Now we’ll do a little bit analysis about this election speech To make my ideas clearer, I sometimes will switch to Chinese system At the very beginnig when we get to English speeches, we are very clear that there is a basic principle of making speeches, to catch others' attention at the very beginning. Also, we hope that other people remember us as a unique one. We are unique, and we want to leave others’ a unique expression How we actually achieve this? You know, I asked them to repeat my Chinese name, clearly, it was difficult for some of them But why did I have this idea? I’ll tell you another story I clearly remembered the day that, the first day that I was on campus on HEC MBA, I visited the admission officer,Antoine Vital a respectful old gentleman He received me, and during our conversation, he asked a very insightful question, actually He asked me, “Ongyan, why you Chinese always got an English name? I know in you class, we have David, we have Charlie, and we have blablabla Why you have English name?” Why you have Eng1ish name? I said “To make it convenient for others, you know, Chinese name is difficult to memorize” He answered me, “No, we don’t do that for English speakers It’s French” So, like his name, Antoine Vital if you pronounce it in English But he insisted every time, when people demanded his name, he would insisted others to call him by his French name and then I have a lot of thought and I finally figured out a rule, you know, sometimes, even your English name is easily spread around the world, people may not remember you because you are not important person to them Then why? Simply because you have easy name and they memorize your name, no! In our childhood, we were forced or we would like to memorize so many great names I remembered this name, because at that time, he was my hero And later on, we know Arnold Schwarzenegger Yes, Arnold, you know, but you remembered that because those are important people and their names means something to you, so you memorize that So my conclusion is even we tried to make our names easier for others to memorize, the English one, but if you are not an important person, then your name means nothing to them So what do we do? We forfeit something to gain to nothing So if you are an important person, your name means something, then they will try their best to memorize your name, ok? so where do we make this balance? Is this why later on when I told my Chinese English-studying student, if you want to find an English name, probably, the inspiration will first come from your Chinese name, like you have a very rare family name, like Wen, Good, then you can ask others to call you Wen Yes, you make that simpler because you do not ask them to memorize your whole name You have two other characters, it will be too hard But if your family name is very common, like Zhang, they will find a lot of Zhangs, so I ask them to call me Hongyan So the lesson here is that we want us to be better understood by others, but the first important thing we need to do is to respect ourselves, the name was given from our family, and to keep something that is unique to yourself That’s why the westerners, you know, they have a strong idea about ID, identity If they lose their identity, it means nothing, what they do is nothing So your own identity is super important It first comes from your name, so better have a second thought about your English name The reality in my case was that there were five Davids in the whole class, you know, it’s hilarious, no one knows who is David, so everyone tried to call my name Hongyan And second, the second lesson is, a good sense of humor is universal In many cultures, they believe a good sense of humor is an indicator of your IQ In many cultures they believe a good sense of humor is an indicator of your IQ. Therefore, they really appreciate a good sense of humor That’s why most English speakers, they want to make an ice-breaker in the beginning they are always making an ice-breaking story, a joke, etc., though some of the stories are not funny. They’ll try If you somehow develop a good sense of humor, then you’ve got the most powerful weapon You need to do a lot of research, and I believe that we already have a good example, like Joe Wang I ask you guys to preview some of his talk show, remember what he did in the beginning when he was introducing himself to the world? “My name is Joe Wang, people goes who? Who is my mother’s family name” From this, you know, joke, you got attention from others, well, this is a funny guy So a good sense of humor will certainly, it takes a long period of time of observation What kind of humor may work, what may not? So in the future sessions, we have a lot of opportunities we reserve for every speech that you have watched in TED or you have heard, you have studied, I will ask you this as automatic homework, find out why people laugh You need to find out Ok, now, teamwork spirit is highly valued This is another lesson So why? I mean, when we talk about this, we have to keep this in mind What is still a stereotype of Chinese to other cultures? You know, Chinese culture is still suffering an impressionistic or prejudiced opinion from foreigners. So in their opinion, what does a typical Chinese look like? Any idea? Like Chinese, No.1, they don’t talk much They belong to silent majority They are not communicative, Joe Wang is definitely exceptional And they are very quiet in class, but they are very noisy in restaurant This is what they think about Chinese Some of them, they spit everywhere This is the world’s image, Chinese spit So in many scenic spots, you see no spiting, but it was written in Chinese This was an irony There’s something clearly, you know, not all Chinese Some of them, they did this, and got this impression And another negative impression about Chinese people is that, I believe there is something true because Bai Yang has stated individually, every Chinese is a dragon, but together, it becomes a worm They do not do teamwork, especially in professional sector In professional sector, They got this stereotype about Chinese, they don’t work very well with each other So the first point we make is about teamwork That’s also the reason, you know, if a company, a foreign company, they want to hire a team player, they probably ask you this: What’s your hobby? And you got no clue why your hobby is related with teamwork, and you probably answered that “I play Pingpang, I read books.” And then the answer was ultimately sending out the message that you are not a team player because you play Pingpang, you fight against others, and you read a novel, that’s an individual work But if you say, well, I like play basketball, I am a good team player, actually, that’s simple So this is something you need to keep in your mind If they are looking for team player, then this is something you need to think about And the second one is about this, how you recognize other’s work? This is an attitude If you are able to recognize others’ contribution, you praise their work, you compliment over the things others have done well, and then that means what? You are respecting others If you are able to make appropriate recognition and praise over the things others have done well, and then that means what? You are respecting others At the same time, you become a term player So what I didn’t expect is that when we were talking about this, the recognition of two guys who organized the party, and you know, I appreciated them very much They were very happy indeed when I mentioned the work theri have done. And you know what, Before this, inside the whole classroom, even though we have 9 Chinese students, but only 3 were present when we were delivering this speech All the rest are foreigners, and most faces are very strange to you, you know, and believe it or not, even the French students are only 30%, but still it is their place, their country And these two guys, they happened to be French These two guys are French, playing at home, so they actually have an edge on others. But after I recognized their work, they suddenly found out there were people smiling at me, you know, there was something that go against with me gently soft disappeared They seemed hostile But this hostility gradually disappeared from their minds. You will see that their friends and family begin to smile at you. This is what you feel And then, this one Most people will think, well, if I will be the President, then I can be so proud of myself You know the American culture Even some of them, they have nothing to be proud of, but they always say “I am so proud of myself” They do this a lot It is their culture, and they want to encourage themselves every day So what do we do here? If I am going to be the President, what is the strongest responsibility that you will feel? For me, I would say it is responsibility rather that honor It is responsibility. For me, I would say it is responsibility rather that honor it is responsibility rather than honor. Because I heart felt this concept with my previous life experience, you know, I was President, class President ever since college In my first degree, I was class monitor, the second one, also, and the MBA class, the third one, and the last one, in Peking University is also among the class Presidents And what I feel is that in order to get respect from others, or what you feel obligated to do is that in the beginning, you need to serve others well You really devote a lot of time and efforts So this is my experience Even though I was running for President, I know that means a lot of work It is to give, not to receive Actually, this fall into their main culture quite well because you know, this remark is from the Bible This is Arts. This is Arts from the Bible, Section 35, Chapter 20. “It is more blessed to give than to receive” We translate it into Chinese as 施比授更为有福 In fact, this is also the common life principle of people who have question believe. And then for this part, and I believe that you know, your mind need to run very fast in order to catch me, especially those are slow thinkers I remember that those slow thinkers need a little more time for this part Actually, we all know syllogism in logic, we are generally satisfied with this Well, it could be called critical reasoning So critical reasoning, if you can tell something logically, and you can prove this is right, reasonably, and then they’ll buy it Many foreigners are like this They will use great logic to confirm and prove things You have your own observation and experience They will be glad to buy it So I remember if the laughters before are based on simple fun People laugh because it is simply fun But at this time they need to do a little breaking work and then they will get the idea that you have a concept You really got something There is something in your mind, and they expect that So I believe that in this part actually we would hear many languages in speeches as well as languages in presentation They are very powerful not only because of the rhetoric used but the fact that the logic is quite recognized Then the power will become incredible great. So we can pay attention to this. I am saying this because Chinese people have a relatively more meticulous logical thinking It is our advantage We need to play it out in our daily speeches this is important And in the end we use a rhetoric means, a pun just this pun Actually we see that among English rhetoric there are many powerful ones, such as simile (metaphor), rhetorical question and counterquestion many like this Also, exaggeration Like "big exaggeration" and "small exaggeration" There are many rhetoric means like this My advice would be to find a rhetoric means that is more suitable for you and you are willing to use it. For axample, not everyone can use a parallelism well He needs to think of at least three things that have a certain logic you also need to remember clearly and express fluently OK You can do it Well, the use of rhetoric means must be based on the situation The pun of "cook" that we have mentioned before, is a pretty good one There are two meanings of "cook" one is chef well you know in French a professional cook is called chef Besides "cook" the word chef also holds another meaning, "boss" yes, boss it is also a "boss" At the same time we know Take it literally, that means I really cook well But the truth is I do cook well AS for this point the reason why I am able to think of this point is related to the fact that I cook Believe it or not actually sometimes I don't believe it myself I beginning cooking at the age of 10 The first dish I have cooked is "fish braised in brown sauce" That is my fish It is quite difficult to many people But I don't know it Because I only know at that time that I have to For my mom is a primary school teacher who came home from work very late Sometimes, I came home from school earlier. Before the age of 10 I could do nothing but waited for my mom to cook Later, I really felt that my mom was very tired She got home tired and late, at about five or six o'clock in the afternoon and then she had to cook for me Then I began to make efforts and cooked "fish braised in brown sauce" Then actually we found that This is simple for Chinese students, you know, we Chinese, we got stubborn Chinese stomach you know, we Chinese, we got stubborn Chinese stomach what does that mean Actually, in many cases wherever you will be whatever you will do, to study or to work You will find that Chinese stomach has an expectation for Chinese food You will know that our western breakfast is free Just help your self with all those bread, milk and coffee However, after three continuous days Chinese students become unwilling to go there You have had it enough You cannot stand it any more So you have to learn to cook BY the way From the perspective of our education Someone has done a very interesting contrast, conrastive education What are our younger students at the age of seven or eight up to after school They go to all kinds of tutorial classes learning piano and Olympian math Then you will find that children of many western countries they learn to wash dishes and make some simple breakfast after school Well, It seems that Chinese students are equipped with those superb skills or characters Then what about western students? It is founded that after they have grown up those students who have the basic living abilities tend to be more confident They become more confident When they are facing a totally strange, alien environment, actually they can survive However, some other foreign students, they even need a babysitter when studying abroad How horrible it is! Well, The ending of this speech, I’ll calling for actions, which is also very typical if you want to end your speech or presentation Calling for actions Calling for actions is very suitable for my situations because I was talking about elections, and you want others know about what will happen if you are elected Some methods are pretty suitable for the ending of our speeches. You can talk about what you will do in the future, what actions you will take; Of course there are also another methods, to raise a question, a thought provoking question It is also a good ending. Next class, we would give a more detailed explanation of how to make opening remark and ending to make conclusion and at last impress people The skills and techniques of making speeches are very important. This piece of speech has been included in Youth Digest in 2003 Even at that time, what I have learned is not as much as what I have shared with you today. Moreover, on this basis, we will listen to more great speeches and presentation We will learn more from them To make a short conclusion about what we have learnt out of my personal experience, I would like to say that to make a successful English speech or presentation, in the beginning, you need to have a better understanding about different cultures There are two key words: Inter-cultural Perspective, this thinking mode and point of view Critical Thinking, your critical thinking Verbal Skills, Verbal Skills includes your pronunciation and your intonation that counts, also, vocabulary Here we are talking about active vocabulary We all know that vocabulary can be classified into passive vocabulary and active vocabulary passive vocabulary refers to those words that you have learned by heart, like GRE vocabulary but probably in your lifetime you will only need them at examinations Other times, they are useless There will even be problems if you use them I have suffered the problem During my school days, I was writing a GRE vocabulary book One day, We were doing a teamwork, an American lady that day, she came in a new dress, a new suit very colorful You need to comment, right? If you don’t, in their eyes you are not human You have to comment And I said, “Woo, you look so pulchritudinous today” She was shocked “What?” You know, “pulchritudinous” is a GRE vocabulary, a GRE word You normally do not find it in simple dictionaries You need to find the Webster, and you’ll find it is kind of like Middle English The meaning is quite simple, “beautiful” And then I found she was kind of totally at a loss I believe if she is a computer, of that several seconds, she must be doing a quite search over the cash, the memory, and hard disc, and no, no such a word called “pulchritudinous” And she has to settle down And then I need to release her, so I paraphrased that word, “Well, actually, I mean you look so elegant today.” And she started to smile So vocabulary here, we do not need passive vocabulary, we need active vocabulary, that means you clearly know what that word means, and where we can put it We always say we need to use proper words at proper positions, and this will be something that gonna work on the next session I believe this not only several hours, one hour, two hours, that will never be enough, I am now talking about the passive words that I will give you some methodology so you can later on figure out yourself And certainly public speaking skills, like the body languages and the etiquette, and good sense of humor, I believe all these work, and also during my time the PowerPoint is not that popular, but later on for now, if you want to present yourself professionally, you need to pay more attention to your art of PowerPoint production You need to make beautiful slides After all these being said, I believe that your life experience is the basis, actually, is the foundation to talk about everything This is your true life experience You learn it from your work The other one is that you are on the scene For example, if you speak English in every possible ocassion, especially occassions that give you a sense of nervous occassions that make you a little nervous (you all try to express and practice) then you will find that you are making speeches in English to demonstrate the above Then you ability will get greatly improved All we are doing is that, I truly will ask you to do homework, and I carefully select my homework I really carefully select my homework For example, before finish the class today, I will have a real topic And I really hope that if all of you guys listen to my lecture, you really do that work that will really help
