Up to 88.5 percent of the 1,015 people who responded to a survey by the social research center of China Youth Daily have said that the government should promote a "Yuan Longping-type lifestyle" among people, says an article in Xinhua Daily Telegraph. Excerpts:

Making a "fortune" Yuan Longping-style means not only earning money, but also donating to charity and contributing to the betterment of humankind. Yuan has helped people across the world by creating a higher yield of rice through hybridization, which he considers his biggest asset.

But in today's society, many young people tend to calculate everything, even friendship, love and kinship, in terms of money.

More than 93 percent of the respondents to the survey felt many youths held a twisted view of wealth, which glorifies individual success only in stark contrast to what Yuan believes in and practices.

Responding to a remark that he was "worth 100 billion yuan", Yuan said it is too vulgar to measure science in terms of money.

A person's cognition of wealth depends on whether or not he/she considers Yuan's lifestyle to be right. Sociologist Max Weber said there are three aspects of values that determine people's judgment on wealth: cognition of wealth's source, means to obtain wealth, and the use of wealth. Perhaps these ideas seem strange to many today, but they are indispensable if we want to promote a Yuan-type lifestyle in society.

Many people today have become slaves to money. To some extent, whether a Yuan-type lifestyle can be promoted depends on whether or not we can eradicate conflicts between the rich and the poor as well as create conditions to eliminate social differences.

(China Daily 09/30/2011 page9)