赵小兰-说给孩子们 Dear Children

The world as we all know now would change a great deal during your lifetime. And as you face these changes, which will bring both challenges and opportunities, remember that your attitude, how you face these changes will be key. You can choose to face the future with optimism, determination and excitement.

When we first came to America, there were so few Asian Americans in America. There was less than 1 percent of Chinese in America. We didn’t have any friends, we have no family members, we didn’t speak English, we didn’t know the country, we didn’t understand the customs, the tradition, the culture, so everything was new and strange, and everything was difficult.

My sisters and I all came to America not speaking a word of English. And we learned in the first year. So in the third grade, I sat in the third grade classroom, not understanding a word that was being said by the teacher and I would just copy everything that was on the blackboard onto my notebook.

My parents had tremendous hope and optimism, determination and also a great sense of excitement for facing the future.

And every night, my father would come back from his work, tired but nevertheless, he always make time to go through my notebook with me and translate that day’s lesson.

So when you have problems in your life, it’s very important that you choose to be positive, optimistic and look forward. You know if I have ever thought that I would have lots of difficulties, moving ahead in my life and career because I was young, because I was female, because I was a minority, I would never want to get out of my bed in the morning.

So I think it’s very important for you to be positive, to be optimistic and to have self confident that you can do whatever you want to do.

Dear children,

Advancement in your career comes only with hard work, education and sacrifice.

You know, school is only the first step, it’s essential that you get a good education and you get into the best school that you can. The school is not the final step, it’s just the beginning.

So it’s really important after the school is over to continue to grow, to work hard, to learn and to see how important it is to get along with other people.

I think the Chinese emphasize, you know, people to people relationship. That is very important because in the workplace, the people to people relationship would be very key.

So hard work is a necessity. There is no compromise on hard work. Beyond that, there are other attributes that are successful to your life. And that’s very important to learn as well.

My parents always taught me and my sisters to work very hard even when we were at home, we were taught to help my mother and help my father around the house, outside in the garden, so we had very little leisure time.

We work all the time but we found work interesting and exciting and when I was at my jobs I always put in longer hours than anybody else. I worked longer into the evening, I worked at the weekends, not because I was trying to show off, but because I was really interested and I wanted to do a good job.

I was always very grateful to whoever gave me a job so that I want to do my very very best to merit that person’s trust in giving me the job. So I was interested in my work. I was grateful to have the opportunity and I want to reciprocate, return the confidence that other people had in me.

You know everybody has sacrifices, everybody has things they like to do. What if you really want to succeed and move ahead, there will be some elements on what you like to do that you would not be able to do.

So for example, if you like to go to the movies every Saturday, sometimes when you work, you can’t afford to go to the movies every weekend. You know if you like to spend all your time with your friends, sometimes you can’t. You have to work, and do a good job.

So there are sacrifices whatever it is you like, there will be sometimes you would be asked to sacrifice doing some of the things you like for some of the things you think are necessary. That’s just the natural part of life.