Director Jan Kiely, Director Huang, families and friends, all the distinguished guests, good afternoon!

I’m Huang Mingtao.

This is a historical moment, today and right here, we have all the young Chinese that best understand Americaand all the young Americans that best understandChinain our generation. With the rising of the influence of the Sino-U.S. relations, we shall be proud to say that it is us that will write the history of the world in the coming decades.

Of course, the mutual understanding is a process rather than a state, we didn’t know each other that well a year before. But that’s exactly why we choose to come across the nation or even the globe to the center to meet and to know each other. I never thought I would attend a multi-ethnic Dragon Boat team that lead by a Spaniard, but now I cherish this experience as one of the most fascinating moments in the center, because I felt no national or cultural boundary there but only the team-spirit. For many students that went for the volunteer trip to Sichuan, they might never thought of teaching English in front of 70 or even 80 kids with a Chinese or American partner, but now I bet we are already the best bilingual teaching team in China.

There is a saying that the less one knows, the more he has to say, he may have all his conclusions premised on prejudice, steretype or even imagination without observation and reflection.  However the more one knows, the less he has to say, because he is more informed and educated by the experience rather than the imagination. He will find that every individual, every city, every ethnicity, and every country is worth learning, discovering, respecting and appreciating.

For me, and for most of the students here, it is the cross-cultural and cross- institutional experience that made us even more supportive of each other. We support each other because we have confidence in each other, we have that confidence because we really know each other. This confidence will help us overcome so many challenges in the bilateral relation in the future that we never thought we could in the past. So all my fridends, please hold that confidence.

Thank you very much!