衞周安教务长2020届本科生毕业典礼致辞全文（中英）

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上海纽约大学2020届本科生毕业典礼致辞

教务长| 衞周安

Chancellor Yu! President Hamilton! Vice Chancellor Lehman! Friends! Colleagues! Parents! Ladies and Gentlemen! Salute with me our students of the Class of 2020! Dear students, on behalf of the whole NYU Shanghai community, from the bottom of my heart I offer you congratulations upon your graduation.

俞校长、Hamilton校长、雷蒙校长、朋友们、同事们、毕业生家长们、先生们、女士们，请和我一起恭喜2020届的毕业生们！各位毕业生，我谨代表上海纽约大学全体成员，对你们的毕业致以最衷心的祝贺！

NYU Shanghai, like its parent institution, NYU, is a university in and of the city and in and of the world. It is a university a major part of whose mission is to develop its students to be globally minded citizens equipped with the special multicultural competence, adaptability, and empathy that we believe define the leaders of the twenty-first century. It is an institution founded on the great hope of contributing to the creation of a better world. And it is all those things at a time when pundits and commentators have been vying with one another to declare an end to globalization as a result of the global pandemic that has upended all of our lives over the past months, and, with that, contributing to a spread of, if not despair, then the end of hope for a better world.

上海纽约大学和纽约大学一样，立足城市、服务城市的同时，扎根于世界、服务于全球。学校的使命之一是将学生培养成具有国际视野、独特的多元文化胜任力、适应性和同情心的世界公民。我们相信这些特质是21世纪的领导者所需要具备的。学校一直怀着饱满的希望，为创造一个更美好的世界矢志不渝。而与此同时，在过去几个月里，疫情颠覆了我们的生活，权威学者和评论家们都在争相宣布全球化的终结；这样的状态进一步让人们怀疑明天更加美好的希望是否存在，甚至可以说，助长了绝望情绪的蔓延。

What does this mean, and what does it mean for you, NYU Shanghai graduates of the Class of 2020?

这一切意味着什么，以及这一切对即将毕业的你们意味着什么？

During this time of coronavirus, we have been exiled from all that is familiar and comfortable. Many of us have found ourselves living in unexpected places and unexpected circumstances. We have had to develop new notions of time and space, perhaps unexpectedly spending long periods of time in a childhood home not well adapted to the purpose, perhaps either in too close quarters with families and friends, or separated indefinitely from our loved ones and those we normally spend time with; perhaps unable to travel even short distances; and for some, compelled to complete self-isolation in unfamiliar surroundings. We have had to learn that certainty itself is uncertain, as we constantly make and remake our plans; and to reorder our priorities, as what really matters to us also seems to be in constant flux. The present into which you are graduating is different from the past, and the contours of the future into which you are stepping are more fluid than you might have anticipated. Is this unprecedented, or are there guidelines on which you can draw as you begin the next phase of your lives?

在这个冠状病毒肆虐的时期，我们被放逐出了一切熟悉和舒适的地方。我们很多人发现自己生活在意想不到的地方和环境中。我们不得不对时间和空间形成新的概念，也许毫无计划地在已离开多年的家庭中度过了很长的时间，也许与家人和朋友住得太近，又或者与我们亲近的人无限期地分开；也许连短途旅行都无法进行；有些人不得不在陌生的环境中完成隔离。在我们不断地制定和调整计划的时候，我们不得不学习到确定性本身是不确定的；我们也不得不重新安排优先级，因为真正对我们重要的东西似乎也在不断地变化。你即将毕业的现在与过去不同，而你所踏入的未来的轮廓也比你预想的更不稳定。这一切是前所未有的，还是在你们开始人生的下一个阶段的时候，也有可以借鉴的准则？

To address these questions I turned to two great writers of the 20th century, Albert Camus, a Frenchman writing in the aftermath of World War II, and Lu Xun, the great Chinese writer of half a generation earlier, who articulated as no one else ever quite has a vision of China and the Chinese people. From these quite different vantage points, both wrote with penetrating insight about hope and despair in times of change.

带着这些问题，我向20世纪的两位伟大作家求索。一位是在二战后写作的法国人阿尔贝·加缪；另一位是比加缪更早一些的中国伟大作家鲁迅，他对中国和中国人的洞见是无人能及的。这两位作家，从截然不同的角度，深刻得写出了变革时代的希望与绝望。

Camus’ 1947 novel “The Plague” is in part an allegory of the German occupation of France and about resistance to evil in the world but it is also a story about how to make meaning of our lives and about the heroism of simple goodness. The author writes eloquently about life in the city of Oran locked down during an outbreak of plague. The residents of Oran experienced a separation that was so sudden that no one was prepared for it in any way. From one moment to the next, no one could leave the city, and although those outside the gates were allowed back, it quickly became clear that the danger was too great. Trains and ships stopped coming; letters could not be sent, for fear of spreading infection; telephone lines were swiftly overburdened, and zoom, of course, did not exist. Feelings of exile and loneliness were pervasive. Thinking about the past--time with loved ones, for example--was painful, while to think about the future was to tempt fate; there was nothing but the uncomfortable present. At first people clung to their personal preoccupations, with the sense that each one of them was isolated and was free to make individual decisions, but gradually they realized that none of them is free. They were all caught in the plague; their own individual concerns suddenly were superseded by something bigger. For some this led to despair, but for most others, it led to hope and to the creation of personal meaning through better understanding our common humanity. Camus shows that the meaning the plague created for the people of Oran was that they came to understand more clearly than before that to be human is to be connected, regardless of political or ideological difference, and that commitment to others is central to the human condition.

加缪于1947年出版的小说《鼠疫》，在一定程度上是关于德国占领法国的寓言，讲述了对世间邪恶的抵抗，但它同时也是一个关于如何创造生活的意义、从简单的善中萌生出英雄主义的故事。作者淋漓尽致地描绘出了奥兰市在鼠疫爆发后，整个城市在封城期间的生活。奥兰市的居民们经历了一场突如其来的离别，谁也没有做好任何事前准备。在顷刻之间，没有人能够离开城市，虽然城门外的人被允许返回，但很快就发现危险性太大。火车和轮船都停运了；因为担心传染病的传播，信件无法发送；电话线迅速不堪重负，而Zoom这样的视频软件，在当时是不存在的。流放和孤独的感觉无处不在。对过去的回顾是痛苦的，比如说与亲人在一起的日子，对未来的幻想也只是命运短暂的诱惑；除了令人不适的现在，大家一无所有。起初，人们固守着自己的私心，觉得每个人都是孤立的，可以自由地做出个人的决定。但渐渐地，他们意识到，没有一个人是自由的。他们都陷入了鼠疫，自己个人层面的忧虑突然被更大的东西所取代。对一些人来说，这导致了绝望；但对更大多数人来说，这产生了希望，因为他们得以通过更好地理解人性的共通之处而获得个人存在的意义。对他人的关心是人类生存的核心。加缪表明，鼠疫为奥兰市人创造的意义在于，他们比以往更清楚地认识到，人和人之间可以超越政治或意识形态而紧密相连。

Lu Xun is well known to many of you. His writings show a great tension between hope and despair about China, which in his time many people thought must abandon its past in order to embrace its future. Its people were very divided, socially, economically and politically. Lu Xun stressed the importance of the will to find meaning even in moments of acute uncertainty, and of collective action for the greater good. Even in times of darkness he never lost his belief that something beautiful can be found in life. Lu Xun wrote memorably about hope in his famous story “My Old Home”, in which he describes a visit to a home he had not visited for 20 years, and the simultaneous shattering of some long held memories and creation of a new sense of hope for a better future. This deeply felt experience makes him afraid and optimistic all at once, and he muses to himself “Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many pass one way, a road is made.”

大家对于鲁迅都很熟悉了。鲁迅的作品生动地展现了人们在对中国的希望和忧虑之间的一股巨大张力。在他的时代，很多人认为中国必须抛弃过去，才能拥抱未来。当时的中国人在社会上、经济上和政治上都是高度分裂的。鲁迅强调，即使在高度不确定的时刻，人对探求生命意义的信念仍然极为重要，人要为更高的善而采取集体行动。即使在至暗时刻，他也从未失去对生活中存在美好事物的信念。鲁迅在其著名小说《故乡》中，对希望的描写令人记忆深刻。他在这篇小说中描述了自己对挥别20余年的故乡的一次探访，在他童年记忆中那些美好部分被打破的同时，也产生了对未来的新的希望。这种深刻的体验让他的忧愁和乐观并存，他对自己喃喃自语：“希望是本无所谓有，无所谓无的。这正如地上的路；其实地上本没有路，走的人多了，也便成了路”。

Class of 2020, in all that you have done at NYU Shanghai over the past four years, and in all you have experienced this past semester, you have suffered difficulty and experienced joy, you have gained knowledge and developed skills, you have accumulated unbreakable human connections and deepened your moral and emotional maturity. As you step forward together into the next phase of your lives you will be forging a new path together. That itself is cause for hope, for you yourselves and for the contributions that you will make to the future and to a better world. May those hopes be richly fulfilled for you all!

2020届的同学们，在上海纽约大学过去的四年学习生活里，尤其是在过去的这一学期里，你们经历了许许多多。你们遇到过困难、也经历过快乐，你们收获了知识、培养了技能，你们积累了牢不可破的友谊、加深了道德和情感的成熟。当你们一起迈进人生的下一个阶段，你们将共同铸就一条新的人生之路。这本身就是希望之所在，对你们自己、以及对你们即将做出贡献的未来和一个更美好的世界。祝愿这些希望能够为你们所有人实现！

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