thirty college students across the country attended the tenth 21st centurycup national english speaking contest in beijing on april 10. eventually, xiapeng, from nanjing university was named the champion. the second and thirdplaces went to zhang jing, a sophomore from china foreign affairs university,and zhang a xu, from hong kong polytechnic university, respectively. more than1000 college students in beijing are lucky birds to listen to the speeches onthe spot in friendship hotel.
just make to it the finals, they had to get past 60 others speaking on “theimpact of globalization on traditional chinese values”。 that was at thesemi-final on april 8-9. what will chinese college students think about theimpact? each contestant had his own take on the subject. xia summed upglobalization by saying: “it’s just controversial and hard to say whether it isgood or bad.” xia took the old wall of his city, nanjing, as a metaphor. hespoke about the conflict over whether to protect the old walls or tear them downto represent the conflict of ideas. he suggested that people protect the wall asa valuable relic while tearing down the “intangible walls” of their minds thatprevent communication. while some other students are more focusing on the impactof globalization on family relations, attitudes towards love, andjob-hunting.
over the past 10 years, the national english speaking competition has givencontestants a chance to speak on a variety of topics closely related to theirlives. chinese students become more open-minded and receive various ideas andthinking over the decade. diversity becomes more obvious on campus, studentshave more opportunities to express and show themselves. it’s not an easy taskfor the contestants to win through the fierce competition. owning to theirpassion, hard work and persistence, they finally succeeded in the contest.
liu xin, the first champion of the national contest, is now an anchorpersonof cctv-9. recalling the passion of study on campus, she said: “when you want toexpress your idea by a foreign language without finding a right way, you’rereally upset. then you have to encourage yourself, and after a long term ofbitterness, suddenly you find you get the right way with joy.” with the championtitle in 21st century cup, liu attended the international public speakingcompetition in london in may 1996 afterward and got the first prizehistorically.
general tso's chicken -- which, by the way, in the us naval academy is called admiral tso's chicken. i love this dish. the original name in my book was actually called the long march of general tso, and he has marched very far indeed, because he is sweet, he is fried, and he is chicken -- all things that americans love.
左宗棠鸡，在美国海军军校被称为左司令鸡。我很喜欢这道菜。在我的书里，这道菜实际上叫左将军的长征，它确实在美国很受欢迎 ，因为它是甜的，油炸的，是鸡肉做的——全部都是美国人的最爱。
so, you know, i realized when i was there, general tso is kind of a lot like colonel sanders in america, in that he's known for chicken and not war. but in china, this guy's actually known for war and not chicken.
我意识到左宗棠将军有点像美国的桑德斯上校(肯德基创始人)，因为他是因鸡肉而出名的而不是战争。而在中国，左宗棠确实是因为战争而不是鸡肉闻名的。
so it's kind of part of the phenomenon i called spontaneous self-organization, right, where, like in ant colonies, where little decisions made by -- on the micro-level actually have a big impact on the macro-level.
这就有点像我所说的自发组织现象。就像在蚂蚁群中，在微观层面上做的小小决定会在宏观层面上产生巨大的影响。
and the great innovation of chicken muggets was not nuggetfying them, because that's kind of an easy concept, but the trick behind chicken muggets was, they were able to remove the chicken from the bone in a cost-effective manner, which is why it took so long for other people to copy them.
麦乐鸡块的发明并没有给他们带来切实收益，因为这个想法很简单，但麦乐鸡背后的技巧是如何用一种划算的方式来把鸡肉从骨头上剔出来。这就是为什么过了这么久才有人模仿他们。
we can think of chinese restaurants perhaps as linux: sort of an open source thing, right, where ideas from one person can be copied and propagated across the entire system, that there can be specialized versions of chinese food, you know, depending on the region.
我们可以把中餐馆比作linux：一种开源系统。一个人的想法可以在整个系统中被复制，被普及。在不同的地区，就有特别版本的中国菜。
展望未来，放飞梦想
Greeting everybody!It's my honor to share my topic here with you. Today I'd like to talk about my dream.
When I was a little girl,I often thought about my future.Will I be rich or will I be successful?In fact,I never considered what job will I get.A writer?A
reporter?Or like now,a sp www.baihuaw en.eecher? I don’t know.Well,I think I’m an ordinary person.So I just want to have a house of my own when I grow up.In my imagination,it may not be very big,but it must be comfortable and warm
enough.If the weather is good,I will sit on my sofa and read books or listen to music on the balcony in the sun.If it is rainy,I’ll sit there and watch the
beautiful world in the rain through the window.Sometimes I will walk by the riverside and enjoy the scenery.Sometimes I won’t do anything but just lie on my bed.
I think all of these things are tiny and beautiful moments in life because they can give me a heart break.It seems that I live a very simple life.However,it’s the life that I really want to live.
No scenery in the world remains unchanged. As long as you keep your heart basking in the sun,then every dawn will present a fine prospect for you to unfold and the world will always be about new hopes. Yes,maybe I won’t be very rich or successful,but I believe that I will live a happy and healthy life.And,that is my dream,my own dream.
That’all.Thanks for listening!