That is how Mo Yan described Jia， a close friend， the winner of the People's Literature Prize for Short Story 2013. Like Mo Yan， Jia's numerous works were originated in his awareness of the peasant issue， for which he was hailed as "a writer down to the earth".
　　“Mr. Jia Pingwa and I are the same age. We have similar backgrounds. We lived in the countryside while we were young， we both went through the social turbulences during later 1950s to 1960s and 1970s to the reform and opening up. It was a time when the moral values were twisted， people suspected and fought against each other. The works of our generation are just born with that era.”.
　　“Although we share much in common， yet still have different characteristics. Jia’s hometown is at the intersection between the south and north， he grew up listening to the Shaanxi Opera， eating rice and drinking the water from Qinling Mountains； while I grew up listening to Maoqiang Opera， eating sweet potatoes and drinking water from Jiao River. Jia had already gained much reputation in the 1980s as one of the pioneer writers after the reform and opening up. Many writers who started their career at the same time with Jia have given up writing or written few now， but Jia has stick to it.”
　　“It is widely praised that Jia is modest and always keeps a low profile. Few years ago， I read one of his essays about names when I was in Japan， the essay was included in the Chinese textbook of Japanese students. It tells a story happening in the summer of 1986： Jia received a telegraph sent me from Xinjiang that asked Jia to pick me up in the railway station. It’s a real story. I once sent a telegraph to Jia as a fellow traveler and I wanted to go to Xi’an at that time but having no friends there. Then I suggest reaching to Jia （Jia had been a member of Shaanxi Writers’ Association by that time， so Mo knew his name） ， who didn’t know me before and asked Jia to pick us up at the railway station in the telegraph. However， we were 4 hours late， and found no one was waiting for us as we arrived. My fellow travelers told me it’s nothing distressing as we didn’t know each other. But years later when I read this essay， I finally knew that Jia really went to the railway station， he even held a leather bag which wrote my name ‘Mo Yang’. No one answered him， and it’s even interesting that when people saw the characters “Mo Yan”， they thought he wanted them to keep quiet. I just think， if it happened to me， I might not have done as much as Mr. Jia.” 　　“Jia may be the one who goes abroad least among the Shaanxi writers of his generation. I would go abroad 5 or 6 times a year and sometimes even as frequent as 8 or 9 times. He even rarely goes out of Shaanxi province and keeps little social engagement. He is always immersing himself in writing. From late 1970s to now， he has made many contributions to various literary genres， ranging from short stories， novellas， novels to nonfiction. He is an important writer to contemporary Chinese literature”.
　　“I started my career several years later than Jia. I’ve benefited a lot from reading his The Full Moon （《满月儿》）， Shangzhou series （“商州系列”） and essays. My name is Mo Yan （meaning ‘don’t speak’）， but I really talked a lot. On the contrary， Mr. Jia Pingwa rarely talks but he has lots of wisdom in the words he wrote. I remember two of them. One is about the men’s dressing. He said， ‘A man would not necessarily wear new clothes. There are two parts on a man’s body that do matter： one is his feet and the other is his head. As long as a man polishes his leather shoes and combs well his hair， he can go out’. His words really greatly benefited people like me who could not afford new clothes. The other is about mandarin. He said， ‘Only ordinary people speak mandarin. Did Mao Zedong speak mandarin？ Did Zhou Enlai speak mandarin？ Did Lin Biao speak mandarin？ None of them spoke mandarin’. That’s why I say he doesn’t speak mandarin either.