Research the Comprehensive History All by Himself——Professor Guo Daoyang, the “National Advanced Worker”

Good news came from the National Model Worker and Advanced Worker Awards Ceremony held in the Great Hall of the People on 28^th, April: Professor Guo Daoyang, the world famous accountant and the doctoral supervisor of the School of Accounting of our university was honored as “the National Advanced Worker” in 2015. However, it is just one of Guo’s honorable titles. Previously, Guo was honored as an expert, enjoying State Council special allowance, the National “May 1^st” Labor Medalist, Hubei Provincial Model Worker, the First Batch of “Jing-Chu Social Science Masters” and many other titles. It is said that Guo is a sagacious professor, a mogul in academic circle as well as a national treasures expert. However, when going into his life and knowing his daily happenings, we will find a totally different Guo—— a 75-year-old person dedicated to academic research and showed less interests in fame and wealth.

At 7am, when many people were still in their beds, Guo has awoken from his sleep because of the years of living clock. When washed and dressed, he had breakfast in the dining room, chatting with his family, and then watered the flowers and stretched his legs on the balcony on the second floor —— all ushered in a tranquil and well-lived day.

At 8am, Guo stepped from the balcony to the adjoining study. Turning on the table lamp and picking up the books and manuscripts, he devoted himself to the research on the “Comprehensive History of Chinese Accounting”. The “research on series of problems of the Comprehensive History of Chinese History” of Guo and his team, was not only a major project supported by National Social Science Fund since 2011, but also the first accounting project obtained national-level key project approval since the establishment of People’s Republic of China. At the age of 38, when people were questioning that “ accounting does have history”, Guo received a research assignment titled “ Chinese Accounting History”, and dedicated to it for over 30 years, making the less-favored accounting history promising. But in that morning, invited to write series of articles for the 30^th anniversary of the enactment of Accounting Law, Guo, who wrote the commemorative articles for its 10^th and 20^th anniversaries, had to put aside the research and ponder over the writing. Unknowingly, the whole morning passed away swiftly.

At 12 noon, at the nanny’s repeated urging, he lingeringly put down his books and manuscripts, and walked downstairs to have lunch. Before lunch, he took the insulin out from the refrigerator and had an injection (four times a day) to control the 20 years of diabetes. After the lunch, he still paced on the balcony as usual, and then took a short rest in the bedroom.

At 3pm, Guo went to his desk again and started to write according to his deep thoughts in the morning. After working on the computer for a long time, Guo’s eyes will shed tears. Hence, for his health, he always uses the traditional way of writing, combining the writing with the thoughts. So far, Guo has written over 2 million words, all word for word by his hand, for the manuscript of the Comprehensive History of Chinese Accounting”.

The 2 million-odd words cannot be finished without Guo’s hard work. He did work furiously. In 2012, although suffering left hand fracture in a fall, he insisted on writing by putting his left hand on the towel. Again in 2013, he fell over unluckily and suffered left foot fracture, even though, he still wrote on the wheelchair with his left foot in a plaster cast, never caring about the hydropic left foot and the numb right foot.

The research on the comprehensive history of almost all subjects are finished by a team of dozens of people, however, no one helps Guo with the research on the Comprehensive History of Chinese Accounting. Hence, the reason why Guo works like this is to race against time. The Comprehensive History of Chinese Accounting, whose contents starts from the primitive society to the year of 2009, is divided into three volumes. Up till now, Guo has finished the parts before the Opium War in Qing dynasty in 1840, and has rewritten the research achievements before the Spring and Autumn period for three times.