Ａ Ｔａｌｅｎｔｅｄ Ｗｏｍａｎ Ｓｃｈｏｌａｒ

By Tian Xiaofei is a genius. She published her first collection of poetry at 10， started her higher education at 14 in Peking University， became a Ph.D. at 26 from Harvard University and became a tenured Harvard professor at 35. She has thousands of friends all over the world， including such celebrities as Hillary Clinton， Steven Spielberg and Condoleezza Rice.

Born in October， 1971 in Ha'erbin， a city of ice and snow in northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province， Tian Xiaofei grew up in an academically biased home. She wrote her first poem at five， starting a family tradition of weekend poetry competition for years. At 7， the little girl first learned about the existence of Peking University through a yellowed photograph she spotted in a desk drawer at home. Even today she still remembers the excitement caused by the postcard coursing through her body. As a child， she came to Beijing for the publishing of her first poetry collection. Taking a bus ride one day， she was told that they were passing by Peking University. She refused to take a look at her dream university， explaining that she would keep a sense of curiosity till the day she would come to study at the university. Her determination and confidence amazed the crowd on the bus.

After joint interviews by teachers from the departments of English， psychology and Chinese， Tian Xiaofei at 14 was enrolled as a special student into the Department of English， Peking University. The university，famed metaphorically for crouching tigers and hidden dragons， never hesitates to enroll talented boys and girls as special students. Tian soon learned that another genius Zha Haisheng (alias Haizi as a poet) came to the university at the age of 15 and was working a teacher of philosophy at Renmin University after his graduation. Tian paid her homage to the poet by visiting her predecessor and presented him with her own poems. Zha commented， \"Hang in there and you will be a great poet one day.\" Years later Zha killed himself on a railway and his suicide note said his death had nothing to do with anybody. Learning the death of the poet， Tian burned two copies of her own poetry in memory of Haizi. Two years after the death of the poet， Tian arrived in America. After attaining her master degree at 20， she became the youngest doctorate student in Harvard.

It was in Harvard that Tian met with Stephen Owen， a famed American professor of Chinese classic learning. Their dramatic encounter was at a literary event. Tian copied in calligraphy two well-known lines of a poem by Du Fu， a great poet of the Tang Dynasty. Her brush-pen handwriting was warmly applauded. Stephen Owen stepped forward， picked up the brush， and changed one word in the inscription， saying that the poet was imperfect in picking his words in writing this poem. Tian then explained a typical anecdote about how a Tang poet lost himself wandering about in a trance and trying to choose an accurate verb for a description of a monk entering a courtyard at midnight until he ran into a fellow poet.

This is how Owen met Tian and took a liking to the girl from China with a profound knowledge of ancient Chinese poetry. They had a lot to talk about. As Tian's graduation day approached， Stephen Owen became restless for the fear that Tian might go to another city to work and he would lose her forever. He proposed to Tian and Tian accepted. On the New Year's Day of 1999， they married in New York.

From 1998 to 1999， Tian first worked as a visiting assistant professor of Chinese literature at Colgate University. In 1999， she came to work for Cornell University as an assistant professor of Classical Chinese literature and in 2000 she came to Harvard University and worked as a preceptor of Chinese and in the summer of 2005， she became an associate professor of Chinese literature at the Department of East Asian Literatures and Civilizations at Harvard University. In September 2006， Harvard made a precedent in promoting Tian Xiaofei to the professorship and the 35-year-old became the youngest tenured professor at Harvard. The promotion caused a sensation in the media and among the academia.

Asked if she would enter politics in the future， Tian answered that she would devote herself to academics. The beginning of 2008 has seen her receive various invitations to give lectures in UK， Japan and Canada.