On September 2, the first lecture of New Oriental 'believe in the future -- 2011 public welfare tour of Chinese University Freshmen Learning Planning' was held at the South Gate Square of Yuanmingyuan Ruins Park in Beijing. Yu Minhong, chairman and CEO of New Oriental Education and technology group, and Li Kaifu, chairman and CEO of Innovation workshop, successively made speeches. Nearly 10000 freshmen from 51 universities in the capital, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing University of science and technology, Central University for Nationalities and Capital Normal University, listened to this wonderful lecture on learning and growth. The following is the full text of Yu Minhong's speech:
Dear students from colleges and universities in Beijing,
Good afternoon, everyone!
Thank you very much for coming to such a special place, and thank you for coming here in the sun in the afternoon to listen to Kai Fu Li and I talk about college life.
Mr. Yu Minhong is giving a speech in the Old Summer Palace
What's behind where we're sitting now? Old Summer Palace. It can be said that China's modern history began with the ruins of the Old Summer Palace. When was the Old Summer Palace burned down? As we all know, the British and French allied forces in 1860. Why did Britain and France, thousands of miles away, run to the capital of China and burn the Old Summer Palace? What is the most fundamental reason? Is it because there are good things in the Old Summer Palace? Is it because the Old Summer Palace is not protected? Or was it because the Chinese people were unable to protect the Old Summer Palace? Obviously, there is no ability to protect. Everyone knows that China's development history of more than 100 years is a shameful history. The history of China's reform and opening up in the past 30 years is a history of standing up from shame.
Today's China has a certain position in the world. When I applied to go to the United States 20 years ago, I was constantly rejected. Today, we can basically get a visa if we want to go to the United States or other western countries, which shows that we are becoming stronger and stronger. However, standing here, we can clearly know that a country will be bullied if it is very poor and weak. This is why Deng Xiaoping summed up a very simple sentence called 'development is the last word'. Today's China has a certain status, but it is still not strong enough. By being strong, we don't mean that we should be able to defeat all countries. We don't mean that we should go to the British Museum or the Louvre in France to get things back. What we call strength is from economic, political, cultural to spiritual strength.
The lifetime history of each of us here can be glorious or humiliating; It can be failure or success. You want to be successful, you want to be glorious, not in any external conditions, but in yourself. It's not about where you are now, but what kind of dreams you have all your life. After struggling all the way, many of our students entered the University of Beijing. Here are famous schools such as Peking University and Tsinghua University, as well as private schools such as Geely University. It seems that the threshold and score for us to enter the university are different, but please remember, this is only a starting point of your life. In the past 12 years from primary school to middle school, we have experienced arduous struggle. Because if we don't work hard and struggle, we can't enter the University. However, entering the university is only the real beginning of life.
We all know that as long as you keep healthy, you can live for many years. If we can live to be 100, you still have 80 years to do. Many students said that I am far worse than other students. How can I improve in the future? I have a saying that the most important thing for people is ambition, inner desire, not external conditions. In terms of external conditions, we are unequal all our life from the day we were born. It is a fact that we were born unequal. The conditions for you to be born in a farmer's home and an official's home are different, and the resources you can get are also different. However, the struggle process of our life is to constantly make ourselves have the ability to obtain greater resources, realize greater dreams, and return to the process of contributing such resources to the society. So, when someone asked me, Miss Yu, can I catch up with others in my life? Can I do something like you or what you do in the future? I can tell you for sure: as long as I can do it, you can do it; As long as Li Kaifu can do it, you can do it; As long as Ma Yun can do it, you can do it. Because the starting point of us is not higher than you. In a sense, we should even be lower than you. Life is not a 100 meter race. If you run the 100 meter race one second earlier or one second later, you may be one second later or one second earlier. Life is an endless marathon. Marathons don't need to worry about whether your starting point is backward or standing first. Marathons worry about how far you can go and how long you can stick to it. If you can insist on walking out of enough distance, even if you slow down a little, as long as the direction is clear, you can walk out of the distance that others have not walked out in the future, and you can see the scenery that others have not seen. I just hope that all our students here will not be like the Old Summer Palace. In the end, they will be poured into ruins, and their lives will be in ruins in retrospect. What we hope is that now, while we are still young, while we still have ideals and passion, we should make life move forward and make life shine and hot.
Students, we are now standing at a new starting point, that is, our college life. As I said just now, if we want to move forward in college life, we don't need to pay too much attention to the past, whether the university we are in is good or bad, whether our family is a farmer or a worker, whether you look good or ugly, or even whether you can study abroad or stay at home in the future, Because all this is external. Although external things are very important to us at a certain stage, they are not important to us in the long run.
Taking universities as an example, it is good for us to enter universities such as Peking University or Tsinghua University, but not every student who enters Peking University is bound to succeed. I saw a lot of students from Peking University. They don't study when they enter Peking University; I see that many students in Peking University have psychological problems due to the heavy learning pressure; I also saw some students of Peking University doing nothing after graduation. Of course, I think Tsinghua and other schools have the same situation. But I see many students with two or three books. After their full efforts, they have been admitted to Peking University, Tsinghua University or world famous universities.
A friend I know, after graduating from technical secondary school, after a period of work, he found that technical secondary school education was far from enough. He went to the technical secondary school or above, not because he was stupid, but because his family conditions were really poor. At that time, nearly 30 years ago, technical secondary schools were generally normal colleges, and normal colleges did not need to pay any fees, so he could only choose technical secondary schools. After working, I found that this is far from enough. Later, he began to study hard and went to college. After being admitted, he felt that junior college was still not enough. Now generally speaking, you have to learn undergraduate to take the postgraduate examination, but at that time, you can take the postgraduate examination as long as you graduate from college. Therefore, after graduating from college, he made up his mind to take the postgraduate examination and the best school. Therefore, the final target is Peking University. He quit his job, rented a house outside Peking University, studied hard for three years, and finally was admitted to the graduate student of the Department of politics of Peking University. After graduating from Peking University, he became a civil servant and worked in a very good central unit in Beijing. When working in the central unit, I felt that a cup of boiled water and a newspaper were not my goal, so I came to New Oriental to study TOEFL and GRE in my spare time. My goal was to study in a world-famous university. I studied in New Oriental for almost two years, passed these two exams, and finally entered the Kennedy School of politics of Harvard University. After graduation, I worked abroad for a period of time, and I just met the opportunity that the Chinese government hopes to recruit some people abroad and want to return to China after graduation. After coming back, he soon entered the ranks of China's department and bureau level management cadres. Because of his ambition, his efforts and the background of the combination of Chinese and Western culture, he soon became one of the more important management cadres in China.
There are countless technical secondary school students who end their life with technical secondary school students. But we can see that a technical secondary school student can strive to be a graduate of Harvard University. This is the process of struggle all the way. We often say that people in famous universities seem to have more rigid conditions, but as I said just now, not everyone in famous universities can succeed.
I have many similarities with Ma Yun. Ma Yun took the college entrance examination for three years, and so did I; Ma Yun majored in English and I majored in English; Three years later, I was admitted to Peking University and he was admitted to Hangzhou Normal University. As we all know, this is a school we have never heard of. If you have heard of this school now, you must have heard of it because you heard of Ma Yun first. Ma Yun and I still have many similarities. Both of us can make reports in English. We still maintain our bachelor's degree. In other words, our highest education is bachelor's degree. But you can see that schools and degrees can't stop a person's growth. I used to think I should do better than Ma Yun, because I'm from Peking University after all. However, as we all know, Ma Yun did something that I could not do by 10 people alone. I have only made a New Oriental for nearly 20 years. Ma Yun's real Entrepreneurship (Alibaba) began in 1999, which is later than me. But now he has Alipay and Taobao in addition to Alibaba. If Alipay and Taobao are listed again, the market value of the two companies will be about ten billion US dollars.
So you can see that a person's success has nothing to do with the school you go to. It has something to do with your inner impulse and your inner desire. So I often say that a person can live a poor life, a person can live a lonely life, but a person can't live a life without fire in his heart, and a life without desire and longing in his heart. By these desires and yearnings, I do not mean that you are eager to eat a meal every day, that you are eager to drink two bottles of beer every day, that you are eager to make several girlfriends or boyfriends every day. Although you can have these desires, all these desires should be put above your greater desires. This desire is the desire to self