Roaming the World 

In my personal semantic dictionary and knowledge graph, "wandering" ( liulang ) is a major node, with "drifting" and "waves" as its hypernyms. Its hyponyms branch out in lush profusion: sent-down youth, overseas re-settlement, leaping through the Dragon Gate — and leaping again, Beijing drift, plunging into the sea of commerce, westward drift, heading south, and heading south yet again. This is precisely the true story of my career. 

Behind these lexical concepts hide excitement and hardship in equal measures — perhaps only a knowledge graph visualization can truly know. A life of fluctuating drifting has accompanied me throughout. In 1976, upon graduating from high school, I caught the last wave of the Cultural Revolution's "sent-down youth" movement and was dispatched to the mountainous regions of southern Anhui to receive re-education from the poor and lower-middle peasants. This was the starting point of my lifelong wandering. 

Looking back, this beginning was not so bad — what a sixteen-year-old could feel at the time was more pride than sorrow. At the end of 1977, I caught the first college entrance exam after ten years of the Cultural Revolution, and somehow leaped through the Dragon Gate, becoming a member of the historically renowned Class of '77 (though we actually enrolled in February 1978). 

After graduating from university, I taught for a year, then leaped through the Dragon Gate again, successfully passing the graduate school exam and heading north to Beijing. This was a euphoric northward drift — the excitement and joy of that year rivaled that of Fan Jin passing the imperial examinations. 

It was 1983, and I had the fortune of studying under China's NLP/MT founding fathers, Professors Liu Yongquan and Liu Zhuo, pursuing a master's degree in machine translation. This marked my entry into the field. 

In the four or five years after graduate school, I moonlighted in Zhongguancun, plunging into the sea of high-tech business. Although I could be counted among the earliest waves of entrepreneurs, since it was part-time, I bore none of the risks of other pioneers. At that time, the wave of overseas re-settlement was at its peak, and I finally could not resist the tide, catching the last train to the British Empire. The early 1990s found Britain in decline.

朝华午拾 · 浪迹天涯与乡愁（上） 

浪迹天涯 

在属于我个人的语义词典和知识图谱里，"流浪"是一个很大的节点，它的上位是漂流和波浪。流浪的下位谓词枝繁叶盛，包括：插队，洋插队，跳龙门，再跳龙门，北漂，下海，西漂，南下，再南下。这也正是我职业生涯的真实写照。在这些语词概念的背后蕴含几多激动几多辛苦，也许只有可视化图谱知道。

多起伏的漂流生活伴随着我的一生。1976年高中毕业即赶上了最后一届上山下乡，插队皖南山区接受贫下中农的再教育，这是我一生流浪生活的起点。

这个起点回想起来并不坏，16岁的孩子当时能感到的是自豪多于悲凉。1977年底赶上了大革命后第一届大学生招考，居然跳了龙门，成为史上著名的77级生（其实是78年2月入学）。大学毕业后任教一年，再跳龙门考研成功，北上京城。

这是一次欣快的北漂，当年的兴奋喜悦堪比范进中举。那是1983年，有幸师从中国NLP的开山鼻祖刘涌泉刘倬老师，主攻机器翻译硕士，这才入行。研究生毕业后四五年间，中关村兼职下海。虽然可算头几拨下海人士，因是兼职，并无其他下海人的风险。其时洋插队之风正甚，终于没有顶住潮流，赶了末班车来到大英帝国。

90年代初正值大英没落。

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