关于21世纪爱立信杯全国英语演讲比赛

第一名顾秋蓓的：
Host: Thanks, contestant #18. The topic for your impromptu speech is: Which is more important for you: knowledge from books or personal experience?
Gu Qiubei: Thank you. I remember, on my very first day of my beloved university, one of my professors said to me, "From now on, you'll be on a journey between who you think you are and who you can be. The key is to allow yourself to continue the journey in the ocean of the books." And I do learn a lot from books: l know the geometry of Euclid, logic of Aristotle, fable of Aesop known to children around the world. Well, no offense to all those great authors of the books, but during my three years at my university, I do realize that personal experience through practice means more to me. As we are in this global information age where both economic growth and individual opportunity are based on ideas, a commitment to providing all human beings the golden opportunity to develop themselves is so vital, not only to the people here, but all around. As we are in this transformational age where communications and commerce are global, investments are mobile, technology is almost magical, and the ambition for a better life is now universal, and I think this is why we are here today. We want to earn our personal experience through practicing our oral English, sharing our opinion of tourism and ecology with all the judges and audience here. And I think we are so lucky to be alive at this moment of the history. Never before have our nation enjoyed so much prosperity and so much social progress with so little internal crises. And never before have our young people had so much great opportunity to practice ourselves and, therefore, have a profound obligation to build a more perfect nation of our ancestor's dream. And I think our government had provided us young people with the tools and condition to build the future of our dreams. Even if we know some roles, some regulations, or experiences from our books, we still simply cannot graft it onto today's busier, more impersonal, complicated word. Instead, our challenges is to arrive at a consensus values and common vision of what we can do today individually and collectively to build a strong family and strong community and, above all, make the world a better place for us to live. Thank you very much.