Letter From Home

(1) 四川大学国际处新年贺卡

(2) 乐山师范学院校长罗大玉教授新年贺信

(3) Letter from Mr. George Hu:

Hi everyone from the SUNY China 150 program,

It has been more than a month since you came to New York. Now you must have settled down and are studying at twenty-two campuses of SUNY. I have been missing you all!

I met twenty-nine of you from three schools in September when I went to the Farmingdale State College. We had a good time when we had moon cake together; but after I came back, I felt I needed to talk to all of you to catch up.

Twenty-nine years ago, I came to New York as a foreign student. I lived with my aunts in Larchmont, NY. The first school I attended was a SUNY school - the Westchester Community College. Although I stayed in that school for only one semester, it made a big difference in my life later. To this day, I still remember vividly what my English professor, Dr. Cohen, told me. She said that if you want to learn the way American people live, you must learn three things: first you must learn to drink coffee; then you must learn to eat cheese; and lastly, you must learn to walk barefoot! (I later have found that many Americans like to take off their shoes when they come home.) She also said that in order to pick up American English (not the Queen's or King's English we studied in China), you must watch TV news everyday and the best English used in news report was the weather report!

Another story I want to share with you is about my maternal grandmother. I was very close to her, being the eldest son in my family. The night before I left for America, she gave me three words: "自强", "自重" and "自尊"。 I know you must understand the first two words well. For the third word, (By the way, 自尊" is "Self Respect" in English) Grandma explained that every human being had self respect but also an inferiority complex. It was a natural mixture. But they must be kept balanced. If you have too much self respect, you could be arrogant. On the other hand, if you have too much of an inferiority complex, you would become over-sensitive. Either way, it could be unhealthy. To this day, I still remember Grandma's three words and I hope you can all memorize them too.

I may visit China in November. If my schedule allows, I definitely will go to the Sichuan Province. I really want to visit your hometown where I never visited before. So please do not hesitate to tell me as to where I should go.

Thank you all and keep up your good work.

George Hu

(Mr. George Hu is also a mentor of our SUNY-CSC China 150 program. you can find out more information about him in the "The Students"  >> "Mentor Program" section of the website.)