学院新闻

                                 Gold only glitters after countless washing and sieving.

        2024初春的歌乐山麓生机盎然，川外出国培训部新一批全球胜任力培训学员开启了与异域文化的美好遇见。语言是人类文明的载体，语言赋予我们文化身份。积极提升全球胜任力， 用外语更自信地讲好中国故事， 传播中国声音，助力跨国信任的建立和多维度国际合作的开展是参培学员们的崇高使命。 让我们一起认真阅读Robin 老师带给我们的关于用心专注和和积极思辨的学习态度的思考。

Seated among you this morning are scholars and civil servants whose purpose here is perhaps more connected than you realize – however much the work you do may differ.  The scholars among you have ambitions to further your engagement with the international academic community. The civil servants among you seek to further your ability to connect with international visitors to China. Your shared purpose is with the international community, and it is a serious one.

Your shared purpose calls on you to enter an increasingly fractured and combative space between peoples and nations.  You are called to reinforce that space where peoples and nations should meet as friends. Each of you has a unique contribution to make toward a constructive and inclusive peace in the world. Each of you is called to help renew the cooperative spirit that builds bridges of mutual interest and understanding desperately needed everywhere we look today.

That purpose will lead some of you out into the world beyond China’s borders. That same purpose will find others among you welcoming the world to come in and experience the China that IS as opposed to the China described by western journalists. At home or abroad, as citizens of the world, you are called to attend to your purpose with seriousness, thoughtfulness, perseverance, openness, and mindfulness. Not coincidentally, these qualities in concert will also serve you best in your studies here.

Be serious about every part of the opportunity in front of you. Challenge yourself to more than you imagined possible. You did not come here to play.

Be thoughtful. In the days, weeks, and months ahead of you, every encounter, disappointment, question, struggle – every word – is good fuel for the thoughtful moving forward. You did not come here to think small thoughts and go nowhere.

Persevere. When waves of English wash over your head, out of reach, stick with it. You did not come here to give up.

Be open to possibility and change. You opened a door to get here; now walk through it – and then beyond. You did not come here to say, “No.”

Be mindful; find yourself in a much bigger picture. It’s easy to see your time here as some banal ordeal, an inconvenience that must be borne to sit for a test. A test is the least of 1,000 good reasons to be where you are now. You did not come here to sleepwalk your way to a test.

The places where we gather to learn should NEVER be reduced to tests. This place, like all such places, is a deep well. Here you can water the life of the mind, deepen your awareness, and learn more of the world – or not. What anyone, teacher and student alike, does with the privilege of being in a place like this is up to them. The peace and freedom to come to this deep well and drink – again and again, is so precious, but too often we forget how much.

You did not come here to give up. You did not come here to play. You did not come here to think small thoughts and go nowhere. You did not come here to say, “No.” You did not come here to sleepwalk your way to a test.  

Be mindful of the gift of peace and freedom to come to this well and drink; be thirsty. Rest when you need rest. Take a walk, eat, play, and laugh together, but – be serious, thoughtful, and open. Say, “Yes!” to challenges and opportunities.  Persevere in struggle with yourself and your purpose. We should never be satisfied with what we already know, because the well is so much deeper than that.