change the world? change ourselves
good evening, honorable judges, ladies and gentlemen.
it’s my great pleasure to stand here to present my speech—change the world, change ourselves.
it’s noticable that western holidays are becoming increasingly popular day by day, while chinese traditional festivals are being somewhat neglected. not long before about 10 doctors in beijing university and qinghua unversity announced that we should reject the invasion of western holidays ,because they regard western holidays as an challenge against our traditional festivals and culture.
frankly speaking, i don’t quite agree with them.indeed, we should never neglect or even discard our traditional festivals as china boasts a brilliant history and splendid traditions. (examples).but why can’t we absorb the meaningful western holidays and culture.
there are obvious reasons why some western holidays are so popular in china. on the one hand, some of the western holidays which we Chinese don’t have are reasonable and meaningful, such as father’s day and April fool’s day etc. on the other hand,the prevalence of globalization enables western culture to prevail in china. overwhelmed by such a trend,Chinese unconsiciously get involved in western holidays and culture.
with the further development of the whole world, the cultural communication between
different countries and nations becomes faster and more and more important. we are indeed from different nations, but we are the citizens of the same world, so the outstanding culture of different nations is the common wealth of everyone on the earth.the only way for us to protect our
traditional culture is to reject the foreign culture? the answer is definitely no. what we ought to do is to spare no effort to educate Chinese to get to know and treasure our splendid traditions instead of rejecting foreign culture. only by educating can we set our confidence and belief towards our culture. only by educating can we preserve and promote the wealth that our ancesters left for us.
at last i’d like to share a famous saying with all of you ,that is:if you want to change the world, then you must change yourself first.”
Change
Leo Tolstoy once said, everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
He is right. We always have great plans and dreams in our minds? too ready to achieve something grand that changes the world or benefits all of mankind .For example; we hate pollution and have made up our minds to find new energy sources that keep the environment clean. Yet we still litter on the ground. We complain about traffic jams, so we plan to build more highways to solve the problem, but it never occurs to us that our failure to follow traffic regulations is the leading cause of this situation. We are so concerned that the violence in the media has a bad impact on our children, we urge the government to set laws to protect them. But, do we, as adults, set a good example for our kids? We use nasty words and even spit on the ground in front of them, I dare to say, we harm more!
In my opinion, before we decide to change the world, we had better change ourselves first. As ordinary individuals, we do not have the power to change the world. But we can change our habit of littering, spitting, cussing, we can respect the environment around us, we must act as good models for our kids.
If each of us does all of these little things, all of us, millions and millions of individuals together, together we will be strong ?strong enough to change our world!
So please, the next time you do something, think how your actions influence not only you, but those around you too, especially our children ?and perhaps more importantly?our planet!
Never Give Up
“If I could reach higher, just for one moment to touch the sky?”---this is from my favorite song Reach.
When we are appreciating the passionate melody of Gloria Estefan, we could hardly imagine that she could return to the stage after her paralysis. In the year 1990, this Cuban singer was knocked down in a traffic accident, and the doctor declared that she might never walk again. But Gloria did not give up and kept up constant exercising. Just one year after the disaster, she stood up again and
presented this encouraging song at the Atlanta Olympics.
Whenever I think of Gloria, I can’t help recalling my memory seven years ago, when I first entered university. Naturally shy, ordinary looking, average scores in study, just like an ugly duckling, I seemed to be the least outstanding one in my class. And the successive failures in the beginning led me into despair. “Am I destined to take the back seat to others?” Unwilling to submit to the fate, I paid more efforts on my study as well as many other activities, film dubbing, recital, drama? cause I just want to catch every little opportunity to prove myself. Constant effort yields sure success. Thanks to the competition, I received some awards and most of all, I gained the courage and confidence to face any difficulties in my life journey.
Life is just like farming, and what you can reap depends a lot on your sowing and dedication. Once you have a dream, don’t be hesitant. Your next difficult step may be the one to the top. Keep going forward, even in the toughest time, and never give up.
Knowledge collaboration and all-round education
Ladies and gentlemen,
We engineering students take it for granted that technology is changing
incredibly fast. We are thinking nervously and seriously whether our colleges are failing to provide a foundation in the skills currently needed in industry. Take my major telecommunications for example. Scientists say that 21st century is a biomedical time, not an electrical time. But without the help of electronic data processing and transformation, biomedical technology alone cannot go too far. Funny enough, the word biomedical itself is just a combination of two disciplines. So the interdisciplinary exploitation serves as the critical part for our electric and electronics world as well as any other fields to find new way of being.
But the power of knowledge collaboration is certainly not restricted to science and engineering; it is in the full community of learning. Walking around campus
I absorbed a reality that there is a seamless web between students from different professional backgrounds. The engineering students are discussing animatedly in a philosophy lecture, speaking passionately in the public speaking club, and looking for sparkling ideas from learning history and arts. How wonderful that is! That, ladies and gentleman, is just a significant step forward to be well-rounded because once we jump out of the circle we can see the bigger picture.
My friends, I hope that you have already got what university is all about. Please let me end my speech with the Nobel Prize winner Li Zhengdao’s words: “The realization of the perfect combination of science and engineering, science and arts, technology and humanity， is the greatest symbol of a university’s success.” Thank you.
知识的融合和人才的全面发展
我们理工科的学生都知道科技在以一种难以置信的速度变化发展着。我们都在紧严肃地思考着是否我们的大学能够为我们提供一个适应当前工业需要的知识基础。以我的专业通信工程为例，科学家们说21世纪是生物医学的世纪，而不是电气电子的世纪。但是如果没有电子化的数据处理和转换，生物医学时代就不能发展。有趣的是：“生物医学”这个词本身就是两个学科的结合，所以跨学科的开发手段就成了电气电子领域以及其他任何领域寻找新出路的关键。
但是知识的结合不仅仅局限在科学和工程中，而是在任何的学习中。徜徉在校园里，我看到了这样一个事实：理工科学生们在哲学讲座上讨论得热火朝天，在演讲俱乐部里激情地演说，在历史和艺术里寻找着闪光的思想。太棒了！朋友们，这就是我们能够全面发展的重要一步，因为当我们跳出自己的圈子时，我们能看到更大的图画。
朋友们，我希望你们已经意识到了大学教育究竟意味着什么。让我以诺贝尔奖获得者李政道先生的话结束我的演讲：“科学与工程，科学与艺术，科技与人道的完美结合，乃是大学教育的最大成功。”
谢谢。
LIFE IS A CHOICE
In our daily lives, we have many choices to make, such as what to eat for
supper,what clothes to wear, or what to do on weekends. At certain times in our lives, we need to make even more critical choices, such as which school to attend, what job to take or who to choose as husband or wife. Yes, life is a matter of choice. Seemimgly, it means a choice of tangible things. But in essence, it means choosing a way of life. Life is to be lived, savored, and enjoyed, not to be wasted or complained about.
Hardly can we forget the time when our society faced the grave threat from the life-and-death disease--SARS. Yet, even during those dreadful times, some afflicted people remained optimistic. Instead of wearing neutral white masks, some people turned to colouful ones, and thus display a happy mood. And some creative people dubbed SARS to mean "SMILE AND REMAIN SMILING." I was deeply touched by their optimisim, nearly forgetting that we're still in a battle. people who survive these kinds of circumstances, (at some point)decide in their minds to carry on in spite of the overwhelming odds.
laid-off workers, typically regarded as the victims of economic advancement, are subject to desperation that being unmeployed has brought on them. But,
encouragingly, we have witnessed some of them striving hard to rebuild confidence toward life and discover new opportunities for demonstrating their values.
Although we cannot choose our appearance, inborn gifts and even avoid unexpected disasters and adversities, we do have the privilege to choose to live
optimistcally,to love our lives, to have dreams, and to cherish hopes.
Every morning when we get up, we have a choice of how we want to approach life that day. As for me, I choose to be cheerful.