Peking University is the place that changed my life, the place that elevated me, the place that made me go from a rural kid to the world at last. Without Peking University, I would not be where I am today. A series of good memories, probably also left a series of pain. It was in the middle of the good and the pain, in the middle of frustration, struggle and progress, that I finally found myself and started to do something for myself, for my family and for society.
Student life is wonderful, with many fond memories. I still remember a guy in my class who played the violin under the girls' dormitory building every day, hoping to attract their attention, and then the girls threw water bottles at him. I still remember myself carrying the girl's bag every winter and summer vacation in order to attract her attention. When I found out that the girl had a boyfriend, I asked her why she asked me to carry her bag. I still remember that I didn't speak Mandarin when I first entered Peking University, and when the whole class had their first class meeting, I stood up and introduced myself, but our class president stood up and said to me, "Yu Minhong, can you not speak Japanese?" I then spent an entire year with a radio in the middle of the woods at North Dakota mimicking the broadcasts, and still don't speak well. Human progress can be a lifetime affair.
Being at North Dakota may be the beginning of our lives, not the end. There were many things that were particularly moving. For example, we were fortunate to have met Professor Zhu Guangyan. In his last days, it was our classmates who took turns pushing the wheelchair and walking with him every day in Peking University. Whenever I was pushing the wheelchair, my heart was filled with admiration for Professor Zhu Guangyen, and a sense of sanctity arose. Therefore, the field in which I read the most books in college was also aesthetics, because he wrote a book called Western Aesthetics. Because he wrote a book called History of Western Aesthetics, which was the second book I read after I entered the university.
Why the second book? Because the first book came about like this, I walked into the dorm after I entered Peking University and I had a classmate already in the dorm. He was lying on his bed, reading a book called "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". When I entered Peking University, a rural child, it was assumed that he was here to learn English, so why would he read other books? So I asked him a question, and I said, "Do you still have to read this kind of book in college?" He took the book away from his eyes, looked at me, ignored me, and continued to read his book. That glance has stayed in my heart to this day. I knew that you didn't just come to Peking University to study a major, you had to read a lot of books. Only then can you qualify to call yourself a student of Peking University. So the first book I read at Peking University was "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", which I read three times. Later I went to this student and said, "Let's talk about The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", and he said, "I've forgotten it.
I also remember that my tutor, Professor Li Funing, who used to be the head of the English Department at Peking University, always wrote a very complete and beautiful text on the board when he taught us the fourth book of New Concepts. He always wrote from the top left corner of the board, and when the bell rang, he would end up writing in the bottom right corner of the board. I still remember my professor, Professor Luo Jingguo, a professor of English literature and history, who failed my final year at Peking University because he was in a very bad mood. I approached Professor Luo and said, "If I fail this course, I won't graduate. Professor Luo said, "I can give you a passing grade, but please remember, you must make a bigger career in the future that is worthy of my grade. Therefore, the tolerance, knowledge, exuberance, and freedom of the teachers of Peking University allow us to really become students of Peking University and to get the spirit of Peking University. Just like when you heard that President Xu Zhihong was singing "Invisible Wings", I turned on this news and this video, and it moved me to tears. Because I think that's how the president of Peking University should be.
I remember having a lot of bitterness at North Dakota. Because, just now I said one is not good at Mandarin, and the second is that my English level is a mess. Although I got into Peking University after three years of hard work - because I had failed twice, the last time I got into Peking University very unexpectedly. Because I never thought that Peking University was a place where I could go to school. She should be a place in my heart that I could never reach. But that year, in the third year, my college entrance examination score exceeded the admission line of Peking University by seven points, and I filled in the four words "Peking University" through gritted teeth. Because I knew there would be many people with higher scores than me, I thought I would not be accepted. I didn't expect that the admissions teacher at Peking University would be very discerning and would have foreseen where I would be in 30 years' time. In fact, my English was very poor, because in the countryside I could neither speak nor listen to English, and I could only memorize grammar and vocabulary. So when my class was divided into three classes of fifty students, I was assigned to Class A, because my English score was close to perfect. But a month later, I was the only one in the class who was transferred to Class C, which was called "Tone and Hearing Impairment".
I remember that I had never even read Dream of the Red Chamber before I entered Peking University, so I tried my best to catch up with my classmates as I saw them reading one book after another. I ended up reading almost 800 more books in college, which took me five years. But still, I hadn't caught up with my classmates. I remember my class president, Wang Qiang, who is a book lover, is still at New Oriental and is the director of the New Oriental Education Research Institute. At that time, Peking University gave us 22 yuan a month for living expenses, and Wang Qiang's hobby was to divide the money into two, half of which was used to buy books, and the other half to buy food tickets. The money he spent on books was never used to buy meal tickets. If he doesn't have a meal ticket, he borrows from all over the world, and if he can't borrow, he steals from all over the world. I later found out that this is a very good habit of his, I also split my living expenses into two, half to buy books, half to buy food tickets.
It's no exaggeration to say that our class was one of the most educated classes in Peking University at that time. We were very active at that time, and there were several poets in our class. A famous poet named Xichuan, whose real name was Liu Jun, was in our class. I still remember that our class was the first to set the trend, and we were an excellent group in Peking University at that time, but one night we were having a good time, and we danced veneer dance. At that time, dancing had to be very formal, and the slightest proximity between boys and girls was considered a breach of discipline. So you are happier now than we were when we started. Not only were you allowed to dance, but you could also walk around the campus holding hands. That's why we usually walked around the campus after midnight.
I also remember that there were fifty students in my class, exactly twenty-five boys and twenty-five girls, and I was very excited when I heard this figure. I didn't expect the girls to go with guys who were handsome and suave in appearance. The ones like me, who are not so good on the outside, but are full of emotions on the inside and have great potential in the future, are generally not looked upon by girls.
I remember I struggled for two whole years hoping to beat my classmates in grades, but as Mr. Li said just now, although you may do well in the secondary school entrance exam, there are too many elites at Peking University, and your front and back may be classmates with very high IQs, as well as the top or second best in each province. So, catching up was a very hard process. Even though I had to study one or two hours more than other students every day, at the end of my second year at university I was still in the last few places in my class. I was very diligent and very depressed. No girls loved me either. As a result, in my third year of university, I got a serious illness called Infectious Invasive Tuberculosis. At that time I fainted, because at that time I knew "Dream of the Red Chamber", I read the chapter in which Lin Daiyu died of tuberculosis, I thought my life was over, then the doctor at Peking University Hospital told me that this disease can be cured now, but I need to stay in the hospital for a year. I stayed in the hospital for a year, suffering for a year, and wrote more than 600 poems. However, I had a lot of emotions, but I did not have a good pen, so although I published a few poems later, I did not become a poet. Later on, I felt very fortunate, because I found out later that all those who really became poets had accidents. We wrote poems with Haizi, a poet who was not very well known at that time. Later he wrote a beautiful poem called "Facing the Sea, Spring Blossoms" that probably every one of us students could recite. When I heard that he had committed suicide by lying on a railroad track, I cried like a baby for a whole day. From then on, I put down my pen and never wrote poetry again.
I remember when I was at Peking University, by the time I graduated in my fourth year, I was still in the last few in the class. But by then, I had a good attitude. I knew I was no match for my classmates in terms of intelligence, but I knew I had the ability to keep working hard. So at our class graduation ceremony, I said something that my classmates can still remember, "We all got excellent grades, and I was the one who fell behind in our class. But I want to reassure my classmates that I will never give up. What you have done in five years, I will do in ten years, what you have done in ten years, I will do in twenty years, what you have done in twenty years, I will do in forty years. I told them, "If I really can't do it, I'll stay happy and healthy, and I'll leave when I'm eighty and send you away."
There's a story that says that the only two animals that made it to the top of the pyramid were eagles, who flew up there on their own talent and wings. We've got a lot of eagle-like figures here, and a lot of students who study don't have to work too hard to get to the top. Many of them could easily go on to Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge after graduating from Peking University. There are many students who are full of talent and don't need to study, such as my class president, Wang Qiang, whom I just mentioned. His imitation ability is superb, and he can imitate any sentence in any place he goes. That's why he worked as an announcer at the Peking University Radio Station for four whole years. I listened to his voice every day, my heart gnashing my teeth full of hatred. Later, when he came to the United States, he even went to Radio America to do something again for a while. So, people are gifted, they are eagles. But, as we all know, there is another animal that has also reached the top of the pyramid. That is the snail. The snail can definitely only climb up. It may take a month, two months, a year or two years to get from the bottom to the top, but at the top of the pyramid, people do find traces of snails. I believe that snails will never be able to climb up the pyramid smoothly. But what you need to know is that once the snail climbs to the top of the pyramid, what it sees in the world and what it achieves is exactly the same as the eagle. So, maybe some of us here are eagles and some of us are snails. When I was at Peking University, including up to today, I always thought I was a snail. But I've been climbing, maybe not to the top of the pyramid yet. But as long as you are climbing, it is enough to leave yourself a moving day. I often tell my students that if we don't leave some days for ourselves that bring tears to our eyes, your life is wasted.
Many of us entered Peking University with excellent grades, but Peking University is by no means the end of your studies, but the beginning of your life. From the age of one to eighteen, you have listened to your teachers and parents, and now you have really started to live your own independent life. Now you are beginning to live your own independent life. We must create some days for ourselves so that we can touch others. Here we have people from rich families and people from poor families. You can't say whether you are born in a rich family or a poor family. But the end of our lives is our choice. All of us in this room have done very well, at the age of 18, we are already ahead of many Chinese children, because Peking University is the pride of China, and can also be said to be the pride of the world. However, going to Peking University does not mean that you have accomplished a great deal from now on. How you should go in the next 50, 60 or even 100 years has become a question that every student should think about. Personally, I think that as long as we have two things in our hearts, we can achieve success in life.
The first one is called ideal. Ever since I was a child, I have had a feeling that I want to cross the horizon and go far away, which I call "the desire to cross the horizon". It was precisely because of this strong desire that I had the courage to continue to take the college entrance exams. Of course, I also have role models in my life. For example, I have a neighbor who is very famous and a lifelong role model for me. Of course, it was a neighbor five hundred years ago. But he's really my neighbor, from Jiangsu Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province. Because of the kind of impression or envy that Xu Xiak brought to me, it directly led to my geography score of ninety-seven out of one hundred in my college entrance exam. It was also Xu Xiak brought me the feeling of crossing the horizon, so I also made up my mind, after entering Peking University, if Xu Xiak had walked all over China, I would walk all over the world. And I am now realizing this dream of mine. As long as you have an ideal and an aspiration in your heart, students, you will eventually be successful. What you have to do is to struggle hard, to have the ability to endure setbacks and failures in the process, and to expand your mind constantly, so that you can do things better.
In addition, the second thing is to have a conscience. What is conscience? It's about doing what's right for you and what's right for others. Having a conscience is sometimes reflected in the middle of your concrete life. I'll tell two short stories, and I'll end my talk, which has already taken a long time.
The first short story is this. One of our classmates, whose family was quite rich, brought a lot of apples with him to Peking University every Sunday night. We were very happy at first, thinking that it was just one apple each, but it turned out that he ate one apple a day by himself. And for several years in a row, it was rare for us to eat his apples. Even though the apples were his and we couldn't take them from him, I had the impression that he was too selfish. While many of our classmates succeeded, he hadn't. Then he came to us and said, "I can do something for you. Then he came to us and asked if he could join you. A few of us discussed the matter, but we couldn't let him join us. We couldn't be sure that he wouldn't be able to keep what he had after he accomplished something with us. Because he never had the spirit of sharing in college. Therefore, the first point for students during their university days is that you have to share what you have with your classmates, your feelings, your mind, your soul, your wealth, even an apple can be divided into six halves and eaten together. Because you have to know that you will get more in the future by doing this, and you will never get what you pay for in vain.
Let me tell my own story. I was at Peking University for five years, but I stayed at Peking University for eleven years, and then I was a teacher for six and a half years. During the five years as a student at Peking University, I've always loved working since I was a child.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)