One day I stumbled upon an article “The Mystery of Wang Guozhen in the 1990s: Behind the Disillusionment is Inspiration”, which made me feel very shocked. The author Shan Tang is the director of the Beijing Morning Post Supplement. The article is very simple and it records the history of a college student in the 1990s, which is very representative. In 2015, Wang Guozhen's death led a group of middle-aged people to recall and reminisce their youthful years, and put that period of time into a brand of naivete. Wang Guozhen was hot in the 1990s. Tang believed that “Instead of saying that the youth of that era are more innocence, I rather say that they have no qualification from non-innocence. The generation cannot be self- disciplined to know themselves and must wear a disguise of love.”

We now need to analyze why people in the 1990s have to hide behind love to recognize themselves, because the 1990s was an era when social values broke. Young people did not have faith. Without world outlook and values, people became extremely empty. At this time, the works of Wang Guozhen, Xi Murong, Gu Long, Jin Yong and others became the spiritual food for the blank. Popular poems, like popular songs, express people's thoughts and feelings and represent social ideological trends of an era.

Art is easy to be attracted and can give a lot of inspiration. But art cannot replace philosophy. People need a lot of things, art can give too little. Philosophy must provide people with worldviews and values. But in the era when social values broke, people were poor enough to have nothing except poems and songs. Tang said: “Dignity, personality, freedom, love, and the like are not inherent but need to learn, but our generation can only grope in secret, and can only learn without teacher.” 

It is certainly good to study without teacher, but many people do not have enough wisdom and go astray. This not only led to money worship, but also corrupted party, officials, made unfair competition, and deteriorated public security. When China entered the 21st century the situation of anti-corruption is severe, just because of the legacy of the 1990s.

Faith is the spiritual pillar of a man. Tang said: “When I was in school, I was never told by anyone that we should fight for ourselves. Suddenly one day we found that we were not the pillars of our country and nation. It was the most important thing to support ourselves. At that time, we really felt that the entire world had collapsed. We felt infinitely desolate.” In fact, everyone needs to feed themselves. People in the 1930s and 1940s lived harder and needed more sweat to feed themselves. But at that time, many people still believed that they were the pillars of the nation because they have a firm faith. Faith can become a powerful motive that can make people work miracles. Not everyone can become great, but when people have firm beliefs, they will feel full of strength. When one can integrate into a flood of people