米歇尔演讲-课文版

A good education is something that no one can take away from you

Ni hao. It is truly a pleasure to be here at the Number Seven School. Thank you so much for your w arm w elcome.

Now, before I get started, on behalf of myself and my husband, I want to say that our hearts go out to对某人满腔热情、十分同情all those with loved ones亲人; 心爱的人 on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. As I said this past weekend when I spoke at Peking University, we are very much keeping all of them in our thoughts and our prayers at this tremendously difficult time.

So now, let me start by thanking your Principal, Principal Liu, and your classmate, Ju Chao, for that w onderful introduction. Your English, Ju Chao, is excellent, and you should be very proud. Thank you so much. (Applause.) And I want to thank all of the students here today, both those of you here in person and those of you joining remotely from across the region. I’m thrilled to be visiting your wonderful school. Now, in preparation for this visit, before I left the U.S. I visited the Yu Ying School. It’s a public school near

the White House in Washington, D.C., and all of the students at this school study Chinese. And I met with the sixth-grade class, kids who are 11 and 12 years old. They had recently taken a trip here to China, and they were bursting with excitement. They were

eager（adj） to tell me everything about w hat they had seen.

But they admitted that before their trip, they had all kinds of misconceptions about China. They thought they would see palaces and temples everyw here they w ent, but instead they found massive cities filled with skyscrapers. They weren’t sure that they’d like the food here in China, but they actually loved it, and they learned how to use chopsticks. And in the end, one of the students told me –- and this is his quote -- he said, “Coming home was really exciting, but was at the same time sad.”

Now, meeting these students reminded me that when we live so far away from each other, it’s easy to develop all kinds of misconceptions and stereotypes. It’s easy to focus on our differences –- how we speak different languages and eat different foods and observe different traditions. But as I travel the world, and I meet young people from so many countries, I’m always struck by how much more w e have in common. And that’s been particularly true(这是特别真实的) during my visit here in China.

You see, the truth is that I grew up like many of you. My mom, my dad, my brother and I, we lived in a tiny apartment in Chicago芝加哥, which is one of the largest cities in America. My father worked at the local water plant. And we didn’t have much money, but our little home was bursting with love. Every evening, my family would laugh and share stories over dinner. We’d play card games and have fun for hours. And on summer nights, I remember, when our apartment got too hot, we’d all sleep outside on our back porch.

Family meant everything to us, including our extended family. My grandparents lived nearby, and my elderly great aunt and uncle lived in the apartment dow nstairs(adv & adj) from us. And when their health started to decline my parents stepped in, helping my uncle shave and dress each morning, dashing downstairs in the middle of the night to check on my aunt.

So in my family, like in so many of your families, we took care of each other. And while we certainly weren’t rich, my parents had a big dreams for me and my brother. They had only a high school education themselves, but they were determined to send us both to universities. So they poured all of their love and all of their hope into us, and they worked hard. They saved every penny. And I know that wasn’t easy for them, especially for my father. You see, my father had a serious illness called multiple sclerosis[医]多发性硬化. And as he got sicker, it got harder for him to walk, and it took him longer to get dressed in the morning.

But no matter how tired he felt, no matter how much pain he was in, my father hardly ever missed a day of work, because he was determined to give me and my brother a better life. And every day, like so many of you, I felt the weight of my parents’ sacrifices on my shoulders. Every day, I wanted to make them proud.

So while most American kids attend public schools near their homes, when it was time for me to attend high school, I took an exam（n测验; <口>考试） and got into a special public high school where I could get a better education. But the school was very far from my home, so I had to get up early every morning and ride a bus for an hour, sometimes an hour and a half if the weather was bad. And every afternoon, I’d ride that same bus back home and then immediately start my homework, often studying late into the night -- and sometimes I would wake up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning to study even more.

And it wasn’t easy. But whenever I got tired or discouraged, I would just think about how hard my parents were working for me. And I would remember something my mother always told me –- she said: “A good education is something that no one can take aw ay from you.”

And when it was time for me to apply to university, I had many options, because in America, there are many kinds of universities. There are four-year universities. There are two-year community colleges which are less expensive. There are universities where you take classes at night while working during the day. So you don’t have to be a top student to attend a university. And even if your parents don’t have much money or you live in a tiny town in a rural area, in America, you can still attend university. And you can get scholarships and government loans to help pay your tuition.