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The Master’s speech of 2016 invited Chair Professor Gao Xingjian to share with students his wisdom under the topic of “Being a Free Man”. His work, Soul Mountain, received the honorable Nobel Prize in Literature 2000, making Gao the first Chinese author that won the title of a Nobel laureate. The speech covers literature, history, social movement. Nearly 300 people show up and filled up the hall.

According to Prof. Gao, his family education, what he reads and his principal for creation is what he cares and cherishes. “When human pursue a better world, there’s a price to pay.” This year happens to be the 500th anniversary of the classic Utopia. Utopia is used to describe the ideal or wonderful world. Prof. Gao said that the 20th century is flooded with ideology like communism, democracy, fascism, and any ideology can become doctrine.

Prof. Gao himself has experienced culture revolution and witnessed Collective Insanity. Nowadays, there’s something called Collective submissive physiologically. In other word, fear. Then, how could we get rid of the true world? Prof. Gao said that one has to think independently, know yourself and you won’t be affected by others.

Dean Den Wu Chen from the College of Liberal Arts is one of the speakers. Dean Chen studies history. He said that the pursuit of authentic history will face hindrance from the authority. That’s why history is full of lies. Fictional Literature, on the other side, is free from the boundary of history and is actually closer to truth. Literature can bring us to the most realistic situation. 

Students from the science class of The Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University were invited to the talk. It’s hoped that the event can bring influence to younger teenagers. One of the students said that “you can barely learn how to appreciate literature works from current school education. Literature, arts are subjective whereas math and physics are objective. We should get to know about literature and to think about it.”