SOME of China's outstanding leaders in their chosen fields joined a group of select Fudan University graduates recently to celebrate the life of a man who spent many of his 90 years in prison.

　　More than 200 friends and former students gathered at a restaurant near Fudan University to honour Professor Jia Zhifang, former chief of the Chinese Department of Fudan University, and senior scholar of Chinese literature.

　　But it's not just Jia's 90th birthday nor his academic achievements that brought this stellar group together.

　　Professor Chen Sihe, chief of the Chinese department of Fudan University and editor-in-chief of Shanghai Writers, and Li Hui, well-known writer and senior editor of the People's Daily were just two of Jia's former students who acknowledged his influence in their lives and successes.

　　How does a man who spent much of his life in prison have so much impact on the lives of others? The answer is simple, but the process is not.

　　Jia Zhifang is one of the last remaining intellectuals who survived the most tumultuous periods in modern Chinese history. Throughout much of his life he endured abuse and imprisonment without surrendering the characteristics which mark a true intellectual.

　　A perfect intellectual's moral integrity is not only spoken by his works or academic achievements, but are also reflected by his life. In China, a good intellectual should first be a good man.

　　In the tradition of Chinese intellectuals, there is always a belief insisting on sacrificing their lives for the faith they hold. Only those who can fulfill this can be regarded as the real backbone of society. Whenever Jia's students and friends mention Jia's experiences, It is said that keeping positive and sticking to his faith in goodness are the two bases that helped Jia to carry on his tough life. Li Hui once said that his supervisor Jia is not only a tough man, but also "an optimistic man with a bohemian character."

　　Troubled time

　　Jia was born in North China's Shanxi Province on September 29, 1916, an extremely troubled time in modern Chinese history.

　　In his memoir, "My School Life," Jia describes himself as "a restive boy with decisive thoughts." Perhaps it was inevitable that he would take the road less travelled, fighting for his ideals of nationalism and justice.

　　In 1932, he went to Beiping (Beijing) to begin his high school study at Congshi Middle School, which was run by an American church. He began to publish political essays in Takung Pao and Shen Bao newspapers. In 1936 he was dismissed by the school and arrested by the Beiping Police for "jeopardizing the security of the country."

　　Bailed out of jail by his uncle, Jia went to Japan to continue his studies and writing career. After the War of Resistance against Japan broke out in 1937, he returned to China and joined the army. He was imprisoned by the Japanese one day before Japan surrendered and immediately released. He was then jailed for several months by the Kuomintang government soon after the civil war broke out. After that he became a teacher at Fudan University.

　　His last imprisonment resulted in the toughest days of his life. From 1955 to 1978, he was imprisoned because he was a member of the "Hu Feng counter-revolutionary group." During this time he endured the threat of death and inhumane conditions. The best days of Jia's life were stolen through imprisonment, even though he wrote many novels, essays, and even a book about the economics of modern China. These achievements were rooted in his qualities as an intellectual.

　　"Because I believe the thing I stick to is right, and I feel I'm right, I will never give up and escape from the worst conditions. You can imprison me or even kill me, but I will never escape from those sufferings."

　　Many writers and intellectuals could not bear the physical and psychological torment of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). Some of them became insane and some committed suicide. But Jia took a better way of protesting: he survived all kinds of injustice and persecution and, according to his former student, Zhang Xinying, "proved the decency of humanity."

　　During the days of Jia's imprisonment, his wife Ren Ming was also jailed. Ren never gave up her love for her husband, because she believed in him and his ideals. During the 12-year separation, both faced death and neither knew whether the other was alive or dead. But their love for each other enabled them to carry on.

　　Altogether, Ren waited for Jia for almost 23 years. Later, when she was in a coma due to a stroke, Jia never gave up hope for her recovery. For five years before her death he stayed by her side, whispering her name in her ear. "If there is any couple who can endure any adversity and fulfill their love in this world, they are the best illustration," said Chen Sihe.

　　Moral integrity

　　Love for life, love for wife, love for friends and love for righteousness - these qualities helped Jia become the most representative intellectual in the Chinese tradition. Jia said in his autobiography that "Although I will be sent to the crematory soon, my most gratifying accomplishment is that on the rugged way God set for me, at least I lived my life like a human being."

　　Even though he was implicated in the unjust case of his close friend Hu Feng, he never complains about this, because he thinks that "loyalty for friendship and friends is the basic moral quality." For Chinese intellectuals, only a man who is loyal to his friends and family can be loyal to his faith. He shares these values with other Chinese intellectuals, from Qu Yuan to Sima Qian, from Ji Kang to Li Bai. Each suffered undeserved persecution, some even lost their lives. Though they were wrongly treated in their time, they are worshiped by generations of Chinese. Their moral integrity has been inherited by their followers and their thoughts were proved to be the most precious legacies to the nation.

　　Edward Said's comments summarizes this group: The intellectual is "neither a pacifier nor a consensus-builder, but someone whose whole being is staked on a critical sense, a sense of being unwilling to accept easy formulas, or ready-made cliches, or the smooth, ever-so-accommodating confirmations of what the powerful or conventional have to say, and what they do."(By Xu Jitao)