This is the photo taken in 2017, taken with my Ph.D instructor, Professor Wang Yuan.
I was born in a rural village in NingYuan county, Hunan province, China. My childhood was happy. My dad always bought a lot of sweet produce for me, so that my teeth got cavity. At the age of 4, I suffered from roundworms, they entangled my intestine. I was lying on a bed in a hospital, with some medical liquids dropping into my blood vessels. When the doctors decided to have an operation to remove the roundworms, a relative came. He asked the doctors to try some medicines first; fortunately, the roundworms were killed. I escaped from an operation.
From 6 to 11, I attended the primary school in the village. My school marks was always 99 or 100, because I have a big head (some kids really called me "bighead"). From 12 to 16, it was the Culture Revolution in China; I passed the middle school for 5 years without learning anything. Every morning before dawn, I had to go to the mountain to cut some firewood for the family. At school, the only thing we did was working in fields to grow fruits or rice. At 17, in 1976, lao Mao was died. The Chinese government resumed entrance tests for universities; that was my last year in high school. Unfortuantely, I faild the test.
I spent another year in high school. Clever as me, I was the only student in the class who entered university. After studying in Hunan Normal University (for teachers) for 4 years, I was the only student who passed the entrance test for master study (some other classmates also qualified for master degree study after 1 or 2 years). In Shan Dong Qufu Normal University, there were 4 classmates in the Number Theory major. At graduation, I was the only one qualified for a PhD study. Professor Wang Yuan was my instructor.
In 1990, I started my teaching career in Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT). First as a lecturer, one year later, an associate professor; in 3 years, I became a professor, and a deputy director of a department. Till 1998, I instructed university students for competitions in mathematics and mathematical modelling. Many students got the first prize, and I was awarded a title "Excellent youth teacher in Beijing", also a prize from Huo Ying Dong Education Foundation.
From Sept. 1998 to Augst 1999, I worked in Carlton University as a visiting professor. Because I solved a hard problem in algebraic number theory, Kenneth S. William gave me $400/month, besides the $800 given by the Chinese government. I still remembered that, one problem requires the proof of Lindelof conjecture or Riemann hypothesis, so we gave up that problem. Now, I have solved these conjectures, but I never met Kenneth anymore.
In 1999, I went back to BUPT. Worked there for 3 more years, in 2002, I immigrated to Canada. Life for immigrants is not easy. At the beginning, I worked at a food processing plant. The work was so hard that I quit it in 3 months. Then I entered a training school for fixing cars, spent all the money I carried to pay the tuition. After that, I worked in a garage for a year, and quit again: Labor work does not fit me.
A lady came. She asked me to start after-school tutoring together. That lasted for 2 years, we broke. Since then, I become a tutor by myself. The income is so little, even I got teeth problems, there is no money to cure it. At begining of 2020, Covid-19 came, students became fewer. Nowdays, the chinese economy collapsed, all chinese students have no meoney for a tutor. Students become fewer and fewer, where is my way?