In the 1980s, Qian Xuesen reached seventy and officially retired from the front line. From then on, he began to use his unique way to carry out academic discussion and spiritual exchanges with workers from all walks of life. His unique way was writing letter!

From his retirement to November 2000, Qian Xuesen wrote more than 6000 letters. They were all his personal efforts, and none of them came from his secretary’s hands. His handwriting was vigorous and forcible, with each stroke neat and orderly. In his later years, his hands began to shake and his handwriting was slanting to some degree. From November 2000 on, due to his hands shaking heavily, the secretary of Qian Xuesen began to listen to his dictation and then write letters on his behalf. 

In May 2007, the “Letters of Qian Xuesen” (ten volumes) were published by the National Defence Industry Press. This book was compiled mainly through photocopying. It collects 3331 letters that Qian Xuesen sent for more than one thousand persons from 1955 to 2000. On the opposite of the “book sea” display section, ten volumes of “Letters of Qian Xuesen” are put in the third row from bottom to top in the far right.

Ten volumes in sextodecimo totally weigh 35 kg. It is difficult for us to believe it is just a portion of the letters of Qian Xuesen. One cannot refrain from asking, “How does one collect the original manuscripts of so many letters?”

Tu Yuanji, secretary of Qian Xuesen, made great contributions to this book. Starting from when he assumed the position as secretary of Qian Xuesen in 1983, he copied all the letters that Qian Xuesen was to send or reply to, reserved the copies well, and then sent the original letters to the recipients. Dozens of years later, a big safe box was filled with the letter manuscripts of Qian Xuesen. The ten volumes were published after his careful arrangement and sorting.

The recipients of Qian Xuesen’ letters were not limited to state leaders at the time. They also included middle-aged scientific and technical personnel, young scholars, common workers and peasants. Once, an 18-year-old high school student wrote a letter to Qian Xuesen, telling him his personal ideas about physics. After reading the letter, Qian Xuesen thought the student’s ideas were very creative, and replied him promptly.

Qian Xuesen would read letters and reply every day. There was no exception for holidays, even the spring festival holiday. For example, January 27 of 1990 was quietly the first day of the lunar year and Qian Xuesen still spared time to write a letter to Li Tieying, former director of the State Education Commission, and discussed the educational issues of China. On the same day, he also wrote a letter to Li Yutang of the Ministry of Agriculture and discussed agriculture and the grass industry of the prairie with him. The letter consisted of five full pages with 1200 words or so.

According to statistics, Qian Xuesen wrote 72 letters in total from 1984 to the spring festival of 1999. One year ended in the noises of firecrackers, and the festival atmosphere thickened with the companionship of letters. Qian Xuesen celebrated 16 spring festivals though this unique way-“writing letters”. His focus on academics and dedication to science had achieved a kind of selflessness. These 72 letters cover a whole piece of glass wall from ground to roof of No.4 Exhibition Hall.

Bao Shihang, leading expert of China Society for Urban Studies, stated that Qian’s letters had their own features, almost covered all the disciplines, and were professional academics, all in handwriting form. He sighed with emotions and said, “With the telephone being popular and computer having entered thousands of households nowadays, how many people would have the patience to write a letter to express their true feelings and communicate information?”

In the noisy, earthly world, Qian Xuesen was a man of “metasynthetic wisdom” who used a pen to quietly leave us a huge sum of spiritual wealth in his letters. Please go to the outside of glass wall in the No.4 Exhibition Hall and enjoy so much wealth that Qian Xuesen has left.