大学英语精读第一册李一诺：我为什么用英文在清华做毕业演讲？
编者按
excitedly上周五（7月1日），清华大学生命科学学院举行了2016年毕业典礼。作为清华生命学院1996级校友，李一诺和颜宁一并受生命科学院院长王宏伟（同时也是李一诺和颜宁班级本科在校期间辅导员）的邀请，作为校友代表发言。
虚拟语气专项练习
一诺说，这个时代充满了困惑，沟通是找到问题解决方案的最佳途径。她向毕业生们分享了自己在面对困惑、寻求答案过程中的三点心得。以下为演讲视频及文字实录，想看中文稿的小伙伴请直接滑页到文章中后部。
Good morning, faculty, students and parents.
It really is a great honor and privilege to be standing here to deliver this speech. You may wonder why I do this in English. This is a conscious decision for a few reasons:
Firstly, unlike Hongwei or Yan Ning, who teach and talk here all the time publicly, I have ver
y little chance to speak publicly at Tsinghua, so I want to make sure I maximize the airtime I get.
Secondly, this is a challenge to people, like Mark Zuckerberg, who show off their Chine all the time. I can show off a foreign language as well, and at the same time it can actually be understood. And also I want to make a testimony to the education of Tsinghua that I can actually deliver a speech in English and be understood by most students. That would challenge any university in the US for somebody to deliver a speech in Chine and be understood. So I think this is demonstrating that the quality of education of Tsinghua is ready to groom you all to be the leaders in the years to come.
▲ 盖茨基金会北京代表处首席代表李一诺：（用英语演讲）这也算是我对那些经常炫耀中文的老外发起的一个挑战
Thirdly, I wanted this speech to be heard by the world.
异族通婚
The world we live in today is more connected than at any other time in human history. An
d yet, with the massive transformations ongoing both in China and across the globe, it also has never been as confusing. There are profound social issues in China, worrying frictions around the world and massive misunderstanding, especially on China related issues.
In a time of confusion, the best solution, or at least the best path to a solution, is to communicate.
So let’s start with confusion. generalledger
混血儿英语Graduation is a time of joy and celebration for enjoying a much-needed do of freedom after all the stress of the past months and years. But it’s also a time of confusion. It certainly was for me, when I graduated 16 years ago. “Future” is a big and daunting word; it brings excitement and hope, but also uncertainty and anxiety. You are entering an unknown period of your life. Unknown not only academically or professionally, but also personally – you are not “college students” anymore, you are young adults, taking charge of your own lives. How to live a meaningful and fulfilling life, is the answer we are all ultim
ableately eking.
amigo
You might think that, by now, after 16 years, I must have figured it all out. I’m sorry to tell you, I haven’t. But I have made some progress at least: I’ve learnt to be more at peace with my confusion. 气门结构
So let me share with you a few lessons I’ve learned on this not so glorious journey of living at peace with confusion.
▲ 一诺在清华大学生命科学学院2016年毕业典礼上演讲
Lesson One: Take a Historical Perspective
If being Chine gives us any advantage, it’s that we have a longer history, and we have more opportunities to learn from it. But this is not only about learning, it’s also about putting things in perspective.
Let’s take healthcare as an example. This is an area where the world has made huge stri
des, and China, has made arguably the biggest contribution to the improvement of basic human conditions. In the 1970s when I was born, China had 27 million cas of malaria each year. In 2014, there were 57 cas of local transmission. In 1990, China’s maternal mortality rate was 97 in every 100,000 lives births. By 2013, it was lower than that of the United States. TV dramas t in a glamorized historical China are often big hits, but it’s worth noting in the times (at the end of the Qing dynasty for example) the reality was that millions of children didn’t live beyond their 5-year birthday and 80% of people were illiterate. People fantasize about going back in time, but looking at this data there’s no way I would want to go. Chances are that I would have been an illiterate women who died giving birth to a child.
Citing this historical data is not to minimize the issues China has now; of cour there are huge healthcare challenges facing our population, and they’re very different from tho of the past. But understanding this historical context allows one to learn from what worked in the past, and to think about what healthcare system levers are available to address healthcare issues in the prent-day tting. A historical perspective helps one to look at i
ssues and solutions with a different lens, which will more likely lead to better outcomes.
This is also not only about putting things in perspective, it’s also about having a more balanced view of the world.
When I was younger, I was eager to discern the good from the bad, the black from the white. Labeling and generalizing em like an easy shortcut to answers in a confusing world, but it can also be massively misleading. If we can learn anything from history, it is that everything happens with preludes, and most choices made emed reasonable within their own context and their time. So having this view allows one to make n of the world, connect with historical figures as real individuals rather than as symbols, and form a more balanced view of issues facing today’s world.
