Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is a hinge in the chronology of Rong Jinzhen’s recovery and return to study. A letter from Jan Liseiwicz arrives just before the festival with news and advice about artificial intelligence; after the holiday, Rong goes back to N University and posts a reply that helps determine the course of his life.

A Letter Before the Festival

Jan Liseiwicz wrote his third letter to Young Lillie on Christmas Eve, and it arrived just before Chinese New Year. The envelope’s Christmas-tree stamp marked the date of writing, while the letter itself looked forward: Liseiwicz reported that Princeton University had formed an institute devoted to artificial intelligence and argued that Rong should pursue research where the necessary facilities were available. He urged Young Lillie not to let immediate difficulties keep Rong from the work he might accomplish.

The letter made the approaching holiday a point of contrast between possibility and decision. Liseiwicz presented leaving China as a practical route toward research, not simply as a symbolic departure; his appeal rested on access to facilities and the prospects of a new field. Young Lillie, however, had to decide what future to support for a recently recovered student.

After the New Year

After Chinese New Year, Rong returned to class at N University, rather than going to Stanford or Princeton. In spring 1951, he posted a carefully worded letter to Jan Liseiwicz with newspaper reports he had clipped. Young Lillie had earlier crossed out about half of Rong’s draft, removing much of its regret and disappointment, and advised him to include the clippings.

The sequence gives the festival a precise narrative function: it separates the arrival of Liseiwicz’s proposal from Rong’s resumption of university life and his answer. The letter did more than report a choice already made. By posting it, Rong confined one possible path his life might have taken to the past.

A Turning Point in the Timeline

The account frames Rong’s letter through Young Lillie’s recollection that some letters record history while others make it. Chinese New Year falls between the arrival of Liseiwicz’s appeal and the act that settles Rong’s immediate course: returning to N University and sending his response. The seasonal marker therefore anchors a change in direction without itself explaining every cause behind the decision.

Its significance comes from the contrast between the future held open before the holiday and the path taken afterward. Before it, study abroad and artificial-intelligence research remain live possibilities; after it, Rong is back in class, and his posted letter makes that choice part of his history.