During the Jin Dynasty(265-420), there was a child named Che Yin. He was smart and loved to read. He grew up in a poor family and couldn't afford lamp oil to study at night.
One night, he saw fireflies(萤火虫) outside his house and came up with an idea. He caught some fireflies in a cloth bag and hung the bag up as a lamp. ①It is said that he spent all of his summer nights reading like this.
Another child named Sun Kang also loved reading. One night during winter, Sun used up all of his lamp oil and couldn't study at night. When he woke up at midnight, he saw the snow reflecting the moonlight outside his house. "Oh, I can use the reflected light to read!" he thought. He took out his books and read, even though he was freezing cold.
Both of these kids later became successful government officials. ②People were touched by their hardworking spirit and turned their stories into the Chinese idiom(成语) nangying yingxue.
In the past, people had a much harder time studying than we do. They might have had to copy(抄写) books by hand because books were rare back then. For poor families, paper and writing brushes(毛笔) were often too expensive. Students even had to travel very far to find a good teacher. ③But these difficulties did not stop young minds from learning.
In 2012, President Xi Jinping told these stories at the Party School of the CPC. Central Committee(中央党校). He talked about nangying yingxue xuanliang cigu and zaobi touguang. All of these stories encourage people to study hard in spite of difficulties. Xi hopes that government officials will keep this hardworking spirit in mind.
