2005 speech
tianfeng
July 29, 2007 at 12:37 AM posted in General DiscussionI was looking though my old stuff and I found my speech for the 2005 Chinese speaking contest in my province. It was a wile ago and I don't think this was my final copy but I figure I would post it anyway. It was only a 5 minute speach so i couldn't include it all.
当我第一次踏上香港这块土地的时候，我只是一个充满理想的19岁男孩。那是我第一次独自一人出国。当时我身上只有500加元，而且身边也没有认识的人。我知道独自一人在中国生活会很难，但是我不怕。对于我来说，这将是一段崭新的旅程。
接下来的3年里，我在中国东部的许多城市生活过。很多时候我既没有钱也没有地方住。可是我并没有灰心，因为我幸运的遇到了很多好心的人。虽然我父母帮不上我的忙，但是我可以靠自己和我的朋友们。如果没有遇到他们，我想我只能回加拿大了。
刚到南昌的那段日子是我那3年里最困难的时候。那时我身上没有钱，又找不到地方住。然而这并不奇怪，因为我经常什么都没有。尽管我很快得到了一个面试的机会，但是我拒绝了那份工作，因为那个老板很坏。他的员工告诉我那个老板对他们很不好，而且他想让我拿一个人的工资做两个人的工作。 当时一切都很不顺利，我甚至有过回加拿大的念头。我知道如果我打电话向我父母诉苦，他们一定会帮我买机票。可是我不希望他们把我看成小孩子，我想我想独立自强。
天无绝人之路，我遇到了一个热心的英语老师。她刚刚辞了职，所以有时间可以帮我。
在她的帮助下，我找到了一个便宜的地方。虽然每个月只要250块，我还是要向她借钱才付得起房租。而那个房间没有热水，没有抽水马桶，也没有任何家具。我只能睡在凉席上，因为我买不起床。尽管日子过得很苦，但是我没有放弃，因为我有朋友的支持。一个月之后我朋友帮我找到了新的工作，新的房子，而我的新生活也顺利开始了。
这只是很多故事里的一个。这些经历让我深深地体会到了我的中国朋友的重要。如果没有他们的帮助，我一定不会成长的，而我也不会是今天的我了。
在去中国之前，我还只是个孩子；回到加拿大以后，我已经是一个大人了。
谢谢大家。
frank
July 31, 2007 at 08:38 PM
Impressive stuff there. What brought you to China in the first place? Had you studied Mandarin before you went over there?
tianfeng
July 31, 2007 at 01:33 AM
谢谢aaron。 我奋斗的很多，但是我生活在中国也很开行。去中国以后我生活真的变得很清楚。 我现在知道我想做什么也学什么。我真的相信天无绝人之路。
aaronpan
July 29, 2007 at 01:05 AM
写的很不错，很感人。以前我一直以为只有中国人去国外会很艰苦，原来你们来中国也很苦。谢谢tianfeng把自己的经历分享给大家，让大家对“奋斗”这个词有了全新的认识。
tianfeng
July 31, 2007 at 10:10 PMhaha not a damn word. I thought it was the same as Japan. I didn't learn anything when I was there for the first year. I lived with my family and we only spoke English. My father was a visiting professor at a university in China. When SARS hit we all went home but in a few months I went back to China to teach and travel. I just studied by myself and asked friends for help. I came back here and went to University. I wanted to study Chinese but my university only had a first year program.
I ended up taking intro but the level was really low. I fought to be allowed in the class because they wanted to exclude me because of previous knowledge. Since it was the only class offered I argued that I would have taken a higher level course if one have been offered I would have gladly taken that. I told them that you don't remove students from a history class because they read a lot of history books.
This speech was from my first year class. I ended up winning the contest and had an interview with the provincial radio station. I also pushed the university into having a 2nd year class this year. Now I am graduating and I am not sure of the future of the Chinese program. We have more than 700 Chinese students at our school and don't even have an more than a second year course. Studying what I study here is a real oddity. I am the only one who does it. That is why I enjoy coming here to listen to what people have to say because it actually has people that are really interested in the same things.