Zheng Jianyang and his classmates. (Cyol.com/Du Youjun)

Zheng Jianyang during his master's degree thesis defense. (Cyol.com/Du Youjun)

Zheng Jianyang during his master's degree thesis defense. (Cyol.com/Du Youjun)

Zheng Jianyang is a student in the communications major at Shanghai University. He is 81 years old. On June 19, he wore a formal suit for his master's degree thesis defense; the topic is regarding the freedom of speech in Malaysia.

“For each question, Zheng took more than 10 minutes to answer with examples in detail,” said one of the professors during the defense.

Since the thesis proposal in 2009, Zheng went through a stroke and the decease of his mother intensified the situation, as a result, he had to postpone his paper finalization again and again. For the delay, Zheng apologized during his defense with tears in his eyes.

Because Zheng cannot type, he hand wrote all of his 160,000-word-thesis. As the last student of the defense, his earnest won him several rounds of applause. Zheng eventually got his master's degree with a very satisfactory score.

Zheng was originally from east China's Fujian province. He graduated from Taiwan University with a degree in law. Though he spent most of his time living in Malaysia, he always says his heart is still in China. Because his father was from Fujian, he especially hoped to have a graduate degree from the mainland.

For Zheng Jianyang, learning is an important part of his lifestyle; it gives him spiritual inspiration and encourages him to face up to the difficulties of life. After the defense, all the young students wanted to take photos together with Zheng; they all admire his lifelong learning attitude very much.