Everybody has his (her) admired person in his (her) life. That person may have influenced his (her) life. I don’t know who my role model was, but Enlai, Zhou always is the person I hold high in esteem. In my county, everybody knows and calls him – Prime Minister Zhou. The Prime Minister was his job title, but it became his special name. He was not my peer and we lived in different times. I still have some pictures about him in my mind even though I never saw him in person.
When I saw his picture the first time, I thought he was a handsome man. He had special, heavy, and black eyebrows. His eyes always looked bright and shining. His mouth was standard. When he spoke, he had a special accent from his hometown. Everybody liked to hear his soft voice. Right now, the actor who acts him has to speak his special accent on the movie.
people still remember his selfless character and lofty sentiments. He never had a child but he brought up some of the children whose parents had died in the revolution. He said people had to treat people as warmly as the spring. He never had extra money for himself in the bank. When he died, The Union’s flag was at half-mast for him. While others were being questioned about it, the secretary of The Union said, “if any person who never had a bank account had died, I would do the same for him.” And also, Nixon wrote down some country’s famous leaders in his book ‘Leaders‘. He chose Zhou to write about even if Zhou wasn’t ever Chairman in my country.
Most politicians always want to become presidents of the county finally, but even though Prime Minister Zhou had the chance to become the Chairman in my country, he was humble enough to support Mao. He never competed against Mao even if he had a different opinion with Mao. He still supported and worked for Mao. He didn’t want the country broken, I thought. For some political reason, Mao started the Red Cultural Revolution many years ago. We called it the disaster of years. Zhou worked 24 hours a day to protect some famous scientists, actors (actress), and people from opposition Parties. He endured suffered all kinds of disgrace and insults in order to accomplish his tasks until he got cancer. In his last year, he slept very little and tried to protect people. He always tried his best. Nixon, the president of America said: “Zhou always let the light of history focus on Mao and kept silent behind the screen”.
Now, when I take into account the trouble he took for our people, I realize he had done what regular people couldn’t do. This is why most people remember and commemorate him. There’s a saying: what goes around comes around. I never saw him, but I felt I already had seen him full of energy. I was from a different generation, but I thought I had understood his deepness of thought. I couldn’t speak with him, but it seemed as if I had heard his special sound.
The time goes by. The world has changed a lot. Leaders have changed a lot in every country. Zhou still lives in the people’s hearts. We adore him for his noble character. We say it’s easy to learn knowledge in books, but his wise knowledge and ability weren’t what everybody could be. On his tombstone, it said, ” his great life will be remembered forever for posterity!”
— February 14, 2002
