Letter to Luo Yuanzhen [I]
(January 9, 1952)

Mr. Yuanzhen:
Your letter of January 1 has been received. Thank you for your kind intentions. This is my reply. With best regards for your teaching work!

Mao Zedong
January 9, 1952

[I]
Luo Yuanzhen (1906–1993), a native of Xingning, Guangdong. In his early years, he graduated from the School of Literature at Waseda University in Japan. He was accomplished in classical poetry and skilled in couplet composition. In the early years after the founding of New China, he taught at Northeast Normal University. In 1951, he decided to take up a teaching post at Shanxi University. However, by New Year’s Day of 1952, he had still not set out on his journey. At that time, after reading a circulating version of Mao Zedong’s poem “The Long March” (a seven-character regulated verse), he wrote to Mao on New Year’s Day of that year, suggesting that the phrase “waves lap” in the line “The Jinsha River’s waves lap against the warm cliffs” be changed to “waters lap.” This is Mao’s reply of January 9.