耿石總長﹑各位元老﹑各位顧問﹑樹燦主席﹑景新副主席﹑馬氏世表﹑謝氏世表﹑各位余風采堂的鄉親﹐各位同學及各位嘉賓﹕

多謝余風采堂給我這個機會﹐在這個獎學金頒獎典禮講幾句說話。我首先要多謝余風采堂及五堂會頒發獎學金給我及各位領獎同學。還要多謝健揚叔及他的家人設立的獎學基金。

多謝我的父母(爹di媽咪) 和家姐的關懷照顧及教育。如果沒有他們就不會有今天的我。我父母這麼多年來的盡力教導和培養﹐確實是十分困難。我在高中讀書﹐我的父母除了做工﹐還要化時間教導我。我媽媽還參加許多學校家長會的活動﹐給予我許多的支持。做人父母真是一件不容易的事。相信每位同學的父母都像我父母一樣關心同愛護我們。我代表所有學生多謝我們所有的父母和家人。

這麼多年來余風采堂舉行這個獎學金頒獎典禮﹐除了獎勵我們讀書讀得好﹐還是為了讓我們知道﹐努力讀書是多麼重要。我在這裡要代表所有的領獎的學生多謝余風采堂的支持與鼓勵。除了獎勵成積好的同學以外﹐余風采堂還獎勵上中文學校的同學。我們在美國生活要融合美國的文化﹐不過我們還需要保持中國的文化與語言。

我認同學中文是很重要。我从小就在家里学广东话。然后我父母让我去幼稚园。当时我只有四岁，可是我得到不小的知识。最重要是我学会讲一些国语。我五岁开始正式上学。那时候因为我不懂英文，我需要上一课叫“ESL ” 学会听说英文。我只讀了一年ESL，因为学校的环境﹐我很快就学会说英文了。加上电视的影响，我讲越来越多英文，说越来越少中文。在家，我跟我姐姐用英文谈话，不用中文了。所以我的中文就越來越差。于是我的父母天天都责备我，一定要我讲中文。当时我觉得很不公平，可是现在我很感谢他们帮我保存中国的文化。我父母规定我在家里一定要说中文。我父母还让我们一起看中文电影和香港连续剧。看中文电视﹐除了帮我学中文以外﹐还让我学到很多中国的传统。加上我對中文音樂的興趣﹐我才可以慢慢地再學會我所忘記的中文。雖然我沒有上過中文學校﹐我從九年級開始在高中上了四年中文課。學中文很難﹐但是我還覺得學中文很有意思。我上個月去香港﹐發現我所學的中文真的用得著。如果有機會﹐我希望在大學可以繼續學習中文。我也希望在下所有學中文的同學繼續努力學習中文。

現在，我將用英語中繼續。我們今天在這裡是因為我們拿到的好成勣，但是我們也應該記住成勣不是一切。除了成勣，讀書是為了學會知識和保全這些知識。不只是為了考一個考試﹐過關就算。保全我們在學校學到的所有是很重要。我們在這裡是因為余風采堂想為我們的好的成勣獎勵我們，鼓勵我們未來做得更好。做得越來越好是我們的目的。一路進步的成勣對申請大學有好大的好處。你們可能很快就要面對整個申請大學的過程。不要好像我。在我的高中頭兩年，我的成勣非常好﹐可是我第三年的成勣就差很多。我所申請的大學可能對我的退步不滿意。因此﹐嘗試不斷地進步。讀書主要是要做好四件事情：在課注意留心，做好的筆記，做作業和復習。當然，我都是不能夠四件事都做到最好，但是重要是要盡全力做所有這些事情。我們想學術上透過在課注意，做筆記，做作業，和復習做得好，但是我們也需要做其他的事情。我們需要參加課外的活動，運動，見朋友，學會彈鋼琴﹐去看電影，最重要的是睡。這些事情全部都對我們很重要。為了能做到這些事情，控制時間是最重要的。我們需要控制時間和計劃一切讓我們可以又復習又看電視，但是不是同時做。安排和控制時間是這麼容易做得到。我知道因為我自己都有這些困難﹐所以我高三的成勣差了那麼多。我也嚴重決乏睡眠。太理想的安排和拖延把我的生活搞砸，所以我看見了太陽上升太多次了。每天只睡眠三四個 小時是不夠的。溫暖的教室輕易地使我入睡﹐即使那堂課是非常有趣的。我知道在火車上做數學作業是沒有用的即使你完成它都不幫助你。因此，掌握時間是我們大家需要在我們的教育的過程中學習的一種緊要的技術因為時間是一切。講起時間，我都不想浪費大家的時間了。謝謝大家。

Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Yee Fung Toy Association for giving me this chance here to represent all the students to say a few words. First, I need to thank the Yee Fung Toy Association and the Wu Tong Association for awarding us with these scholarships. Also, I need to thank Jian Yang and his family for creating the Jian Yang scholarship fund.

Many thanks to my parents and sister for their loving care and education. If it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t be here today. For so many years, my parents have tried their best to teach and cultivate me, which is a very difficult task. During my high school years, my parents have had to spend time teaching me in addition to their work. My mom also participated in many school parents’ association events to give me a lot of support. Being parents really isn’t an easy undertaking. I believe that the parents of all the students here are just as caring and loving as mine. I represent all of the students in sincerely thanking all of our parents and family members.

For all these years, in addition to acknowledging our good academic performance, the Yee Fung Toy Association has held this Scholarship Awards Ceremony to let us know how important it is to study hard. Here, I must represent all of my fellow students in thanking the Yee Fung Toy Association for all of its support and encouragement. Besides acknowledging students with good grades, the Yee Fung Toy Association also recognizes all the students who attend Chinese school. Living in the United States, we need to assimilate into American society. However, we still need to preserve our Chinese culture and language. I agree that learning Chinese is very important. I learned Cantonese at home since birth. Then, my parents let me to go a preschool. Even though I was only four, I still learned a lot. Most importantly, I learned how to speak a little Mandarin. When I was five, I started going to school. At the time I did not know any English, so I had to take a class called ESL to learn how to speak English. I only took a year of ESL. Because of the school’s environment, I was able to learn English very quickly. As a result of television’s influence, I spoke more and more English and less and less Chinese. At home, I only talked to my sister in English, not Chinese. Therefore, my Chinese got worse and worse. Thus, my parents scolded me everyday and forced me to speak in Chinese. At the time, I thought it was very unfair, but now I am very grateful that they helped me preserve my Chinese culture. My parents made speaking Chinese mandatory at home. My parents also let us watch Chinese movies and Hong Kong TVB television series together. Besides helping me learn Chinese, Chinese television has also taught me a lot about China’s traditional culture. Also my interest in Chinese music also helped me slowly relearn the Chinese that I had lost. Even though I have never gone to Chinese school, I took four years of Chinese class in beginning in the ninth grade. Learning Chinese is very hard, but I still feel that it is very meaningful. During my trip to Hong Kong last month, I discovered that the Chinese I learned is really useful. If I get the opportunity, I hope to continue studying Chinese in college. I also hope that all the students here can also continue studying Chinese.

Now, I will continue in English. We are here today because we did well in school academically, meaning our grades were good, but we should also remember that grades are not everything. In addition to grades, school is also about learning and keeping what we learn. It is not just about learning something long enough to take a test. It is important to retain all the academic and non-academic knowledge that we learn in school. That being said, we are here because the Yee Fung Toy  Association wants to reward us for our good grades and to encourage us to do even better in the future. Doing progressively better in school is what we want. It is always good to do better and better; increasingly higher grades are much more preferable in the college application process, which some of you will be facing soon. Don’t do what I did. During my junior year of high school, my grades fell after two years of stellar grades. The colleges probably frowned upon my lower grades in my most important year. So try hard to get higher grades and not let it drop. Doing well in school mainly depends on doing four things well: pay attention in class, take good notes, do homework and study. Of course, I could not always do all four to the best of my potential, but it is important to try our best to do all these things. We want to do well academically by paying attention in class, taking notes, doing homework and studying, but we also need to do other things in our lives. We need to participate in extracurricular activities, play sports, hangout with friends, read, learn to play the piano, go to the movies and most importantly sleep. These things are all important to us. In order to be able to do all these things, time management is crucial. We need to prioritize, organize and plan out everything so we can study sufficiently for a test and watch TV too, but not at the same time. Scheduling our time is not as easily done as it is said. I know because it is something that I still have not mastered. I have had my own problems with time managing my work and activities. It led to my horrible drop in my grades in junior year and it led to severe sleep deprivation. Overoptimistic scheduling and procrastination messed up my life, so I have seen the sun rise more times than I wish. An average of 3-4 hours of sleep is really not enough to function normally. Warm classrooms easily put sleep deprived people to sleep, even if the class is very interesting. I have learned that doing math homework on the train is very ineffective and it just doesn’t help you even if you do finish it. Therefore, time management is a critical skill that we all need to learn in the course of our education because time is everything. And speaking of time, I do not want to take up any more of everyone’s time. Thank you very much everyone.