Commencement Address for Northeastern University’s Class of 2013
在美国东北大学2013届毕业典礼上的演讲

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim
世界银行行长金墉

Boston, Massachusetts, United States
马萨诸塞州的波士顿，美国

President Joseph E. Aoun,

Distinguished faculty members and administrators,

Members of the Class of 2013,

Ladies and gentlemen

约瑟夫·E·奥恩校长，

尊敬的各位教职员工，

2013届毕业班的全体同学们，

女士们，先生们，

It’s a great privilege to be here today with all of you, especially the members of the Class of 2013 and your families and friends. You should be very proud. This is a day for memories, a day to savor. A day, also, to join in honoring those who two weeks ago responded so courageously in the face of tragedy—including Northeastern students and staff who provided critical care and support to victims of the attack.
今天在这里与在座的各位、特别是2013届毕业生以及你们的家人和朋友欢聚一堂，是一个莫大的荣幸。你们应该感到非常自豪，这是难以忘怀的一天，值得体味的一天，这一天我们也要对那些在两周前勇敢面对悲剧的人们、包括东北大学的学生和员工致敬，他们为爆炸受害者提供了重要的关爱和支持。

It’s an honor for me to stand before you today just at the moment when you are leaving this great University and about to step into your life, the script of which is yet to be written. Throughout my years in the academy, I’ve loved commencements because they embody those rare moments in our modern culture when ritual, tradition and a bit of pageantry brighten our lives.
此时此刻，我站在各位面前，正值你们即将离开这所伟大的学府，即将踏入你们的人生，人生脚本还是一张白纸之际，我深感荣幸。在我投身学术界的岁月里，我曾很喜欢毕业典礼，因为它代表着我们现代文化中那些罕见的时刻，当仪式、传统和一点点排场照亮了我们的人生。

But I’m sure many of you are more than a little concerned about what the future will bring, and I just want to say to you today that not only is your future uncertain, but the overwhelming likelihood is that it’s far more uncertain than you think. And you know what, that’s a good thing. A recent study by a group of psychologists in the journal Science found that people are extremely poor at predicting their futures. The study showed that, for example, a typical 20-year-old woman’s predictions for life changes in the next decade of her life were not nearly as radical as the typical 30-year-old woman’s recollection of how much she had changed in her 20s. In other words, 20-year-olds had little idea of just how much they would change over the next ten years. This sort of discrepancy persisted among respondents all the way into their 60s.
但是我敢肯定，你们中许多人对于未来将会带来什么很有点担心，我今天只是想对你们说，不仅仅是你们的未来不确定，而最大的可能性是，它远比你所想的更不确定。你们知道吗，这是一件好事。几位心理学家最近在《科学》杂志上发表了一篇研究论文，他们发现人极其不擅长预测自己的未来。他们的研究显示，例如，一个典型的20岁女性对自己未来十年人生变化的预测绝不像一个典型的30岁女性对自己在20来岁时有多大变化的回忆那么激进。换句话说，20岁的人对于自己在未来十年会有多大变化几乎没有概念。这种差异在受访者中一直延续到60多岁的人。

This study’s findings are essentially the story of my life. In fact, even before I was born, given the obstacles my parents faced, I would never have predicted that I would, in fact, be born. My father spent his childhood in North Korea and, at the age of 17, escaped across the border into South Korea, leaving his parents, his brothers and sisters, his entire extended family -- everything he had ever known – behind. He had no money. Still, he managed to enroll in the Seoul National University Dental School and became a dentist. He told me stories about how he had so little money he often could only afford to buy lunch from the illegal noodle vendors on the street. Once when he was eating his contraband pasta next to the vendor, police came and chased after the vendors and their customers. But while he ran, my father kept eating his noodles because he knew he wouldn’t be able to afford another bowl for some time.
这项研究结果基本上也是我的人生故事。事实上，即使在我出生之前，鉴于我的父母所面临的重重障碍，事实上我都不敢预测我还会出生。我的父亲在北朝鲜度过了他的童年，他在17岁那年偷越边境逃到韩国，离开他的父母、他的兄弟姐妹、他的所有亲朋好友，离开了他所熟悉的一切。他身无分文。但他还是设法进了首尔国立大学牙科学院，后来成为一名牙医。他告诉我，他口袋里只有一点点钱，常常只能买得起街上非法小摊贩卖的面条当午餐。有一次，他正在无照小摊旁边吃面，警察来了，警察赶走了小摊贩和他们的顾客。但我的父亲一边跑一边还在吃他的面，因为他知道他还得过一段时间才能再买得起一碗面。

My mother was born in China near Shanghai among a small community of Korean expatriates. After returning to Korea, on a day she will never forget, her mother -- my grandmother -- went outside to hang the laundry and never returned, probably either kidnapped or killed by North Korean soldiers. With the war closing in around her, at the age of 15, my mother became a refugee and literally walked, with her younger brother on her back, for 200 miles to escape the fighting. Luckily, she was able to resume her schooling in a tent in the southern city of Masan. She was a good student and with great luck she received a scholarship from a secret women’s society in the United States and was able to enroll as a freshman at Scarritt College in Nashville, Tennessee.
我的母亲出生在中国上海附近的一个韩国侨民居住的小社区。回到韩国后，有一天，她永远都不会忘记，她的母亲也就是我的外祖母出去晾衣服就再也没有回来，她可能是被北朝鲜士兵绑架或杀害了。随着战争的临近，我的母亲在15岁时成了难民，为了躲避战火，她背着她的小弟弟徒步走了200英里。幸运的是，她在南部马山市的一顶帐篷里得以继续学业。她是一个好学生，非常幸运地获得了美国一个秘密妇女学会提供的奖学金，进入田纳西州纳什维尔的斯卡里特学院。

Through almost unthinkably divergent and unlikely paths, my parents ended up meeting in New York City at a Christmas party that gathered together the few hundred Korean students who were living in the United States at that time. They fell in love, married in New York, where my older brother was born, then returned to Korea.
通过几乎是无法想象的完全不同和不可能的路径，我的父母最终在纽约市的一次圣诞聚会上邂逅相遇，那次圣诞聚会聚集了几百名当时居住在美国的韩国学生。他们坠入爱河，在纽约缔结良缘，生下我哥哥，然后回到韩国。

I was born in Seoul and when I was five, my family moved back to the United States and we eventually settled in Muscatine, Iowa. My father opened his dental practice, and my mother set to work on her PhD in philosophy at the University of Iowa. In the late 60’s, influenced by my mother’s passion for social justice, we watched the civil rights and anti-war movements unfold from our living room in Muscatine. We lived, as you can tell, the classic All-American, Korean family grows up in a small town in Iowa story. We fully embraced our lives in the heartland of this great country.
我出生在首尔，在我五岁时我的家人搬回到美国，我们最终定居在爱荷华州的马斯卡廷，我的父亲开了自己的牙科诊所，我的母亲在爱荷华大学研修博士学位。在上世纪60年代，受我母亲热衷于社会公正的影响，我们看到民权和反战运动从马斯卡廷我们家的客厅展开。你们可以想象，我们有着在爱荷华州一个小镇的经典的美籍韩国家庭中成长的经历，我们完全拥抱了在这个伟大国家中心地带的生活。