In the autumn of 1992, I began a doctoral course in English language and literature at Nankai University in Tianjin. My specialist field of study would be American literature.

At the welcoming ceremony for the new graduate students, the dean gave a speech that made a deep impression on me. He said that the cultivation of a noble character should go before the accumulation of knowledge. To this end, he said, defending academic ethics is essential to being a scholar.

I had studied at two other universities previously. But his words came as something fresh and enlightening to me. What's more, as I would find out over the following months, they were taken to heart and acted upon by the whole of the university's foreign languages department. 

For the first time, it was brought home to me how immoral it is to plagiarize. An American professor lecturing us on how to conduct academic research, convinced me that plagiarism is theft and a form of cheating.

I can't say her classes were particularly interesting or something I looked forward to. But how could they be otherwise, considering that they involved her setting out a list of rules and instructions on how to credit those who were the source of our information? Yet, what she imparted proved essential when it came to writing academic papers.

Another teacher I had the good fortune to come into contact with, was a Canadian, Robert C. Cosbey, who in my mind embodied the noble character of an academic.

Professor Cosbey was my de facto Ph. D. supervisor. He was in his 80s at the time. Yet, every year he came to China all the way from Canada to give lectures, free of charge. As if that wasn't enough, he always brought with him several novels for the new graduate students to read. He, too, taught me something new and valuable: that as students we should cultivate fresh and innovative ideas, and not be afraid if they were challenged.

Ever since my childhood, I had been taught to study hard and obey anyone in authority, whether my parents or my teachers. It was wrong to challenge them. The secret to learning, I'd been told, was to memorize, which meant that a question had only one correct answer, never two or three.

So, I found the academic life at Nankai new, exciting, and stimulating. No longer was studying simply an exercise in committing the right answers to memory. In class and in writing papers, I was being encouraged to present my own ideas.

Through my work as an academic, I have truly been able to appreciate the importance of what those professors at Nankai instilled in me: the value of original thought. And I'm delighted to see that these days, former students of distinguished universities such as Nankai, taught by exemplary professors, such as Robert C. Cosbey, are contributing with original and innovative thinking to China's academic research.