想起女兒當年學中文

各位嘉賓、老師、校長和同學們，很高興我能代表畢業班的學生髮言。首先我想問幾個問題：

Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow students, I』m pleased to stand before you today in representation of the graduating class. First, I would like to pose a couple questions:

我們為什麼要來中文學校？       Why do we come to Chinese school?

Well, to learn Chinese. 我們來這兒當然是為了學中文。

那，我們為什麼要學中文呢？So, why do we learn Chinese?

說實話，那是我父母的選擇。 Well, personally, my parents make me.

我六歲時來到了美國，那時我一句英語也不會說，而我中文也只會寫我的名字。我很快就學會了英文，然後八歲時，我開始上中文學校。但我並不喜歡學中文，可是我父母堅持逼我學中文，說是為我自己好。我想我值得花這樣多的時間去學漢語嗎？

        I came to the United States when I was six years old. I did not know a single word of English and the only thing I could write in Chinese was my own name. My English improved and when I was about eight years old, I started Chinese school. I started because my parents made me and I absolutely hated it, but my mom always forced me to learn, telling me it was for my own good. And I remember always thinking: 「Yeah, right.」

       但是在學習漢語的過程中，唐詩、宋詞、元曲，歷史、文化、名人佚事使我漸漸開始對中文有了點興趣。

Over the years, I haven』t completely gotten past the loathing, but the degree of distaste for it has decreased as I learned more about Chinese literature, history, and culture.

記得初中時有一回上美術課，我用毛筆畫了一棵竹子，蓋上了中文的印章，結果老師覺得滿有意思，於是把全年級的美術課改為學習中國畫，我還成了國畫老師。同時我也發現美國學生對中國的文化也很感興趣，這更增強了我要學好漢語的信心。

當我回到中國的時候，越發感到我面對十三億和我一樣黑眼睛、黑頭髮的中國人，我不能成為文盲。

When I was in middle school, I did a Chinese painting of a bamboo plant for art class and I even put on my Chinese seal. My art teacher was so fascinated by it that she changed my entire grade』s curriculum to studying Chinese painting; I even became a Chinese painting instructor. However, it really wasn』t until I took a trip back to China a couple years ago that I discovered its value. When face-to-face with 1.3 billion Chinese people who have the same unique features as myself, I could not and would not be dumb and illiterate before them.

今天，我畢業了，我拿到的僅僅是一張畢業證書嗎？不是，我相信這是一把鑰匙。有了它，我們能了解五千年中國的文明史；有了它，我們能弘揚中華文化；有了它，我們能與佔世界人口五分之一的中國人交流與溝通。

I realized that Chinese is not just something that restricts my time, something I have to go to every Sunday, a day that we shouldn』t have to go to school on, it is also a key, a key which allows us exclusively to access the wisdom of a civilization with five thousand years of history; It is a key which allows us to disseminate our magnificent heritage and culture; it is a key which allows us to communicate with 1/5 of the world』s population.

您讀過《根》這本小說嗎？如果一棵樹的根跨越太平洋，伸向亞美兩塊大陸，你能想象這將是一棵什麼樣子的樹嗎？我們正是這一種樹。我們在接受西方的教育，而中文學校使我們也能受到東方文化的熏陶，我相信這種同時吸收東西方養分的樹一定會枝繁葉茂。

Can you imagine a forest of trees whose roots extend from the East to the West, across a continent and an ocean? Can you imagine how magnificent these trees would be? Well, we are those trees; we have roots in the East and in the West. Our roots have already been deeply imbedded into western soil, and western values and ideas have already been deeply imbedded into our minds and hearts. But Chinese and Chinese school allows our other roots to be implanted into eastern soil and eastern culture as well.

最後，讓我們感謝老師，我們辛勤的園丁；感謝家長和學校，為我們提供學習漢語的條件。

In conclusion, we have to thank our dedicated teachers and parents for their constant support, without which we wouldn』t be here right now, and we have to thank this Chinese school because without it, we wouldn』t have a place to learn.

Thank you. 謝謝大家。