demanding than that.
Understand reality.
Make a decision.
Develop expertise.
Keep working.
Be prepared when an opportunity appears.
That philosophy closely resembles the path he actually followed.
His progress depended on more than motivation.
It involved increasingly specialized knowledge.
Geological engineering led toward mining engineering. Field experience was supplemented by formal research. Practical understanding was combined with advanced academic training.
Eventually, the boy who had once contributed physical labor underground was contributing intellectual work to engineering problems related to that same world.
Why His Story Resonated
When his dissertation acknowledgments circulated online in 2025, many readers focused on the enormous distance between his starting point and his graduation.
But another reason the story resonated may be its familiarity.
Millions of families understand the pressure surrounding education.
Millions of students know what it feels like to prepare for examinations, worry about money or watch someone else appear to move faster.
His circumstances were unusually difficult, but the emotional structure of the journey is recognizable:
Feeling behind.
Needing another chance.
Depending on help.
Fearing failure.
Continuing anyway.
His story also challenges the common tendency to confuse speed with ability.
He acknowledged that he often progressed more slowly than others.
Yet over a long enough period, consistency changed the meaning of that slowness.