Graduation Congregation Address

Dear Graduates, Dear Guests of Honour：

Today is your day! For your day I have put on a quite expensive tie to make myself look decent. Normally the thing I hate most is wearing a tie. But today is different and special. It is your day. I want to celebrate your day!

I am getting old and tend to be forgetful from time to time. But my young colleague as well as my friend Yang Liu has reminded me that it is Autumn in Beijing.

Autumn may appear to you to be golden and beautiful. Can you guess what it strikes me

The first thing Autumn brings to my memory is the Chinese saying: 秋后算帐！

Now all of you have got what you wanted from the university and me. What have you given me in return: Money? Thanks? Appreciation? Chocolate?

I am not going to tell what you owed me. But I warn you, if you don't give me the thing I want, I'll take all you have learned back.

"Ah ah!" you would say: "It's impossible! It's all in my head here."

"Ah ah", here is reply: "It is precisely because it is in your head that I can take it back. If it were not in your head, and in your pocket instead, I would not be able to take it back, since you are much stronger than me!"

My weapon is as powerful and lethal as the nuclear bomb recently tested by North Korea.

It is: The Law of Erasibility. This law says: The English you have learned is not something you will own forever. No!! You will lose it as quickly as you fail to use it.

So, you see, if you don't give me something, I'll empower this law and take what you have learned back!

However, if you want to keep it, today is not an end, but just a new beginning of another session of learning in your life career. So let's strike a deal: You keep using English and I won't take your English back!

Finally，Congratulations! And FREE!