蔡董说。

      It was 6:40 in the morning. I got up, tucked myself into my uniform, sat on my bed for a while and slowly went to the bathroom, with my eyes still closed. There was no difference to me whether it was a Monday or Friday. I quickly washed my mouth and face. Having checked that my eyes were open and I could see my face clearly in the mirror, I then had a quick breakfast, normally simply a cup of milk. I would take my energy of the morning, a little bag of Nestle Milk, to the classroom if I woke up five minutes late. Fortunately, I lived in an apartment near my school so that it was only five minutes’ walk to the classroom. That meant during the twenty-four hours in the day I could have more sleep and what’s more important, more time to focus on my study. My parents rented an apartment near school while everyone else went to school by bus or by car. It was my graduating year of my high school.

      The morning reading session started at 7 o’clock. Everybody was required to read something loud in this class. We would read English on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and Tuesday and Thursday were Chinese Literature time. This seemed to be a perfect arrangement because we would not read something on the same subject every morning and we would not be bored. I sat in my usual seat, wondering would anybody feel happy for this. After the morning reading, there were other five classes in the morning and three classes in the afternoon. Every day was the same schedule unless that day was the doomsday. After all classes were over, students would have a quick supper and hopefully, do some sports as refreshment for the day. Then it was 7 o’clock again. Students would study and do their homework until 11 pm and went back home. I felt like every day was as long as a year. On the top of blackboard, there was always a simple slogan: National College Entrance Exam is only XXX days away. XXX varied from day to day. We folks, students and teachers and all the people in this society with concern to National College Entrance Exam, were really counting days. It’s not insane. It’s true in China’s graduating year of high school.

      Those days were like army life. In the third year when we were faced with entering a higher school, I felt we were suddenly thrown into the hell. Taking the National College Entrance Exam is the dominant way, if not the only way, to get accepted into colleges. This exam is held only once every year on June 7^th and 8^th. We were being trained for the whole junior year, which was the graduating year of China’s high school, to fight our life for National College Entrance Exam. This was all about a game of survival. Every year, ten million senior high school students would take this exam and only half of them would be accepted into college. It was a lot like thousands of people crossing the bridge and people unqualified would fall.

      The National College Entrance Exam is the only factor that determines whether or not higher education is a possibility. My high school, Xiamen Foreign Language School, is a key high school in the province, which means students have more chances to get enrolled in better universities. We did ton of practice tests in order to be trained to become better test takers. The reason why we did this was that the College Entrance Exam was so hard. This exam was designed to eliminate students who were not excellent enough to get into colleges, because so many students were competing to get into colleges while the capacity of colleges was still not big enough, although China’s number of college students was larger than any other country in the world. After every practice test, our scores were summed up and ranked, based on the score. This is also the way that almost all universities use when enrolling freshmen, summing up scores and ranking the scores. The rule is simple: everyone tries to score as high as possible in order not to fall off the bridge to college.

      Some friends of mine always ranked top ten among all junior students in my school. They were not only perfect test takers but also brilliant and smart. People would never know what the secret was that they could always keep their ranking above all the average students. And their answers to this question were pretty simple as if nothing was answered: Practice makes perfect. I don’t know how they could apply this saying into every day’s army life easily. I don’t even know what enormous persistence and discipline is required for us to just do well in the National College Entrance Exam in order to get enrolled into a college. I remember many nights after I came back to my little apartment from a long day I could do nothing but sleep. I remember another popular slogan: eat for College Entrance Exam, sleep for College Entrance Exam, and breathe for College Entrance Exam. I remember the whole class would sit in front of the desks with piles of books and bottles of water on the desk for the whole day and most of the days just passed slowly in this way. I remember several nights I suffered from insomnia simply because my ranking fell in the recent practice test and the pressure of the whole thing just would not let me sleep.

      You would probably ask why Chinese students are so crazy about going to colleges and they will sacrifice a year’s life preparing for the National College Entrance Exam. I would let my desk-mate, the buddy who sat next to me during the tough year, answer this question. He would lay down the mathematics paper he was working on and stare at me for seconds through his thick eyeglasses and say to me: “What is wrong with you today? Will you please stop wasting time thinking about this kind of stupid question? Because you are now in the army! Soldiers would not think about why they have to fight for a war. Do you copy?” My desk-mate was smart and a real man. He failed in last year’s College Entrance Exam and decided to spend another year in the “army” for a second College Entrance Exam. This decision would call for ton of courage, will power, perseverance and any other words that I could think of. The reason why he persists in pursuing college education is that in this society, with such a large population, higher education is the only way to make one economically stable or successful. China’s large population creates a situation of extremely fierce competition and fewer opportunities for people to succeed without a college education.

      The toughest time in my life ended on June 8^th, 2006. The exam took two days including tests on Chinese Literature, Mathematics, English and Science. For the two days, we prepared for one whole year. The headline of the local newspaper on that day was “Relief Day of Millions of Students.” We went back home just like soldiers went back home from war. We felt the stress of life was suddenly gone just like the armor in the air was gone after a war. A month later, the result of the exam was announced. Some people cried. Some people smiled. People cried because they did not do well enough to compete with others and because there was a ranking which determined that still half of the students would be rejected into higher education by this exam, or this society. Those who failed would have to suffer another year for a second National College Entrance Exam, which is only held once a year, or would give up college and just go to a low-pay job.

      Everything in that year became a shock when I came to America. Having found that college entrance exam in America—SAT—can be taken several times in a year, and that the college admission is not only based on the single SAT score, and that there are still other opportunities in society if one does not attend college, I was surprised at first. But later I found that life was still fair. I would not regret the graduating year that I spent with the support of my parents, teachers, and classmates to fight for the college entrance exam. That year was indeed tough. However, students who ended up with an admission to colleges, or not, still grew a lot through that year. I no longer made decisions simply based on whether I like it or not. I became stronger and more disciplined. My ability to overcome the troubles that the life has in store was developed. People who have served the army are physically stronger, and I believe I’m mentally stronger.

注：这是我在WRIT 103上WORKSHOP的文章。所谓WORKSHOP，就是把文章拿到课堂上让大家阅读和讨论。美国的一些学生也写了关于他们的教育的文章，他们写他们SAT考试如何困难，这种标准化的考试如何有弊端，大学招生应该废除标准化考试之类。我读他们写的东西有点苦笑的感觉。因为相比我的高三，中国的高考，他们的大学入学简直是小巫见大巫。但也有点理解，毕竟环境是不同的。除非跳出我们自身所处的环境看问题，否则我们看到的大多是自身环境的弊端。

我最初想表达的是，中国的高三就像在军队里一样痛苦，但不说高考带来的种种弊端，高三一年带来的好处就是中国学生知识基础会更加扎实，通过一年的训练，心智也会成长很多。而我也想让班里的美国学生体会一下中国的高三。在这两种动机作用之下，催生了我那篇workshop文章的诞生。遂在此发表。

美国人拥有比中国、印度等发展中国家的人民高的工资。他们说他们能保持这高工资，是因为，the US excels particularly in goods that require creativity and innovation. 美国的货物（比如美国车）有生产优势，意思就是同样的投入之下，美国有能力生产比别人更多的产出。他们有生产优势，但是却能保持他们国人相对其他国家的人更高的工资（不像中国很多的货物都是低密集型，有生产优势靠的是低廉的人力），原因是因为美国源源不断地开拓创新（innovation）。

比如说信息技术，Internet，生物科学，电影，艺术，广告，美国在这些方面都能保持innovation，这就是他们这些行业发达的原因。只要美国继续开拓创新，因为这些领域都需要不断地innovation，那么美国就有能力继续比其他的国家发达：保持在高工资的待遇之下，仍然有生产优势。

问题在于，在美国人看来，他们是能始终保持比别的国家发达的，体现在他们的工资能始终比发展中国家的工资高。而在中国、印度等发展中国家看来，我们觉得我们的工资水平总有一天能赶上美国的。现实是不公平的，美国人工作没有我们勤奋，但是工资比我们高、挣得比我们多。为什么？原因不是原来我想的那样。

我原来想的是，我们大部分是工人，他们大部分是资本家，这一资本主义的生产方式便决定了资本家始终剥削工人：工人被剥削了，体现在资本家没有工人工作勤奋，却挣得比工人多，仅仅因为他们拥有资本。但并不是说美国就是资本家角色，中国就是工人角色，所以美国人做的没我们多，而工资比我们高。美国人能过得比我们滋润的原因就归结于他们发达，他们在当今前沿的科学领域中都占领先地位。并且他们自己也说了，要继续保持开拓创新，才能保持他们的先进性。

而对于中国、印度这些现在就比较不发达的国家来说，如何能赶上美国的发达程度，如何才能让我们的国人工资和美国人相同？

感觉我们在进步，他们也在进步，那一起进步能让我们超过他们的方法就是我们进步的更快？这么想其实是不太对的。因为我们中国之所以在近代落后了，是因为西方工业革命的展开，而中国却始终闭关锁国，未能赶上这一革命。而我们现在已经开放了，起码经济上已经改革开放20年了，我们跟世界在一起进步了。单一的靠进步快是不能解决问题的，虽然我们经济发展超牛b貌似进步很快，但解决问题的办法在于未来的竞争。未来的竞争。就是科技。

比如说现在研究纳米技术。纳米科学可能是信息革命之后的又一次大革新。这一领域对世界来说是新的，大家都在同时研究。这是未来的竞争。未来谁能取得未来前沿科技领域的先进，谁就是未来的发达国家。因此我们虽然在当今的科学领域中落后，但前沿的东西我们不能落后，要好好把握住机会，在这些领域中也开拓创新，这样才能在未来的竞争当中占据优势。

可设想的是，20XX年的时候，纳米科技发展成熟，应用于生产当中。而中国由于在这一领域研究的领先，又原本就是生产过很多made_in_China的东西的制造大国，中国在纳米产品这方面无人能敌，于是中国人就过上了做的比美国人少，挣的比美国人多的滋润生活；生活滋润足够了，平时吃饱了撑了，就信个耶稣……

不单是纳米技术。还有生物科学，天文科学等各方面。科技是第一生产力。

遗憾的是我们的路还很长。

再想一想我们现今的许多无奈。更觉得路还很长。

前几天电脑突然坏了。

屏幕突然毫无反应，开机时还有BI–BIBI的报警声。我google了一下发现这报警声是跟显示模块有关系的，可能是显卡挂了。把电脑开关多次都不行，让历经大风大浪的我顿时也手足无措。于是只有马上联系了惠普。一开始发email给了惠普中国，跟他们详细叙述我的问题，还关切的问他们说我在中国买的电脑在美国能不能保。

发完给惠普中国后，觉得不靠谱。于是上惠普在US的网站，依旧发了封email，把我的问题用英语叙述一遍。

隔天到学校随便找了台电脑check我的email，惠普US很厚道，很早就给了我回复，而且给我提供了解决方案，说这问题可能是内存 可能是电源 可能是主板上面有东西烧坏。详细教我如何检查是内存、电源还是主板的问题，如果排除了内存，电源，那就是主板的问题只能送修。送修的解决办法是，他们会UPS一个箱子过来我这里，让我把电脑放里面寄到他们那边，修好后隔夜马上送过来。很遗憾，我的电脑属于要送修的范围。不过，看，多好的服务态度。

而在收到惠普US的回复的第二天，我也收到了惠普中国的回复。具体内容有两句话：1.很抱歉不能帮助到您，笔记本并没有关于报警声的硬件判断故障方法。2.根据您提供的信息，机器应该为家用机，保修为全球有限一年联保。