On May 13, 2021, 9th-grade students had their academy class in the Zhentao Lecture Hall, where they had received a lecture about life matters - what heroism is.

The lecturer, Fan Shiguang, is the director of the 2020 documentary Life Matters, which recorded the daily life of Shanghai medical workers aiding Wuhan at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in the city. He shared his experiences there with the students.

As Fan Shiguang said, getting to Wuhan and filming the documentary was not easy. He and his three colleagues had to go through rigorous negotiations to be permitted to leave Shanghai and go to Wuhan. Even as they had reached the hospitals there, they were banned from using professional filming devices in fear of being contaminated with the coronavirus. Because of this, they had to film using iPhones—these videos ended up composing 70% of the final product. All these hardships, however, could not compare to the experiences of the medical workers. Many of them had to overcome physical and psychological stress while working continuously for hours. For those having witnessed death, such instances may well have been traumatizing.

But even in the darkest of times, there exists hope and strength. “I will never forget,” Fan Shiguang said, “the moment when people across the city shouted in unity, ‘Jiayou, Wuhan! Jiayou, China!’” These slogans, which we might find silly today, contain great power and the blessings of millions of people. This is how 2020 passed in China: it was chaotic, it was depressing, but there were seeds of rebirth, and, ultimately, hope.

Fan Shiguang’s touching speech certainly provided an inspiring message for 9th graders. Just as the name of his documentary implies, life matters. No matter what difficulties a person needs to go through, they should always put “living” as their number-one priority. In the meantime, while one gets shocked by the darkness of the world, one should also remember that there will always be light.

(Written by Ryogo Yamamoto Pictures by Haige Zhang, lecture PPT Supervised by Hazel Gu, Menglei Wang)