After serving as a backup crew member for 24 years, Chinese taikonaut Deng Qingming’s dream finally came true—he performed his first space mission onboard the Shenzhou XV spaceship along with two other astronauts on Nov. 29.

Deng is the last one of the country’s first group of 14 astronauts to be sent into space. The name of Deng, 56 years old, was not known by many people until China launched the Shenzhou XIII spaceship in October last year. The story of the veteran (老战士) who relentlessly pursued his space dream despite serving as a backup for years moved many, and for which he was praised as a “hidden hero”.

In 1996, Deng began to take part in the PLA Air Force’s selection of astronaut candidates and was finally selected with another 13 aviators. In the following years, Deng dedicated almost all of his time to training and has spared no efforts to strive for an opportunity to fly into space. He was a backup crew member for the Shenzhou IX, X and XI, XII missions.

“Being a backup doesn’t mean you don’t need to work. I must watch closely in the control center and offer all I know about the mission and the spacecraft in case of emergency,” Deng said during a previous interview. “Only when the crew returns to Earth will my mission be complete”.

When training for Shenzhou XI mission carried out in 2016, Deng was confined in a spacecraft simulator no bigger than 10 square meters for 33days. They had no showers and endured loud noise and piercing light as they tried to sleep.

No matter how difficult the road to space flight is, Deng never once thought of giving up. He was awarded the title “Role Model of the Times” by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee in 2018.

“Be it a crew or a backup, it is the job. And the success of the mission comes before my personal wishes,” Deng once said.

Every year on 2 February, Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog (土拨鼠), comes out of his hole in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. If the sun is shining and he sees his shadow before going back into his hole, it means winter will last six more weeks. But if the day is cloudy, spring will come early. Curiously, Phil is not alone. In the region around Milan, tradition has it that if the bear comes out of his hole on a sunny day, he will be able to make himself a nice dry bed and then he’ll want to keep on sleeping. This will show that the winter will continue. But if it’s a rainy day, the bear will have to stay out—and spring will come soon.

“These traditions can be traced back to Indo-European civilisations 3,000-5,000 years ago,” says Venetian historian Elena Righetto. “That’s why they are spread all over Europe,” she explains. The deepest meaning of the tradition, according to Righetto, is in its seemingly contradictory (矛盾的) nature. It might seem illogical (不合逻辑的) that cold days indicate the coming of spring, or that groundhogs and bears would decide to stay out just when the weather is bad.

“The idea is that the darkest moment, when everything seems to go wrong, is when we experience a rebirth, a new life,” explains Righetto. There is a thought that life comes from darkness, just as plants start to grow from the seeds left underground during winter. This thought is so powerful that it crossed countries and survived centuries.

Traditions don’t protect people from bad weather, death, or illness, but they protect them emotionally from some of the anxiety related to those coming realities. They don’t solve the real problem, but they solve the mental problem—they help you live through the hard times of life. In a way, if we can believe in the magical powers of groundhogs and bears, we might find even an extended (延长的) winter a bit warmer and friendlier.