SLIDE 1
Too early to tell
Impressions from working for 5 years in China
A personal account
by Andreas Dress
SLIDE 2 Too early to tell
Impressions from working for 5 years in China
A personal account
by Andreas Dress
Fakultät für Mathematik, Universität Bielefeld (since 1969) External Scientific Member of the MIS, Leipzig (since 2003) CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai (since 2005) Scientific Advisor, Science Center, infinity3 GmbH, Bielefeld (since 2010)
SLIDE 3 1971
Too early to tell !
was Chou En-lai’s answer when asked what he thought about the French Revolution (1789-1794), wisely avoiding to either applaud it (in which case he would have been reported to also welcome the revolution’s terror) or to condemn it (in which case he would have been confronted with the fact that all later revolutions including the Chinese one would have been impossible without that one).
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SLIDE 4
Dag Hammarskjöld on Chou En-lai
So it may be no surprise that, around 1955, Dag Hammarskjöld (murdered in 1961 in an assassination plot involving some combination of the CIA, the UK’s MI5, a Belgian Mining Company, a South African paramilitary unit, and British intelligence), declared:
SLIDE 5
Dag Hammarskjöld on Chou En-lai
“It is a little bit humiliating when I have to say that Chou En-lai to me appears as the most superior brain I have so far met in the field of foreign politics... so much more dangerous than you imagine because he is so much better a man than you have ever admitted.”
SLIDE 6
The first Sino-German Combinatorics Conference, May 1989, in Shijiazhuang
jointly organized by DING Ren, Hebei Normal University Tudor Zamfirescu, Dortmund University
SLIDE 7 The first Sino-German Combinatorics Conference, May 1989, in Shijiazhuang
WHAT IMPRESSED US MOST: The Overwhelming Chinese Hospitality ! !! !!! Beijing, the Bicycle City The train ride Shijiazhuang: An enormous village The Student Dormitories The Official Banquet: 海参 Meeting ZENG Zhenbing, then a student from Sichuan who quickly solved a problem I had posted in my lecture
SLIDE 8
The first Sino-German Combinatorics Conference, May 1989, in Shijiazhuang
A present from XI'AN, now in our garden in Bielefeld:
SLIDE 9
2002 + + Mathematics at Nankai
Chern Shiing-Shen
(1911-2004, PhD from Hamburg in 1936) The Center for Combinatorics:
Chen Yongchuan (Bill Chen)
SLIDE 10
CAS and MPG
1974: Mutual visits, discussions about:
How to get back on track after the damages caused by the Cultural Revolution?
The answer: Exchange scientists!
SLIDE 11 CAS and MPG
Scientist exchange From 1974 to 2000 1/3 of all senior scientists at CAS had been studying and/or doing some research for some time in Germany Their token of gratitude: 2011: The EHEC was sequenced at the BGI (as proposed by a Chinese Humboldt Fellow, then working in Hamburg)
SLIDE 12
CAS and MPG, the 1980s
1980s: The Max Planck Guest Lab was established at the CAS Institute of Cell Biology in Shanghai
SLIDE 13
CAS and MPG, 1995
1995: Max Planck Research Groups
also called
Independent Junior Research Groups
were established
SLIDE 14 CAS and MPG, 1995
PEI Gang on his move as MPG-supported Young Independent Researcher to the SIBS: “Naturally, I had always wanted to return to China, because I am Chinese and China is my home. But I only wanted to return if I could find a position where I could make a
- difference. When I saw the ad in "Science”, I could hardly
believe my eyes. Here was the very position that enabled me to do both these things: to return home and to make a difference.”
SLIDE 15
CAS and MPG, 2005
Cas and MPG establish the PICB, that is, the Partner Institute for Computational Biology
SLIDE 16
Welcome to CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology 8
SLIDE 17
The Aims of the PICB
SLIDE 18
The educational mission of the PICB
Our ambition is to be recognized as a place where science is driven by curiosity. Wen Jiabao, Science, 17 October 2008: We advocate free academic debate under a lively academic atmosphere, where curiosity-driven exploration is encouraged and failure tolerated. On advice from CHEN Zhu who partipated in our inauguration ceremony?
SLIDE 19
The educational mission of the PICB
Our Motto: Sapere aude ! Dare to use your own brain !
SLIDE 20
The educational mission of the PICB
This goes back to Horatius Flaccus (65 – 8 BC): Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet: sapere aude, incipe! (Half has done who has begun: Dare to be wise, start!) In 1784, Immanuel Kant translates this request as Have the courage to use your own brains! and declares it to be the Motto of Europe’s Enlightenment
SLIDE 21
The scientific mission of the PICB
We want to explore the potential of computational methods in the life sciences
SLIDE 22
The Logo of PICB
SLIDE 23 The Logo of PICB
社 稷 坛 She Ji Tan: The Altar of Land and Grain
Five kinds of colored earth :from all over China are spread over its surface
The logo is meant to reflect PICB’s gratitude to the Chinese soil and the Chinese people who, after all, sustain us all and our work at the PICB.
SLIDE 24
The PICB Family
VERY IMPORTANT: We are family ! !! !!! So, we help each other And we respect each other.
SLIDE 25
The PICB Family
PEI Gang, in 2005, proposed my very honorable Chinese name: 德乐思
But our students gave me an even nicer name:
SLIDE 26
老爷爷 lǎoyéyé
This was the name, the Shunzhi Emperor used for his German Jesuit advisor Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592 – 1666) whom he made the Director of the Imperial Observatory and the Tribunal of Mathematics
SLIDE 27
老爷爷 lǎoyéyé and part of the PICB family
SLIDE 28
Two Main Conclusions, both equally true
In China, all is different from the West ! In China, all is just as in the West !
SLIDE 29
Further Conclusions
After 30 years of “Wirtschaftswunder”, young Chinese are torn between high aspirations and deep desperation. This needs to be addressed!
SLIDE 30
Any advice?
Just follow the advice from Tan Kah Kee, the great humanist and philanthropist from Xiamen:
Improve education in the Chinese countryside, in particular vocational training and Foreign-language instruction
SLIDE 31 And finally:
An advice for further fostering the international ties of Chinese science: Create a Chinese version of the Humboldt Foundation! Why not a XU Guanqi, a XU Xiake,
- r a LI Shizhen Foundation?
