A profile of the hero: Dong Zelin, a Lao translator and instructor at the Nanjing Army Command College. He has written "Lao and Chinese Advanced Dialogue" and other books. He has won a third class merit, and a "Friendship Medal of the Lao People's Army".

　　Dong speaks pure Lao language. Even in his army uniform, he is mistaken for Lao sometimes. Once, Dong flew from Kunming to Beijing with a Lao delegation. The newly appointed Lao ambassador, who was meeting the delegation at the capital airport, asked Dong after talking with him for some time, "Why do you wear the PLA uniform ?" Dong answered, "Because I am a PLA servicemen!" The ambassador was very surprised. "You speak Lao so well that I take you for Lao."

　　Dong is a Lao language interpreter of the Nanjing Army Command College. Dong said that you couldn't be a good military course interpreter without having military knowledge. Since he became the course interpreter for foreign students, Dong studied military knowledge even harder than before. He made a point of reading a dozen of military theory books and various kinds of military books each semester. Before tactics course, Dong would study teaching plan on tactics instruction with tactics instructor. Before defense course, he would write defense-teaching sheets together with defense instructor. For all teaching courses in Lao languages, Dong would make preparations together with the instructor. For all lessons that the foreign students would learn, he would prepare lessons in both Chinese and Lao several times before each course.

　　Having engaged in teaching and interpretation for 22 years, Dong has written many books based on his practical experiences, such as "Lao Phonetics Teaching Material", "Comparison of Proverbs and Idioms in Lao and Chinese" and "On Etiquettes of an Interpreter". So far he has trained over 200 Lao and Chinese interpreters for both China and Laos. Due to his outstanding contributions, he has won the title of "outstanding instructor" and "excellent Party member", and was awarded "Friendship Medal of the Lao People's Army" by the Ministry of National Defense of Laos.

　　By Ren Jun, Xu Qian and Xu Jichang

　　(September 15, PLA Daily)