Living Museum of Learning
The Curator Came Back to the Court
About six weeks before this year's university badminton tournament, Jerry asked:
“Donald, 好久不见，今年高校杯羽毛球赛你可以参加吗？”
My answer was straightforward.
“今年我就不参加了，年纪大了，也很久没怎么打球了。”
I really meant it.
Last year's tournament was still vivid in my memory. I remembered Jerry and Jack playing an especially intense men's doubles match against Vision. This year, I was planning to stay on the sidelines, cheer for the Tsinghua team, and enjoy seeing everyone again.
After all, I was 60 now.
Then Jerry came back.
The team was short of male players. Hongbo and Dujun couldn't participate, and Jack's availability was uncertain. Registration was closing soon.
“可不可以我先把你名字也加上？”
I laughed.
“哈哈，可以，先把我名字加上吧！需要我就上。”
That was how my retirement quietly became a conditional retirement.
The reason Jerry asked me was not simply that the team needed another body.
Last year, I had been one of the stronger players on the team, winning 2.5 matches across mixed doubles and men's doubles—the most wins among our players.
Jerry remembered.
I had almost forgotten what that meant.
A year without seeing the team. A year without much badminton. Sixty years old.
But apparently, none of those facts erased the memory of being able to compete.
So yesterday, when the team needed me, I stepped onto the court.
First: mixed doubles.
Win.
Then: men's doubles.
Win.
Two matches.
Two victories.
I had originally planned not to play at all this year.
Oops. 😂
The funniest part may be what happened afterward.
The messages started arriving.
“恭喜啊，祝贺祝贺🥳🥳🥳”
“😁恭喜🎊🎉🎉🎊”
My brother simply sent:
“👍👍👍”
Ethan's family sent:
“宝刀未老” — the treasured blade has not grown old.
And a girl I hired 25 years ago, when I was running my startup in Shanghai, wrote:
“风华依旧” — still in your prime.
Then came a particularly satisfying two-word review from a badminton coach in my hometown of Lin'an, Zhejiang, who once played alongside the now-famous Chen Yufei:
“好厉害。”
👍👍
No elaborate analysis.
Just:
好厉害。
Perhaps the lesson is not that a 60-year-old can still win badminton matches.
That is the visible part.
The more interesting part is what happened before the matches.
I had already decided that I was finished.
Then someone I cared about said:
We need you.
And I answered:
需要我就上。
Sometimes we don't know whether a chapter of our life is really over until someone gives us a reason to reopen it.
Age changes the calculation.
It does not necessarily determine the answer.
And perhaps there is another lesson for the curator of a museum about learning:
The museum is full of stories about children discovering what they can do.
But the curator is still discovering things about himself, too.
Yesterday's discovery was unexpectedly simple:
Maybe I wasn't quite finished.