by Chair of Board Directors LIU, Jing Sept. 9, 2012

Honorable guests, teachers, students, and parents,

Thank you for the opportunity allowing me to share my thoughts at this historic moment. I was told I need to get my speech ready way ahead of time…practice, practice and practice…but I have been struggling very much about what to say. I felt I had many thoughts to share with you, then minutes later I felt speechless. I just realized I really shouldn’t speak as the Chair of the Board. Instead, I feel more natural speaking as a volunteer, and feel much more comfortable speaking as a parent of my two children who are the students of this school.

When I look at our audience, I see smiling faces, cheerful faces, and some serious faces…When I turn around, looking beyond the physical being of this great building, I see attentive faces of our students, caring faces of our teachers, and sweat on the faces of our volunteers. I see people everywhere!

To me, today’s celebration is more than about opening the new home of our Chinese School and Cultural Center, we are here to celebrate the meeting of people – the people with different looks, different personalities, different perspectives, and different ideas…And we come here to meet because we share a common goal for the well-being of our children, for the improvement of ourselves, and for the benefits of our community through learning the language and cultures, through discussing and debating ideas, and by sharing our life stories together and having funs…

To quote what Abraham Lincoln said 149 years ago, I see this school and center as “of the people, by the people, for the people”. For this belief, I hold nothing but my best wishes for our school and center, I hold nothing but my confidence in our school and center, I hold nothing but my love towards our school and center – because this school and center has already ironed a permanent mark on my life.

(Below is the Chinese translation of Liu Jing’s Speech.)

欢庆我们的相聚

现代中文学校董事长柳静 （2012年9月9日）

尊敬的各位来宾，老师们，学生们，和家长们：

在这个历史性的时刻,非常感谢有机会和大家分享我的感想。学校告诉我，我要把演讲稿提前准备好，练习，练习， 再练习。我觉得有千言万语要与大家分享，可转念之间，我又感到无从说起。忽然间我意识到今天我不应该以中文学校董事长的身份发言。我觉得以一名志愿者的身份讲话更自然，以一名中文学校学生家长的身份讲话更合适。

放眼望去出席今天庆祝会的各位来宾，老师，学生和家长，我看到了许多欢快的笑脸，也看到了一些严肃的面孔。当我回头凝视我们的这个大楼，我看到的是我们认真学习的学生，我们关怀慈爱的老师，和我们脸上流着汗水的志愿者。我看到的是朝气蓬勃的人们！

对我来说，今天的开幕式不仅仅是欢庆我们的中文学校和文化中心有了一个自己的新家园，我们在这里庆祝的是我们的相聚。尽管我们会有不同的长相，不同的性格，不同的观念，不同的想法。但我们还是来到这里相聚。 这是因为我们都有个共同的目标，那就是通过学习语言和文化，通过讨论和辩论我们的想法，通过分享我们生活的故事和乐趣， 来为我们后代的前途造福，来不断提高自己，来为我们的社区做贡献。

在此引用亚伯拉罕·林肯149年前讲的话，我深信我们的学校和文化中心是“取之于民，管之于民，用之于民”。基于这个理念，我衷心祝福我们的学校和文化中心，我对我们的学校和文化中心充满信心，我诚挚地热爱我们的学校和文化中心 –  因为这所学校和文化中心已经在我的生活中熨上了永久的印记。

感谢大家给我发言的荣誉。