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Chinanews, Guangzhou, Dec. 27 – In the morning, the sun shed its light on Chang Zaisheng's bed. He opened his eyes and woke up to welcome a new day. An hour later, Chang was ready – he picked up his shoeshine kit1 and went onto the street to start his business, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
This was the third time that Chang hid his identity as an associate professor and worked as a normal shoeshine man on the street. He often worked at a street near Siwangting in Yangzhou city. He sat with several other poorly dressed shoeshine men, smiling and working skillfully. When he saw that the dirty shoes became clean again, he felt a sense of satisfaction. At that moment, he knew why he lived and he seemed to find the very thing he had been after for a long time – human dignity. In other people's eyes, Chang had already had everything that people want – fame and wealth. He was the head of the School of Art Designs at Yangzhou University and also the associate researcher at its School of Buddhism2. He was the senior visiting professor to the School of Arts in Tsinghua University. As a renowned3 sculptor4, he had bought his house and car and lived an affluent5 life. However, he was not the typical rich man people normally see. “I have ten pairs of socks and half of them have been patched,” Chang told this reporter. Before polishing shoes, Chang had been searching desperately6 for his self-dignity. “As a college teacher, I have to be reverent7 and respectful to the principal and as a teacher, I need to be well-behaved in front of my students. I have two identities in society. Yet neither of them reveals my innermost characters – they are just the masks that I have to wear living as a member of the society. For a long time, I couldn't answer questions like ‘who am I’ and ‘where is my own human dignity.’” Yet as a shoeshine man, he shows some temperaments8 which distinguish him from other shoeshine men. He enjoyed polishing shoes because it puts him in a mindset without any desires. “If you have desires, you will never be happy,” he said. Because of this very reason, he began to love his new job day by day. In 2002, on the eve of the Spring Festival, Chang spent 100 yuan renting a trishaw to work as a rickshaw puller for one day, hoping that he could find “the truth” and “his dignity” in this way. When he rode his trishaw at Ganquan Road, one of his students rode a bike past him. The student returned and stared at him: “Are you Teacher Chang?”, the student asked with an unbelievable tone. By three o'clock, Chang had already earned 70 yuan. In order to award himself, Chang ordered for a bowl of beef noodles at a roadside restaurant. The noodles were so delicious! At that time, he thought that he had found the true happiness in life! By living with dignity, one should abandon all his material desires and live devotedly9 and honestly, just like a shoeshine man, Chang said. The work had taught him that if one wanted to live with dignity, one should know that sometimes, ‘less is more’.
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