WQ：哈佛、耶鲁本科新生录取
      家长都希望我能帮助他们的孩子们写出光彩夺目的短文，进入哈佛，创造奇迹。WQ就是其中一例。WQ是深圳外国语的学生，最大的特点是在深圳电视台当过少儿节目的主持人。我对她最大的贡献就是通过面对面沟通帮助整合并决定了素材。当时她爸爸写了她所有的重大成就，就是列举了作为主持人她采访了哪些名人。 我看了一下，有腾讯公司总裁、香港特首，都是大人物，但是我没有看出来这些采访怎样成为她的essays 素材。幸好我问了一下，为什么要采访妇联主席。WQ回答说，妇联主席当时把他们召去说，你们是深圳的学生，条件好，但是我国有2000多万留守儿童，他们得到的关怀少，你们能否去采访一下？深圳电视台的记者，包括WQ，就去了甘肃。
      她原来以为这些孩子生活困苦，没有希望，但是去了之后发现，虽然他们条件是差，但是跟城市里的孩子们一样，也有理想，也是学习刻苦。他们其实比大城市的孩子更代表我国的将来。她写的中文稿里面有很生动的细节描述，第一次展现出不被了解和关注的人群的精神风貌。我国申请者总是迫不及待的表现出自己的能力和善良。WQ的叙述没有刻意表现自己，她完全在描述别人。但是这样的描述传达出了她的视野，她对弱势群体的关怀思考。在中国申请者中难能可贵。
      WQ被耶鲁录取的时候只有1980的SAT，这是因为她的素材太独特了。哈佛大学面试的时候直接就问，我们录取你的话，你能否放弃耶鲁？最终她放弃耶鲁，走入哈佛。虽然我们对走入哪所学校有不同观点，但这个时候不再展开讨论。

这就是希望

The most remarkable thing about myself is that I have been exposed to and involved in the most pressing issues regarding Chinese young people. 作为央视少儿频道的主持人，我采访了全国妇联主席顾秀莲，而采访稿的核心内容留守儿童让我baffled。我慢慢了解到留守儿童是指“因为父母双方或一方长期在外地打工而没有办法回家，一般同爷爷奶奶或者同单亲住，甚至自己住的孩子被称为留守儿童。这些孩子们大都分布在甘肃和四川。”中国存在着2000万的留守儿童，而当我问及父母师友他们也对“留守儿童”也知之甚少。在《世纪之痛》这个报告文学中，留守儿童是一群没有希望的孩子，他们造成了这个社会９０％以上的青少年犯罪案件，涉及毒品、性交易、盗窃、杀人等，当然还有抑郁和自杀。面对这样的报道，我想了解留守儿童的是不是真的是这样，我们应该如何去帮助他们。
      摄制组来到了甘肃省的方坡小学。为了更深入地了解留守儿童的生活，我以体验生活的方式住到当地一名留守儿童董旺霞家里。而一个令我惊诧的世界就此在我眼前展现。
      这是一群学业优秀，渴求知识的孩子。第二天早上，旺霞和我步行走向学校，还没到，我就听到校园里传来的琅琅读书声，二百个孩子读书声音之响亮，我头一次见识。孩子们坐在教室前的水泥台阶上大声地朗读，没有老师的监督，孩子们都是自发早来晨读的，甚至还有朗诵数学的。这里的孩子家住的一般离学校很远，有的甚至要走两三个小时的山路才到学校，可以想见他们一定是天还没亮的时候就出家门了。
孩子们以积极努力的态度坦然面对生活的负担和贫困。父母不在，孩子们做很多活计。旺霞要喂猪，下地，还有家务。一次，我和旺霞一起到地里跟她放玉米苗，机械重复的一项工作，我才蹲着一个小时，腰就受不了了，好疼，也有点厌倦了。而旺霞动作娴熟敏捷干了好几个小时。这里的孩子身上是沾满泥土的布衣，头上是辛勤的汗水，手上布满粗糙伤痕，没有父母的呵护，而这一切并未使他们放任与沉沦。相反他们辛勤劳作，刻苦学习。
      同样，她们是一群快乐的孩子，因为这里的孩子懂得珍惜生活中每一个美好的事情。每天旺霞干完活会带我爬上山顶观赏黄土高原的壮丽，带我到池塘边抓蝌蚪，她脸上洋溢着笑容，没有一丝痛苦与嫌怨。而我的到来更是给她带来了无比的欢欣，比如她穿上了原本打算过年的时候穿的一条崭新的裤子，这是一种礼貌的表达也是一种形式的庆祝。而我带来的一根长跳绳能让他们和我玩儿的很开心。
      这里的孩子们没有见到过外面的世界但是他们有梦想。在一个已梦想为题的班会上听到了这里的孩子美好的梦想。我先说的我的梦想。“我的梦想是要一步步实现的。先是去一所很喜欢的美国大学念书，然后做一名主持人，还要经常回来看你们。”旺霞的梦想是考上一所理想的大学，陈英的梦想是考上大学，然后改变家乡全面貌。陈涛的梦想是当老师，因为那样就可以教更多的孩子学知识。接下来我让孩子们在黑板上写下自己的梦想，满满一黑板的梦想，沉甸甸的。理想的职业有医生、军人、司机、服务员、新闻主持人。他们的梦想无论远大还是朴实似乎都联系着一个主题—改变—他们期望自己的生活会变好，自己的家乡会变好，自己长大后至少能成为一个为自己父母做点什么的人。
      看到这里孩子的情况我树立了信心，留守儿童不像别人说的那样，他们是中国青少年中很大的一部分，他们的未来，而不是深圳青少年的未来决定了我们民族的未来。我决定做些什么使他们的生活更丰富快乐，哪怕是短暂的。于是我给他们上了一节英语课，因为他们没有英语老师，都是靠自学。孩子们送我亲手制作的手工和亲笔信作为纪念，用橘子外面的塑料包装纸包起信纸；写好的信上有孩子用不同颜色的笔，运用修改符号修改过的痕迹充分显示了他们的真诚和对美好的眷恋。
      同时，我想把这些面对生活积极向上的留守儿童们通过电视传媒的手段，介绍给全国的观众，同时也介绍给其他的留守儿童，让他们找到“生命共同体”，让他们不再感到孤单，让他们产生归属感，让他们发现自己痛苦的经验不是孤立的而是很多孩子共同的经验，让他们的喜悦和痛苦可以与别人分享。
      我知道电视节目播出以后来自全国的帮助将要展开，但是我自己的任务并没有结束，我的确想为这些孩子办点实事。于是我开始宣传这些留守儿童的生活现状，在在班级里贴出了留守儿童的照片，并为他们募集资金。从这些留守儿童的身上，我看到了很多优秀的品质。这次拍出来的专题片叫《守望天空》，而我更想题目里能再多透出一点“希望”，因为这些孩子是祖国和家乡明天的希望，从这些留守儿童身上，我看到了中国人的希望。
      而我更想利用传媒做更多有意义的事情，在日渐浮躁、肤浅的商业电视行业里，我想做一个能为中国的文化实实在在做些事的主持人，我想通过自己的节目让更多的中国人，包括世界知道，我们这个民族无论任何时期经历怎样的社会变革与发展，遇到怎样的社会问题，都会有人站出来关注问题并帮助解决，在留守儿童的问题上是这样，在对待其他的问题上也一样。
      同样，留守儿童这次经历也教会我学会关注，学会关心，关注社会，关心他人，而不是以一种冷漠而优越态度旁观社会问题。虽然我这个年龄不敢说对博爱有怎样的理解，但这次经历让我理解爱的宽泛内涵，只有有爱的人才有可能为这个社会乃至全人类做出真正意义上的贡献，成为真正有“爱”的知识分子。否则，再高超的科技信息技术，也很难挽救人心的麻木和冷漠。

This Is Hope

I have a unique perspective on th_e most pressing issues regarding Chinese youth. As a teenage MC for the children’s channel on CCTV, I once interviewed the Chairperson of the All-China Federation of Women, Ms. Gu Xiulian, who suggested that I　inform the public of the plight of rural children left behind by parents who migrate for work. I have since been in a position to observe and help address the dire situation of "left-behind children ". This issue was new to me so I asked around, but hardly anyone, including my teachers and parents, knew much about this issue and neither did they seem to care. After an investigation, I learned that these children are left at home with their grandparents or relatives or even all alone. The number of such children in China, 20,000,000, is shocking, and most are in Gansu and Sichuan Provinces. 
In most people’s eyes these children are hopeless. The general public views them as more likely to  be involved in crime, the sex trade, drugs, thefts, killings and other such societal problems. In spite of such prejudice, I wanted to understand the real situation of these tens of millions of my fellow citizens.
So, I convinced the director of our program to film an episode at FangPo Primary School in Gansu Province, because most of the students in this school are “left-behind” children. To better understand their lives, I lived with a student named Dong Wangxia. 
Most of these children thirst for knowledge. On the first day Wangxia and I walked to school, long before we arrived at her school we heard the loud sound of reading. It was the first time I ever saw two hundred children reading together. They sat on the steps in front of the classroom reading Chinese, English even Math loudly, not supervised by their teachers. Wangxia told me that they volunteered to come early every morning to read, and many of her classmates’ homes were far from school, so they had to start before dawn and walk two or three hours down the treacherous mountain roads to school.
These children confront poverty with positive attitudes. With their parents missing they are left with lots of work around the farm. Wangxia must feed pigs, go to the fields and do house work. Once I went with Wangxia to the field to plant corn sprouts. It was rather repetitive and tiring work and it made my back ache after just one hour. Wangxia, however, was skilled and could lay them for hours with no breaks. Children here work in shabby shoes in the mud, drenched in sweat as they work, their coarse hands covered with scars, yet they do not lose themselves in all these burdens. On the contrary, they work and study harder.
After work, Wangxia would accompany me to the top of the mountain to appreciate the marvelous view of the Loess Plateau or lead me to a pond to catch tadpoles. Nor did Wangxia take us for granted, she even put on her only pair of nice trousers, usually reserved for Chinese New Year, to welcome us. 
We held a class meeting to ask students about their dreams. Wangxia’s hope is to be enrolled by her dream university, and Chen Ying’s is to go to university and come back to change her hometown while Chen Tao’s is to become a teacher to help more children get access to education. They dreamt of careers as doctors, soldiers, drivers etc… Whether ambitious or practical, their dreams had one constant theme—change. They expected to change their lives, their hometown or at least their family situation.
The reality about these “left-behind” children impressed me. Most are good kids and they, not just the children in Beijing and Shanghai, are the future of our nation. I gave an English lesson to them, because they do not have an English teacher and have had to teach themselves this foreign language. 
   The entire trip was filmed by CCTV (China Central Television) and was made into a feature program called “Watching the soul of latchkey kids”. It was recently broadcast by NHK (the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation) and was scheduled to air by ABC.  These media institutions were so inspired that they planned to further report on these children next year. I hope my program helped them to feel less alone, because they know their experiences are shared by millions of other “left-behind” children. 
   My interest did not come to an end after the filming. I wanted to raise funds for FangPo primary school. I put the pictures of my trip and the life of these children up in my high school and gave speeches about what I saw to any and everybody who would listen. My classmates and I put together around 60 thousand RMB, enough to build a computer center with dozens of computers for the students at Fang Po. 
   This trip inspired me. I realized that one can take advantage of the media to do meaningful things and contribute to the development of Chinese culture and society. My program will help the world understand how this nation is changing and how social problems must be confronted. I dare not say I understand the universal love of humanity, but this experience helped me understand the broader meaning of the word “love”. I want to become an intellectual with love. Without universal love, the most advanced scientific technology will not save mankind from the consequences of the callous and indifferent attitude towards our fellow human beings.