毕业感言

                -- Tan Xiao 谭晓

 

Dear Fellow HNCers, Students, Faculty, and Staff:

 

At the end of such a fruitful year, everyone has a feeling of loss. We fear that our departures will mean forgetting all we’ve shared, but believe me, this departure does not mean we will forget. Instead, let’s make it about remembering!

 

First, let’s start by remembering all those who have made our time here possible.  The coordinators, professors and staff at the Center, they have all devoted countless hours and and burned countless calories working to ensure our sound study environment, as well as the peaceful and comfortable conditions in which we are so fortunate to find ourselves.

 

As the pioneering effort of prestigious universities, both Chinese and one American, The Hopkins-Nanjing Center has educated generations of young people from around the world.  Over the course of time, it is bilateral relations inevitably experience ups and downs, warmth and coolness, but our Center has stood as a cornerstone of ever-improving relations between China and America. It is a monument to the great desire of two peoples for deeper understanding, as well as to the continued cooperation between the Chinese and US governments. We are lucky to become the 22nd class to graduate from the Center, and we are even luckier to have such an invauable opportunity spend this time with one another.

 

Thus, we should next remember that this time has proven to us just how fully east and west can meet. We attended classes taught by professors in target languages, becoming acquainted with foreign cultures. Extracurricular lectures broadened our understanding of various topics, helping us to learn more about the world at large. When we gathered in the lecture hall, we had the chance to hear voices from diverse perspectives, and these voices inspired us to think in so many new ways. It was not only the teachers and lecturers who helped us learn. 

 

Students frequently exchanged ideas, broadening one another’s perspectives, while at the same time becoming closer to one another.  No matter where we were, in our dorm rooms, in the lounge, the dining hall, or the library, we encountered the other culture.  Even in our diversions and attempts to escape homework and research, we found cross-cultural contact.  Who could forget our joyous Friday-night Happy Hours?  Chinese students had the opportunity to tastes so many different drinks made by our very own student bartenders.  International students learned to play Chinese games like Majiang. Perhaps from this learning experience, one day, Americans will prefer Majiang to poker!

 

Work and play have always promoted interesting cross-cultural exchanges.  Whenever I helped Elliott correct his papers, I found many interesting words and phrases, some of which were funny, and some of which even me to consider new usages of those Chinese words and phrases.  It made me realize how much beauty is hiding just beneath the surface of the language that I thought I knew so well. 

 

During the week of the Sichuan earthquake, I was quite worried about my family in Leshan city. One morning, my roommate Samantha told me that during the night, I had called out to her in my sleep.  ”Sam, Sam, I cherish you for digging the hole to save our lifes for both families!” I said.  Hearing this made me realize just how close we both had become to someone from another culture.  There are too many stories that we all can recall, and such a short speech cannot cover them all. But let’s remember them now, so that we may tell these stories to our parents, friends, and our own children in the years and decades to come.

 

Finally, we should remember how lucky we ourselves are to have taken part in this wonderful cross-cultural experiment, and think of all we can do to give back now that we’ve received so much.  Let’s use these deep friendships and profound new understandings to build cross-cultural understanding in the broader world.  No matter where we are in one month, one year, or one decade, we can draw on our experiences here to bring others closer together. With this in mind, I would like to leave you all with these last words: Today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope!

 

Thank you, and congratulations!