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 didn't have enough money for 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. It 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 his lamp oil and couldn't study at night. When he woke up at night, he saw the snow reflecting (反射) 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 the kids later became successful government officials (政府官员). People were moved because of their hard-working spirit (精神) and turned their stories into the Chinese idiom (成语) nangying yingxue.
Present Xi Jinping once told these stories at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (中共中央党校). He talked about nangying yingxue, xuanliang cigu and zaobi touguang. All of these stories encourage people to study hard even though they will meet difficulties. Xi hopes that government officials can keep this hard-working spirit in mind.
All of us can learn a lot from these stories. Although they don't take place in modern times, they are just like the light of fireflies—they light up the road to knowledge.
