回国以来，我面临的挑战之一是要克服文化差异。我是一个中国人，骨子里深受中国历史、价值观、道德观和文化精神的影响。然而，我在美国度过了成年的大部分时间，也因此饱受西方文化的浸染。这种矛盾使得我在某些场合，特别是在诸如葬礼等正式场合下感觉尤为不自在。即使在现代中国，葬礼上气氛也通常是灰暗而沉重的。纪念的文字中全是正式的赞美之词和粗浅的评论，却并不能真正反映逝者的个性特点，人格魅力。人们在葬礼上看到的都是黑纱和泪水，听到的都是哀乐与痛哭声。

　

我不记得是在哪儿听到这些的。一位伟人曾经说过：“当我出生时，我哭着，别人笑着。当我离去时，别人哭着，我笑着。” 我相信，逝者希望人们记住的除了他做过的善事，还有他的性格特点，喜好，和一些趣闻逸事。至少对我而言，我希望人们会在美好的回忆中感动着，而不是一直沉浸在悲伤与痛苦中。

　

在西方，葬礼的规模通常很小，只有亲朋挚友参加。有影响的人的葬礼上也会举行追悼会，朋友、同事、家人会在追悼会上发言，缅怀逝者。追悼会可以很正式，但不必灰暗而沉重。2005年12月，我的博士生导师艾拉.布莱克教授去世。他是一位著名的神经学家，在科学界有着广泛的影响。2006年2月3日，他的追悼会在Rutgers大学的一个大型会议厅举行。我应邀请出席并发言，同时发言的还有他的一些近亲、好友、同事以及许多学术界，社团，政府的贵宾。

　

追悼会上没有哀乐，没有花圈，没有黑纱。追悼会开始之前，多媒体幻灯片播放着布莱克教授生前各个时期的许多照片和他喜欢的音乐。有趣的是，他的前妻和现任女友都在追悼会上发言，分别讲述了他作为丈夫和作为恋人的一面。他的毕业于普林斯顿大学的儿子并没有在追悼会上发言，而是用钢琴弹奏了一首自己创作的曲子来表达他对父亲的爱。发言者中有不少名人，包括著名科学家、医生和政府官员。我代表艾拉的学生也在追悼会上发言，缅怀我和艾拉相处的往事。追悼会结束后，许多人为我对艾拉的生动描述而向我表示祝贺，他的家人也因为我的发言给大家带去了欢笑而拥抱我。

　

　　以下是我所能记得的我在艾拉.布莱克追悼会上所作的发言。

 　

　

忆艾拉.布莱克——一位伟大的老师

　

今天，能和其他杰出的发言者一起缅怀艾拉的生平，我感到非常荣幸。我想，我是代表艾拉的所有学生在此发言。我原本来自中国。中国人有着尊敬师长的优良传统。孔子曰：“一日为师，终生为父”，意思是哪怕只教过自己一天的老师，也要一辈子当父母看待。艾拉指导我的博士论文长达5年，因此，我真的视他如师如父。

　

作为导师，艾拉有着许多我们希望能够学到和继承的优点，其中尤为重要的是他对学生的支持和宽容。他对学生们的耐心、关心和用心是出了名的。台下的年轻学生们可能不知道艾拉很年轻时就有名气了。他发现，神经元在发育过程中或在环境变化的时，可能改变其利用的神经递质的类型。这一概念也被称为“神经递质可塑性”，现在已经写进了教科书。艾拉在神经递质可塑性方面所作的开创性工作，使得他年轻时便蜚声国际神经学界。上世纪80年代中期，我正在上海一所大学念书。我读到艾拉在《科学》杂志特刊上发表的一篇综述后，对他的工作产生了强烈的兴趣。也不知是哪里来的勇气，我给艾拉写了封信。信中表达了我对他工作的兴趣，也提到了我的一些很幼稚的想法。当时很少有从中国寄往国外的邮件，更不用说是寄到美国的了。信是手写的，我的英语也很糟糕，我不知道他能不能看到这封信。因此，我将信投进了邮箱后就根本期望有回信。两个月后，我收到了艾拉的来信。我仍然记得自己读信时是何等激动！他在信中说：“你对研究的热情和对科学的投入给我留下了深刻的印象”，并邀请我去他在纽约康乃尔大学医学院的实验室攻读博士学位。想象一下，一位国际知名的科学家居然给远在几乎完全封闭的国家的一名天真的学生写信！那封信彻底改变了我的生活。

　

另外令我和其他所有学生难忘的是他那热情洋溢的鼓励。艾拉对学生们取得的任何一点小的进步都会予以表扬。我记得有一次在经过数月的努力后，我的第一次Northern Blot终于产生预期效果了。我给他看结果。他向我表示祝贺，就像是我取得了一项惊人的发现一样！类似这样的例子还有很多。大家知道，艾拉非常善于用不同的词来表达同样的意思。他告诉我说，作为哥伦比亚大学哲学系的毕业生，他所接受的教育是不要在一篇文章里两次使用同一个词。我想，他也把这一点运用到了对学生的鼓励当中。当第一次看到我的Northern Blot的结果时，他握着我的手说：“This is wonderful”。第二次当我用Northern Blot检测到了在脑神经生长因子，他称之为“fantastic”。我能看到他眼中流露出的真正的兴奋。后来我做了许多成功的实验，他给我的评价有“terrific”，“awesome”，““marvelous”， “extraordinary”，“sensational”等等。当我向他演示神经元电活动能提高神经生长因子基因在海马体中的表达时，他惊叫到“That’s sexy”！ 最终，我决定我该赶紧毕业了，因为我担心有一天他会用完赞美之词的 （笑）。他的话语富有感染力。正是那种鼓励，帮助我度过了博士生涯中的起起落落。

　

最后，我要感谢艾拉教会我如何写科学论文。大家都知道艾拉的文笔很好。他是哈佛大学的医学博士和知名神经学家，生前常常口授一些资料、医疗记录、推荐信等等。有人告诉我他曾经口授了一整篇20页研究基金报告，我对此有点怀疑。但我坚信，如果将他的科学发言记录下来，那简直就是一篇不需要多少修改的文章！而最神奇的是他教我们写论文的方式。我记得我是怎样跟他学写第一篇研究论文的。当时，讨论完论文的要点后，他让我写论文初稿。我知道他要求很高，所以写得非常卖力。两个月后，我将初稿交给了他。第二天，他就把初稿退给我，初稿的第一页上用红笔写着：“逻辑不清。重写！”于是，我又很卖力地写着，两周后把改好的稿子交给了他。同样，第二天他又把稿子退给我，上面用红笔写着：“理论根据？重写！” 就这样我们来来回回折腾了几次，我真的不知道怎样才能令他满意。有一次，我觉得自己不能一直以这种方式写论文，于是约好了时间和他见面。我说：“艾拉，您应该明确告诉我到底该怎样写这篇论文。这确实是我能尽到的最大努力了。”艾拉说：“那好吧，我会看一下的” ……（大笑）  几年后，我知道了亨利.基辛格也是用这种方式来培训他的员工撰写报告的。正是这种严格的训练使我学会了应该如何写好文章。这对我后来的科研生涯帮助极大。

　

艾拉是一位好老师，一位大科学家，一位伟人。艾拉，我谨代表您的所有学生和同事，感谢您为我们的人生所做的一切。

 　

　

One of the challenges that I experienced since I came back to China is the cultural differences. I am a Chinese, and deep in my heart, there are a lot of Chinese history, values, moral and cultural spirits. However, I have spent most of my adult life in the US, and I have been heavily tainted with Western culture. This dichotomy makes it particularly difficult for me in certain occasions. The things that I feel particularly uncomfortable are formal occasions such as funerals. Even in modern China, the tune of funerals is usually dark and heavy. In eulogies, the words are all formal praises and superficial commentaries, without real reflect the characters of that individual. You see black arm cloth, funeral music, and tears and moans all over the places.

I don’t recall where I heard this. A great man once said that: “When I was born, I cry and everyone laughs. When I die, every cries and I laugh.” I believe that the person who passed away would want people to remember his characters and interesting anecdotes, in addition to the good things he has done. At least for me, I would want people to be touched, with sweet memories, rather than being sad or depressed all the time.

In Western culture, funerals are usually small and attended by only family members and very close friends. For people with influence, there are also memory services, in which friends, colleagues and family members give speeches in memory of the moaned individual who have touched lives. Those could be formal, but don’t need to be dark and heavy. In Dec. 2005, my Ph.D. mentor, Prof. Ira Black died. He was a distinguished neuroscientist and a very visible person. On Feb. 3, 2006, a memorial service was held in a huge Univ. Conference Hall. I was invited to attend and give a speech, along with some close family members, friends, colleagues, and many distinguished guests.

In the memory service, there was no funeral music, no flower rings, no mourning bands. There was a multi-medium slide show before the service, with lots of photos of Prof. Black at varies stages of his life, along with the music that he liked. Interestingly, his ex-wife and current girlfriend both spoke side-by-side, one on him as a husband, and one on him as a lover. His own son, a musician graduated from Princeton, did not speak. Instead, he played a piece composed by himself on piano to express his love of his father. Among speakers, there were quite few celebrities: famous scientists, doctors, government officials.  Representing many students Ira has trained over the years, I prepared my speech that reflected my own experiences with Ira. After the memorial service, many people came to congratulate me for telling a vivid story of Ira. His family members hugged me for the laughs that I brought to the event.

Here is the speech that I gave in Ira Black’s memory (based on my memory).

 　

In remembrance of Ira Black, a great teacher

                                   　

It is a great honor for me to join the distinguished speakers today to cerebrate Ira’s life. Among all the speakers, I guess I represent Ira’s students. I was originally from China. The Chinese people have a long tradition of respecting teachers. Here I quote Confucius: “Once your teacher, forever parents”, meaning that anyone who served as your teacher for one day, he should be treated as your parents forever. Ira was my Ph.D. thesis advisor for 5 years. So to me, he is more than a father-like figure.

As a mentor, Ira has many outstanding traits that we wish we could learn and inherit. Particularly remarkable was his generosity towards students. He is well known for his patience, and his care and attentiveness to his pupils. The young students in the audience may not know that Ira was famous at his young age. He discovered that neurons could change the type of neurotransmitters they use during development, or in response to the changes in the environment. This concept, also called transmitter plasticity, is now in the textbooks. His pioneering work on transmitter plasticity made young Ira Black an international figure in neuroscience. In the mid 80^th, I was a college student in Shanghai. I read a review article by Ira, published in a special issue of Science, that got me very excited about his work. I did not know where I got the courage, but I wrote a letter to Ira. I expressed my interests in his work, and some very naïve ideas of mine. Back then there were very few mails going out of China, let along to America. The letter was written by hand, and my English was poor. I didn’t know whether he would be able to read it. So I dropped the letter in the mail, but never expected anything would happen. Two months later, I received a letter from Ira. I still remember how excited I was when I read his letter. He said: “I am very impressed by your enthusiasm towards research and your commitment to science.”, and he would invite me to come to his lab in New York to study for a Ph.D. degree. Imagine that an internationally renowned scientist, writing a letter to a naïve college student from an almost completely closed country. That letter completely changed my life.

Another unforgettable thing that Ira did to me and to all students was his extremely warm encouragement. Ira would praise the students for any small progress that they made. I remember that after months of struggle, I managed to get my first Northern blot to work. I showed him the blot. He congratulated me as if I had made a major discovery! There were so many examples of his enthusiastic comments and warm hearted encouragement. As you know, Ira was very good at word replacement. He told me that as a Columbia philosophy graduate, he was trained NOT to use the same word twice in an article. I think that he practiced that in his encouragements to students as well. The first time he saw the Northern blot, he said “this is wonderful!”, and shook my hands. The next time when I detected brain NGF signal in the blot, he called it “fantastic”. I could see the true excitement in his eyes. I did many good experiments afterwards, and he said “terrific”, “awesome”, “marvelous”, “extraordinary”, “sensational”, on and on. Of course, every time he used a different word. When I showed him that neuronal activity could enhance the expression of NGF gene in the hippocampus, he exclaimed “That’s sexy!” At the end I decided that I need to graduate because I was worried that one day he would run out of words. His words were contagious. It was that kind of encouragement that helped me go through all the ups and downs in my Ph.D. study.

Finally, I must thank Ira for teaching me how to write scientific papers. You all know that Ira is an extraordinary writer. Being a Harvard MD and a renowned neurologist, he was used to dictate documents, medical records, recommendation letters, etc. Although I was a little suspicious whether he dictated an entire research grant as someone told me, I do believe that if you record a scientific speech by him, it could literally be an article without much modification! The most amazing thing was how he taught us writing papers. I remember how I wrote my first research paper with him. After discussing the main points of the paper, he wanted me to write the first draft. I knew that he had a high standard, so I worked very hard. Two months later, I finished the first draft, and handed to him. The next day, he returned the draft to me, with the red mark in the front page: “logic unclear. Re-write!”. So I worked on it very hard again, and two weeks later, I handed him another draft. Again, he returned it to me the next day, with the red mark: “Rationale? Re-write!”. We went back and forth several times like that, and I really did not know how to satisfy him. At one point, I decided that I could not let my writing to go on like that forever. So I made an appointment to see him, and said: “Ira, you need tell exactly how I should write this paper. This is really the best that I could do”. He said: “OK, I will take a look”. … Years later, I learned that this is the way Henry Kissinger used to train his staffs to write a good report. It was this kind of rigorous training that I learned how to write well. This was tremendously helpful for my scientific career later.

 　

Ira was a great teacher, a great scientist, a great man. So Ira, on behalf of all your students and colleagues, I thank you for what you have done for our lives.

 

相关专题：导师与学生
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