“Being a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) requires the improvement of my capability of participating in and deliberation of state affairs. This is another high mountain I'm climbing.” NPC deputy Zhaxi Duji, a company commander of a unit of the Jinan Military Area Command, said that life was like climbing one mountain after another and the feeling of seeing small mountains below his feet was intoxicating.

　　The first mountain he climbed was to learn mandarin Chinese. In 1996 when he joined the army from Tibet, he could neither speak nor understand mandarin Chinese and found himself to be a “deaf-mute”. He participated in the language courses given by his regiment to Tibetan recruits. His teacher, a kindergarten teacher, taught him mandarin from the Chinese alphabet. He learned ten Chinese characters a day and gradually his Chinese language improved to the same level as a junior high school graduate.

　　Perfect military quality is demanded in becoming a qualified soldier of missile force. In order to understand the principles of missile launching, Zhaxi Duji learnt all the contents of a missile launch textbook by heart.

　　In his eyes, mountain peaks on the long way of life are like the meandering snow mountains of the vast Tibet plateau, his hometown. After being promoted to be an officer, while learning by himself the knowledge of infantry command specialty and computer, Zhaxi Duji reformed the traditional teaching and group training methods and developed his own training simulators, which helped shorten the training period of a new shooter. Several months ago, he went to the PLA Xi'an Institute of Politics to pursue a four-year college program. The reporter noticed that on his bed there were some English language tapes. Zhaxi Duji explained that English was the most difficult subject to him and he had never learnt English before. He now is attending a New Concept English course and has learnt more than 2 000 English words.

　　By Tan Jie

　　(Mar. 7, PLA Daily)