Time and Memory:
----The ending speech in the commencement of JNC (2004-2005)
Wang Wen
I am honored to address you here, but I feel nervous, because I am 
afraid that I cannot use words to express the many ways I was touched by our center in the past year. Indeed, so many things have happened here that I could not have imagined before I came here..
One year ago, before I came to the Center, I never imagined that we could be a family, in which our co-directors act like our parents, living with us, traveling with us, teaching us how to deal with the social relationships, helping us find good jobs and teaching us how to lead a good life; One year ago, I never imagined that the administration could give us, especially Chinese students, so many work and study opportunities, through which we could make the acquaintance of congressmen, academics, and social elites. One year ago, I never imagined how interesting our foreign professors could be; they spurred our academic curiosity through debates, questions, free discussions, and make up classes in local restaurants; One year ago, I never imagined how wonderful the Banwei members could be, they truly serve the people; most of student activities such as Halloween, Christmas, the charity auction, happy hours, Easter egg-hunting, were great fun for the Chinese students. Indeed, in this year, we did experience what we had never experienced; feel what we had never felt, and acted in ways that we had never acted. Therefore, here, please allow me to extend our gratitude to co-directors, administration, professors, and Banwei members.
How time flies! I can recall that the first day when I came to the Center, some American students taught me how to swear on the terrace. Also, I still can remember how tricky we were during the Scavenger Hunt. My partners and I ate in seven restaurants in one hour because we just sat beside other customers with chopsticks, and I took photos to prove we ate there; I can remember the first time I played the Maffia game in the mid-autumn festival and then gradually became a Maffia professional; I still remember we guys started a drinking club to meet every weekend night. Alas! I didn’t believe our departure was so imminent.
One week after our graduation we will scatter all over the world. We will no longer have lunch with a hundred friends, midnight discussions, eight o’clock classes, weekly room-cleanings, papers, tests, reserve books, or our usual friends to dine with. I know that I will take all of these memories with me after I leave the Center.
One month after we graduate from the Center, we will work, study, or live as usual, and we will make new friends, colleagues, or classmates. Should we tell them what has happened at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center? I think, I will. I will tell them that we are an amazing group of people, who are brilliant, smart, crazy, hysterical and ridiculous. Some of us act like ambassadors; some of us are stunningly beautiful, some of us get As in all our classes; some of us play ping-pong at midnight every day; some of us discuss international affairs for hours upon hours; some of us get up at 5 o’clock to dragon boat race and gain the 4th place; some of us spend hundreds of kuai buying books; and some spend thousands in the charity auction. Indeed, the memories in the Center will be a part of our lives that we are never able to forget.
After one year, we all have new opportunities for work or further study. In our futures we may perhaps become involved in policy making that will influence Sino-U.S. relations; perhaps someone will have an opportunity to interview with President Bush or Hu Jintao; perhaps we will find our ideal jobs, possibly become rich, or carry on for PhD study in the States. Indeed, the Center has provided us with an opportunity to dream these dreams and to make them come true.
After ten years, Isaac and Matteo will become disobedient teenagers; Maya will be ten years old. I am sure to be a daddy. If my kid cries, I tickle him and say that, “Don’t cry, baby. You are so lucky. You know, you have a lot of uncles and aunties all over the world, in America, in Australia, in England, in Singapore, in Japan, in Hong Kong, in Thailand, in Romania, in Venezuela, in New Zealand, in Canada, in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing. We visit them in the coming holiday.” Indeed, our days in the Center have made us like brothers and sisters. Let our relationships not end here today, but stay with us, and spread all over the world.
Fifty years after we graduate from the Center, all of us will be old. Surely, I will be a lovely, and lucky old man. I will sit peacefully and think “what a most romantic period in my life; my time at the Zhongmei Zhongxin in Nanjing. This memory and our relationships always follow me, older and older, till forever, forever.”
Thanks a lot.
