Poetry in flight

"I enjoyed watching my father do these things and listening to him recite poems. It planted the seed of loving ancient poetry in my heart. The poems also inspired me to chase the dream of 'reading ten thousand books and traveling ten thousand miles'," Ma recalls.

When he was a senior middle school student, Ma happened to watch a TV play about airlines and pilots, which piqued his interest in flying.

"I made up my mind to be a pilot. It could give me the chance to 'travel ten thousand miles'. 'Reading ten thousand books' would allow my soul to match the speed and altitude of flight," says Ma.

In 2007, he was admitted to the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, in the provincial capital of Jiangsu. After graduation, he joined the Dalian branch of China Southern Airlines. He was promoted to captain in 2016 and became a flight instructor in 2020.

He has integrated his passion for poetry into his daily work.

While instructing pilots about flight safety, he developed a series of lessons called "poetry on safety", delivering the knowledge in poetic form to make them unforgettable.

While traveling through the sky, he occasionally recites poems to passengers about the places they are flying over after broadcasting basic flight information.