It is immediately apparent that Wang Baomin and Wang Hongshuo are father and son.
When recounting their educational journeys, they both hold a demeanor of slight shyness, eyes shining with excitement.
Despite launching their careers nearly three decades apart, their paths are following a similar course.
In October 2021, senior year Duke Kunshan University student Hongshuo, received a job offer from IT company Tencent soon after finishing his internship there.
Back in the early 1990s, Baomin also successfully turned his internship into a full-time job when he started his career at Shandong Liaocheng Department Store in the year he graduated from a polytechnic vocational school.
For both father and son, education can be likened to lighting a torch that sheds light into darkness and changes lives for the better.
In 1993, 19-year-old Baomin graduated from senior high school and boarded a bus bound for the provincial capital Jinan to study at Shandong Provincial Vocational College of Commerce. In 2018, his 18-year-old son Hongshuo headed south to join the inaugural undergraduate class at Duke Kunshan University. The Class of 2022 will be the first set of undergraduates to pass through the university when they graduate later this year.
Young and hopeful, neither father nor son probably realized as they embarked on those journeys the extent to which they were writing new chapters for their family spanning two generations.
“I won’t hesitate if I have to spend the last penny for my kids’ education.”
Baomin grew up in Yangdian village in the city of Liaocheng in east China’s Shandong province. Stories heard on the radio and the letters from faraway relatives were the only source of information with which to feed his imagination of the outside world.
During the busy farming season, he and the other boys from the village had to help work the land. Physically demanding manual labor – building river dams, digging dikes, winnowing and making adobe bricks – was woven into his childhood memories of rural life.
After every bout of heavy farm work, Wang Baomin felt as if his body had fallen to pieces. Even his bones were sore.
What he remembers most clearly is staying up all night to water the fields. At that time, technology in rural areas was basic, so villagers had to use a diesel engine to generate electricity and then transport the water to the fields. Baomin’s job was to monitor the engine and check the furrows to prevent water from leaking into neighbors’ fields. During night-time irrigation, Baomin and his elder brother had to work into the following morning. Too young to handle staying up late, Baomin often fell asleep in the early morning, only to be awoken by his brother giving him a lecture.
Family photo when Baomin (front row, left) was 7 years old
During busy periods of farming, going to school felt like a welcome interlude.
In 1980, 7-year-old Baomin was attending the village school. There was no after-school homework and most of the kids had to rush back to cut grass for pig food. In the days before chemical fertilizer was common, pig manure was used for the crops.
Baomin’s extended family stood out for the emphasis they placed on education when most villagers did not pay it much attention.
His cousin was one of the first college students to take China’s college entrance examination (gaokao) after it was restored in the late 1970s. After graduating from Dalian Maritime College (now Dalian Maritime University), he was assigned to work as an electrical engineer on international ships for a Qingdao-based ocean shipping company.
From village to city and from poverty to well-off, his cousin changed his life through education, which was celebrated by Baomin’s father as a classic example of a “carp jumping over the goal transformed into a dragon”, a Chinese aphorism for achieving transformative success.
Baomin’s father then made a pledge to his kids that was inspiring yet simple: I will support your education even if I have to break our pots and pans to sell the iron scraps for money. He kept his word.
In elementary school, Baomin did not know how education would change his life, but he remembered the milk candies and cookies his cousin brought back every time he returned to the village. Those sweet memories became the catalyst for his determination to leave his rural surroundings for a better life, one achieved through education. Later, as a diligent student, he enjoyed some privileges in his family not available to his peers. For example, heavy farm work was no longer his main after-school activity and the whole family made it a priority to allow him to concentrate on studying.
Several years later, Baomin and his sister were admitted to vocational polytechnic schools, a big achievement for village kids. But the annual tuition fee of 400 yuan per child was not a small amount for his family. In contrast, most young villagers of the same age had already left school a few years earlier to work to support their families.
But Baomin’s father didn’t hesitate to shoulder the cost. He was determined to support his kids’ education regardless of the financial burden. He decided to leave home to become a migrant worker in cities for better pay.
Baomin was very grateful to his father’s commitment to his education. “My father worked in many manual jobs — he carried big bags weighing over 90 kilograms and once worked as a warehouse guard,” recalled Baomin. “For eight years, he left home to earn more money for our education and only returned when I got married. For two years in a row, he didn’t go back home just to save the travel expense.”
Gratitude to his parents and the desire for a better life became major sources of motivation that kept Baomin pushing forward on his educational journey.
Journey to a bigger world
Compared with his father, Hongshuo’s childhood was happier and more financially secure.
Hongshuo’s parents value education highly, but they did not demand him to be top of his class, giving him more encouragement than criticism. “My parents always told me to ‚’study hard and play hard, both are important,'” said Hongshuo. Compared with his friends, Hongshuo realized that his parents were “not that strict” and never sought to detract from the value of play.
“I had my son at the age of 27,” said Baomin. “I didn’t expect much of him at that time, but simply hoped that he would go to a bigger world, such as working and living in the provincial capital.”
“When I was in school, I read about Mr. Ji Xianlin, a noted Indologist and linguist, who was also a native of Liaocheng, the city where I work,” added Baomin, talking about how he understood family education. “According to Mr. Ji, the meaning and value of one’s life lies in his responsibility to carry forward the development of mankind. I think for each generation, the value of our lives is to do a good job of forming a bridge between the past and a brighter future for our kids.”
Baomin believed that his job was to assist his son to become better educated and more successful than himself and to “see a bigger world” by exposing him to a broader range of experiences. This was what he saw as the best he could do for his child. He made a promise to himself to do everything possible to support his son’s growth and development, just as his father had done for him.
Wang Hongshuo at Shanghai Expo in 2010
‚’Seeing the bigger world’ started with annual family trips.
During Shanghai Expo in 2010, Baomin took his son Hongshuo to visit the various pavilions hosted at the event by countries including Japan, the United States and some European nations. Among the products being showcased were French Citroen cars and U.S. electric vehicles, and he was able to taste Japanese Yoshinoya ramen. In Shanghai, they took the subway for the first time. For a 10-year-old boy, the trip to Shanghai planted the seed in Hongshuo’s heart to see a bigger world.
Since childhood, his broad vision and harmonious family atmosphere have given Wang Hongshuo more opportunities to explore both outwardly and inwardly, and his performance has always ranked among the best compared with his peers. After completing study tasks, he will occasionally choose to play games to relax. From Moore’s Manor to Grand Theft Auto to the slick indie games developed by independent studios, he gradually discovered that each game was telling its own story in a special language, like entering a new science fiction novel. The details can be continuously sculpted like a sandbox game, and concrete details are superimposed on the grand world view. There can be a deep sense of fulfillment from creating new functions with code, or even building a more interesting world, he says.
The educational path of two generations in one family
In 1993, after receiving his gaokao results, Baomin hesitated over his future choices.
If he was to copy his cousin’s path, he should apply for a tertiary polytechnic college. But 30 years ago, the annual tuition fee of 1,000 yuan was a significant sum for his family. Considering their financial situation – his father had to work as a migrant worker in cities for years to earn enough money to support their education up to that point – Wang Baomin decided to attend a secondary polytechnic school that charged lower tuition fees.
Though Baomin did not successfully fulfill his college dream, he was far ahead of village peers in terms of knowledge and vision, most of whom had started working right after graduating from junior high school. Baomin’s educational experience has had a direct and profound impact on his career development.
Baomin’s graduation diploma from Shandong Vocational College of Commerce
According to the philosopher Confucius, “While one’s parents are alive, one should not travel to distant places.” Baomin shared the same view. After graduation, he chose to work in Liaocheng, the closest prefecture-level city to their village, in order to take better care of his aging parents.
But for his son Hongshuo, Confucius’s doctrine of staying close to your parents is no longer a guiding principle for his life plans. He has the full support of his father whose life was changed by his educational experience and has given his son more space to explore his future.
In 2018, Baomin read that Duke Kunshan University had just launched its undergraduate degree program. He was immediately drawn to it, considering it a good opportunity for his son to acquire cutting-edge knowledge and a global perspective.
Only this time, Baomin didn’t need to hesitate about the high cost of tuition as was the concern 25 years ago. He was well-prepared to “invest” in Hongshuo’s education as he had learned through personal experience of how education could change someone’s life.
“Duke Kunshan offered us an alternative option to the fierce competition for spots at top Chinese universities, and a great one too,” said Baomin.
Hongshuo ranked top academically in his high school and would have no problem in entering a Project 985 university, the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. Ivy League. Initially, the decision to apply for Duke Kunshan, a young university which had just started its undergraduate program, was opposed by Hongshuo’s teachers.
But father and son started to seriously consider the option after receiving a positive outcome from the interview and the offer of a full scholarship from Duke Kunshan University. Will this young university be a success in the future? Wang Baomin trawled the internet for every piece of news about Duke Kunshan and consulted friends and relatives. He concluded that Duke Kunshan, a Sino-U.S. joint venture university founded in 2013, had all the promise to become a leading higher education institution.
Finally, his family voted on Duke Kunshan by 2:1, hoping that it would broaden Hongshuo’s horizons and put him on a stronger footing to fly higher.
“Son, we made a big decision!” Baomin said at the time, hugging Hongshuo in shared excitement for the future.
On August 13, 2018, Hongshuo arrived at the Duke Kunshan campus, accompanied by his parents. Soon the family was overwhelmed with pleasant surprises. They were satisfied with the student-centered educational philosophy and excited by the solemn entrance ceremony for the inaugural class of undergraduates. So many things at Duke Kunshan – including the beautiful campus, comfortable dormitory facilities, colorful orientation activities, the smiling faces of freshmen students in their parents’ WeChat groups, and the guest speakers of famous writer Yan Lianke, the Olympic fencing champion Zhong Man and leading scholars – left them with the strong impression of a great university with world-class faculty.
Hongshuo and parents at the convocation ceremony of Duke Kunshan’s inaugural class of undergraduates
Baomin was proud of the choice he made together with his son, and firmly believed that Duke Kunshan’s experience will too become a turning point in Hongshuo’s life.
Reaching up to light the torch
Looking back, Baomin, who is in his 50s, can tell with certainty that the first lesson in the secondary polytechnic school was an important point of transformation in his life.
At that time of his arrival in the provincial capital, he felt like a “bumpkin”, dazzled by the big city and even struggling to find the bus stop he was looking for. However, his class teacher taught the shy young man an important lesson in the first class, “Not only do you have to learn your textbook knowledge, but you also have to learn to communicate with others.”
Baomin still remembers that in the first class of the school year, instead of talking about study and discipline, the class teacher discussed three levels of communication, which gave him the courage and guidance to step out of his comfort zone. The first level is to simply open your mouth to talk, the second is to have the courage to express yourself and the final stage is to have the skills to make yourself understood by others.
“What touched me in that class was not only the importance of speaking up, but also the realization that one has to open oneself up and try bravely, and that such a mindset is the prerequisite for learning all knowledge and skills,” said Baomin. “Isn’t it the same message Duke Kunshan has constantly emphasized to its students? Stepping out of your comfort zone and challenging yourself – this means a lot to each of us.”
In 1995, Wang Baomin joined, through school recruitment, Liaocheng Department Store as a home appliance technical specialist and received a full-time offer after his internship. He was later promoted to a technician and then to a manager, growing together with the company. He witnessed and was actively involved in the market economy reforms to his state-owned company. Staying true to the lessons of his class teacher during his two years at the polytechnic school, Baomin not only acquired technical knowledge in the field of home appliances but also gained the courage to keep moving forward and pursuing life-long learning.
“Education has given me the desire to constantly push my boundaries,” said Baomin. “And this is the most important thing for me.”
Education has allowed a poor village boy to see a bigger world.
His son Hongshuo has traveled the same journey, only going further.
2018 Duke Kunshan University Thanks-Giving Dinner & Scholarship Celebration
Four years of study at Duke Kunshan has greatly changed Hongshuo, and not just in expanding his textbook knowledge. When asked to summarize the three most important qualities provided by his experience at Duke Kunshan, Hongshuo answered without hesitation: bravery, teamwork and sincerity.
Hongshuo on a 10-kilometer road cycling ride
Immersed in Duke Kunshan’s culture which encourages students to step out of their comfort zone, Hongshuo enjoys trying new things. At Duke Kunshan, students actively take part in campus activities and a diverse range of clubs, eager to explore the various resources and opportunities on offer. Professors encourage students to get more involved in events and projects.
Great experiences await Duke Kunshan students who do not confine themselves to their comfort zone, Hongshuo says.
During group projects assigned by professors, Hongshuo has learned to work in teams composed of members with diverse backgrounds, who have different personalities and strengths. In these group projects, he has developed skills to allocate tasks, coordinate relationships and manage progress.
According to Hongshuo, teamwork is best practiced in projects outside of the classroom. Course assignments, with clear goals and end products, offer an ideal environment for teamwork. But in real-life projects, everything is subject to unexpected changes. So, members are expected to be flexible, while developing problem-solving skills, teamwork and leadership attributes.
In junior year, Hongshuo signed up for the College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program which has become one of his most impressive experiences on campus. His team designed ESE (Everyone Speaks English) program, aiming to connect international students at Duke Kunshan with local high school students in Kunshan who are interested in improving English proficiency through daily conversation.
ESE (Everyone Speaks English) program
From an idea to final delivery, the team has overcome many challenges by adjusting strategy and changing approaches. Every decision made and the execution process that follows has turned out to be a great learning opportunity for him.
Hongshuo successfully applied the skills he learned in this project to designing software programs with classmates, including resource scheduling, time allocation and progress control. Thanks to these prior experiences, Hongshuo impressed Tencent colleagues in the company’s open lectures on game design. As a confident leader, Hongshuo led a team to complete class assignments, maintaining high standards through excellent coordination and communication.
Hongshuo’s first business headshot as graduation approaches
In 2018, not long after Hongshuo started his undergraduate study at Duke Kunshan, Baomin wrote an essay titled “Hope you will fly high and don’t need to look back,” expressing a mixture of feelings after seeing his son’s rapid growth during his first semester in college and the great potential for Hongshuo to become a high-flyer. Four years later, both father and son shared greater confidence and expectation for Hongshuo’s career success after he had worked so hard to achieve his goals.
From a rural village to a prefecture-level city then to Duke Kunshan and now to a bigger world, the story of two generations in one family continues to bring more achievement and excitement.
Author: Li Weiran
Editor: Cheng Ken, Gareth McPherson
Produced by: Duke Kunshan Communications, Student Media Center
