Yang Yunshan, born in 1945 in Wanning, Hainan, served as the Secretary of the General Party Branch of Hainan University’s College of Agriculture and Vice President of the university’s Party School. Since retiring in 2005, he has been Deputy Director of the university’s Committee for the Well-being of the Next Generation. Over the years, he has received several honors at both the provincial and national levels for his contributions to Party affairs. Now 81 years old, Yang has been a Party member for 61 years.
In 1964, Yang was admitted to Beijing Agricultural University (now China Agricultural University), where he majored in plant physiology and biochemistry. When he joined the Party during his sophomore year, a teacher’s remark stayed with him for life: “Joining the Party organizationally happens only once in a lifetime, but being a Party member ideologically lasts a lifetime.” That, he said, became the driving force of his career. As he pulled himself through university on a monthly stipend of 19.5 yuan, he stated in gratitude that “it was the Party that gave us education.” Upon graduation, he followed the Party’s assignment to teach in Qinghai Province, and in 1978 he was transferred back to Hainan to help prepare for the establishment of the Agricultural College of Hainan Administrative Region.
In 1983, that college merged with Hainan Normal College and Hainan Medical College to form the original Hainan University, and Yang joined the newly established university. In its early years, the fledgling university possessed only 400 mu (about 27 hectares) of serviced land and its campus stood on an unreclaimed tidal flat. Despite difficulties, the first Party Secretary Lin Shijun refused the government guesthouse and insisted on living in the rooms of teaching buildings, sharing the hardships with faculty and students. On soil too saline for most trees, Yang and his colleagues experimented with coconut palms, but the trees leaned and collapsed whenever a typhoon struck. After repeated trials, they switched to casuarina trees, which eventually grew into dense forests and shielded the area from wind and sand. Yang and his colleagues dug pits and mounded soil under the burning sun until their hands were calloused. Their devotion earned them the title of Hainan University’s “first generation of tree planters”.
In 1984, the Hainan Administrative Region government approved Hainan University’s establishment of an electronic equipment factory. Yang, then the head of the Scientific Research and Equipment Section, pushed the university to run the factory in partnership with South China University of Technology. The factory earned its first 500,000 yuan for HNU. With this money, the university built a number of laboratories and students gained access to its first batch of 286 desktop computers. The factory also trained a number of technicians and workers for the university, and later served as an internship base for its students.
In the 1990s, Yang Yunshan, then a director of the university’s General Office, meticulously organized a 100-day campaign entitled “Revitalizing Hainan University: A Major Investigation and Discussion”. The research teams went deep into cities and counties, visiting enterprises and public institutions to assess academic program offerings and the university’s development priorities. They produced five reports and identified HNU’s defining features in better serving Hainan’s economic and social development: the Tropics, the Ocean, Special Economic Zone, and Overseas Chinese Communities.
In the 1990s, the Agricultural College was “sidelined” due to its weak faculty, limited funding, and low morale. Yet Yang Yunshan stepped forward to volunteer as the Secretary of its General Party Branch. He initiated the Agricultural College Lecture Forum, where each teacher could share their disciplinary visions and research directions, revitalizing the vitality of teaching and research. He made trips to Hunan and paid repeated visits to successfully recruit two key members of Academician Yuan Longping’s team: Professors Zhou Tingbo and Yuan Qianhua. Zhu bred and promoted the “Haixiang No.1” rice variety, putting the fragrant rice developed by Hainan University on the tables of Hainan households, while Yuan laid a solid foundation for the university’s rice breeding program. To secure project funding, he shuttled between provincial departments and agencies, stationing himself outside their offices to make his case. His plea — “I’ve come to win projects for Hainan University’s College of Agriculture” — moved all who heard it. With this enterprising spirit, Yang helped the college secure more than one million yuan in research funding in his first year and the amount topped 2 million yuan in his second year. The college has grown from having no research achievements to earning provincial awards and securing international cooperation projects.
“Although the hardest step lies in the leap from 0 to 1, no hurdle is insurmountable for those who dare to forge ahead and stand by their decisions.” From a “tree planter” on the wild saline-alkali flats to a “pioneer” for the development of the college, Yang Yunshan has embodied the profound love and boundless loyalty of a veteran Party member and educator to the cause of education.
Translated by Zhu Chengxu
Proofread by Yang Jie
