5月20日下午，在二号楼报告厅举行了2016年“周恩来奖”英语演讲比赛。高二、高三年级的全体同学到场观看。作为外文节的最后一个活动，没有炫目的舞台、耀眼的灯光、华丽的衣着，却足以让每个人期待。

八位参赛选手都是高三年级英语学习的佼佼者，他们分别是倪梓璇、高扬然、吕婷婷、徐伟钦、胡菡文、邵烨、陈朱晋和支业繁。在比赛开始之前，舞台两侧的大屏幕首先播放了各位选手的“亲友团”为他们加油的视频，这些祝福和鼓励的话语有些来自于身边，有些已是漂洋过海。

本次大赛的题目有两个：少即是多（less is more）、慢即是快（slow is quick），选手可以在两者间选择。做完命题演讲后，评委会问选手两个问题，要求即兴回答。

寥寥数词的话题开启了一场精彩的思维交流。选手们对主题都有自己独特的见解，比如高扬然同学在他的演讲中提到的，那些要背课文的中午、想不出答案的晚自习，身在其中时总觉得这日子过得太慢，转眼，六年已在身后。站在演讲台前回望，才明白这就是急急流年。

而陈朱晋同学的理解又不同了，她先跟大家分享了她学车的经历，她一心一意想在暑假前考出驾照，于是勤奋练车，不惜牺牲自己的午睡时间，却突然得知考试日期推迟。在她感到不甘之际，一个朋友的短信让她突然明白了一些什么：如果这是一件值得做的事，那便不用计较在其中要花上多长时间，或许这段等待与磨砺的时间会比你所料想的长，但它能让你最快明白到底什么才是对你而言最珍贵的。

徐伟钦同学从社会发展进程的角度考虑这个问题，他以城市化为例，过快的变化速度，不仅让我们在生理上要忍受工业废气、汽车尾气等污染，也在心里体会到了前所未有的压抑与孤独。他问道：为什么不在开始之前做更充分的调查与准备呢？为什么我们不可以迈出慢一些却更稳健的步伐呢？是不是这样我们反倒能更早达到最初的理想呢？

抛出疑问的还有吕婷婷同学。她的语气温和却不失坚定。她对那些被灌输进我们脑海的价值提出质疑，她希望在一个词背后看到依据和实实在在的支撑，而不是被滥用的情怀，比如“自由”与“民主”。这些想法与思考与执着，让她困顿，她想起《美丽新世界》里只用遵守却不用思考的快乐，问道：是不是想得少一点，就可以更快乐些呢？她的未落下的语调里，同学们凝视的目光里，藏着开始被追寻的答案。

吕婷婷同学提出的“我们难道要依循他人价值观做出选择吗”，邵烨同学恰好在演讲中阐述了他的看法：在当今这个金融、科技行业火爆的大环境下，我们应当专注于自己擅长且喜爱的，尤其在他人看来是棘手的工作；坚持专一的、批判性的创新，相比于那些过度追求多元化的裹进大潮流里的发展，往往能有更高的成就。

但对很多人来说，目前都还无法确定自己要从事的行业，倪梓璇同学在被评委问及“你将来想做什么”时，她笑道：多潜能者（multi-potentialist）。胡菡文同学一层一层剥开成见、标签与习惯，告诉大家：少一些定义自己，你会看到更多的可能性展现在你的面前。

作为八位演讲者中唯一的一位高考生，支业繁同学从数学卷子中抬起头来，说起了与我们最贴近的例子，现在我们的校园变小了些，一处的声音很容易成为另一处的噪音，所以要注意降低我们的音量，给他人留出更大的空间。别对周围的事物漠不关心，这并不能让人独善其身。最简单本真的冲动与关怀，才让我们拥有归属感，那是一种让我们在离开杭外后，还会想着回来的力量。

精辟的言辞带给我们思想上的撞击，高二同学的歌曲（中场表演）和高三同学的舞蹈带给我们欢乐与激情。这个舞台给予我们展示的机会，也给予我们被启发与被感动的机会。

演讲比赛结束，根据选手的笔试和这次演讲的成绩，最终胡菡文同学和邵烨同学分别获得女生组和男生组的第一名，递到他们手中的是一个沉甸甸的礼物，打开来发现上面印刻着自1996年来各届参加周恩来英语演讲比赛的学长学姐的名字，还有，崭新的，他们的名字。没有其他更多的话语，却深深地传达了杭外的温情、老师的用心，就像倪梓璇同学在演讲中说的那样：有时候更少的话语，蕴含着更大的力量。杭外以她的方式铭记我们，我们也会以我们的方式，永远想念她。

（高三大预班 报道）

参赛选手一览：

女生组第一名 胡菡文

男生组第一名 邵烨

第一名获得者演讲稿：

胡菡文

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. In an afternoon just like this but without the speech contest, I always open up an app called Zhihu to kill my time, browsing questions from why people support Donald Trump to what it is like to be an UN peacekeeper. And one day I saw a question on my Zhihu front page: what is it like to date a girl who likes literature? Surprisingly, It is an entremely popular question with more than 100 answers, and I started to read them. I learned from the answers that "girls who like literature" is a very specie that is not only idealistic but also very aloof. They have long hairs, melancholy eyes, and enjoy reading Pride and Prejudice under the moonlight. Therefore, they conclude, your time with her will always be spent on exchanging poems, going to museums, and discussing Grabiel Marquez after dinner.

Yet these descriptions remind me not of anybody around me who fits the definition of the question, but of a horribly-written romance fictions featuring a stereotypical "literature girl". And under this question, these stereotypes are not only imposed by others, but also these girls themselves. I wonder why should a person's behaviors be deduced from this simple, and probably temorary definition? While fictional characters have fixed settings of personalities and roles, you, and the people around you do not. No author is here to define you-define how you should behave, what role you should play in your story. You are that author. I don't believe there are inherently "outgoing" or "shy" people, nor do I believe there are students who are born to like or hate math. Even if you do profess certain personalities and inclinations, they are by no means definitive. We say somebody is shy because they were previously not open to others. We say somebody is a science nerd because they previously did many science-related activities. Personalities and inclinations are nothing but the culmulation and conclusion of a person's previous behaviors, and is a convenient way for others to predict your future. However, why should you comply to the stereotypes imposed by others?

Just take ourselves for example. After staying at HFLS for so many years, it is inevitable that we add many perceptions on ourselves and our classmates. There are people who we naturally look to when we need directors for the Drama Night. There are students who are always expected to participate in 3000-meter-running when the Sports Meeting is looming. Why is that so? Because they once did that, they have always done that, and probably it is only their role, their responsibility. For others, it is easy to conclude that "I am not one of them" and decide that certain opportunities in school is "not my business".

Today, I want to tell you that you don't have to think that way. You don't have to be confined by your past legacies called personalities and inclinations. If you are always known be a science nerd who loves tubes and formulas but part of your heart also happens to be attracted by literature, it is perfectly OK for you to start reading a poem tomorrow. If you always plays the role of a loyal audience during large events in campus, it is also perfectly OK for you to ask for a leadership position the next time if you want. Let others be shocked. Let others be amazed. And let others reexamine who you are. Then you become a human being with infinite possibilities. You become someone why defies definition.

People say that a world with social mobility is a hopeful world, because you are less restricted by the birth lottery, and you never know which socio-economic class you will finally end up in. And I want to say that individually, a life with personality and identity mobility is a much more interesting and rewarding life. Because the less you define yourself, the more possibilities you could see in the path in front of you.

So please forget whatever you think you are, and bravely chase these possibilities ahead.

邵烨

Good afternoon, distinguished judges and my fellow classmates. It’s my honor to here be with you to celebrate one of the finest traditions of our school.

We all have been told to identify and follow the big “trends”--College students stretch out to compete for lucrative jobs in tech and finance; investors trade their portfolios of securities and currencies according to largely identical macroeconomic speculations.

Although large scopes and big trends render a sense of security, I’m convinced that instead of following a mass of people for seemingly promising actions, lessening our tasks to concentrate on just a few unique ones we’re good at, is becoming increasingly crucial to leveraging scarce social resources for more breakthroughs.

Think about global economy. A century ago, the world was crazy at manipulating machines for iron and steel. Currently, we become obsessed with utilizing information technology for knowledge and value. For decades, people have rushed into the Silicon Valley and brought about huge progress in the world of bits; yet the world of energy still relies heavily on fossil fuels, and human hasn’t returned to moon since 1972. As venture capitalist Peter Thiel so concisely put it: “we wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters”. This is nothing funny. While people come into the tech world with their mobile apps and websites, almost 95% of them fail within years. Moreover, world economy experiences depressing slow-downs, which lead to tardy real income growth. 

You’ve probably heard of the Matthew Effect”the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer”. Staggering inequity in outcome is almost a natural rule--a dozen of largest tech companies worth all the rest combined, just as, in the natural world, 20% of peapods in a garden produce 80% of all fruits. The stark contrast exists because the world operates according to exponential function, the precious patents and ingenious products those entities possess grant them huge market power for sustainable profit, which is in turn invested to solid innovation, eventually resulting in exponential growth. We see a radically different picture in the contemporary Internet industry, people rush to create a mass of undifferentiated companies to “innovate” without real progress on technology, competing away all the profit, and contributing little to long run human productivity.

The majority of us here will begin career lives within a decade, you might ask “how could we ever escape the trap of current economic stagnation?” The answer is simple and hard, slow down to go quick, do less to create more. Most people have neither the resources nor the critical thinking to deviate from the mainstream myth in pursuing short-term gain, but you and I have both.

We can build up potential for transformative innovation, if we can slow down the pursuits of profit, to devote our efforts into the research and development of groundbreaking technology. Elon Musk forgoed control of a billion dollar Internet company to invest in the arduous task of developing recyclable rockets and strong battery, and so become the success of SpaceX and Tesla. Huawei had a rougher start than Legend Holdings, but strove to invent tens of thousands of technologies, and managed to keep a profit five-time of the latter.

We can make exponential output possible, if we can resist the temptation of over-diversification. Pick a meaningful issue you’ll be good with, especially if others deem it as too difficult to settle. By leveraging persistence, critical observation and steady innovative progress, we might be creating endeavors as worthy as all the scattered hustle-and-bustles your overly versatile peers are doing combined. The power of steady and focused endeavor is never limited to tech. Just as ancient Greek philosopher Plato believes, intensive efforts to induce the simplest form of valuable objects is the sole way to truth for every social and technological works.

Thank you.