VICTOR CONTINUES:

　　At what stage is it good for a young Chinese to study abroad? My own view is that it's not necessarily best during secondary school. If you study abroad as a middle-school student, it's possible that in the future you won't be able to understand who you really are. If you're pretty centered, you might turn out great; if not, you might end up marginalized. If you go overseas to study once you're relatively mature -- after college, for example -- studying abroad will change your sense of connectedness to one particular culture: what you thought was right in the context of your old culture may not seem so right anymore. You'll learn that the world is a big place, and this will broaden your horizons, causing you to consider a lot of different perspectives as you do things; you won't be so rigid in your thinking.

　　Studying abroad can also help a person objectively discover his or her self-worth, and thus make certain adjustments to their "selves". Some things in the original culture may have seemed very valuable, but later, you realize, these things weren't really that precious after all. Say you founded a company that's made a bit of a name for itself in China; you might regard yourself as something of a VIP. But once you get to Harvard, you're nobody special. That's because so many of the people around you are even more accomplished. Or maybe, for example, the English that you prided yourself on back in China doesn't seem all that great anymore.

　　What's more, some things that didn't matter much to you before may all of a sudden seem very important. For example, I can cook -- no big deal, right? But someone else once commented, "Wow, you can cook!" He was impressed. I can give talks; my rhetorical skills are maybe a little better than those of other Chinese exchange students. And so they say, "Hey, there are Chinese who can address a conference in English." When you change environments, you discover that you have some "worth" that you never realized you had before.

　　David:

　　This makes me think of another point: when a person is studying abroad, that person is to some extent serving as a representative of his or her country. When I was at Beida, I felt almost as if I were functioning as an ambassador for America. If I did something well, I felt that the people around me would probably form a more positive impression of the United States. This implies a great responsibility. What you said at Harvard, the food you made -- things like that can create lasting impressions of China. Whether one likes it or not, there's just no escaping this kind of role. That's something that students from any country who are studying abroad ought to bear in mind.

　　Victor:

　　Precisely because personal image can represent a larger national image, you feel a certain pressure. And the result of this pressure is that after the same three years of studying, a student who has been abroad is going to become more cultured than one who has remained in his own country. When we're far from our native culture, we're more able to recognize and reflect on our own inadequacies, and to show our strengths.

　　One other thing: the idea of "inside" and "outside" -- China versus the outside world -- is part of a traditional Chinese outlook. But studying abroad tends to dilute that point of view somewhat. Before studying in the US, I had certain views about black people; I felt that they weren't as cultured as others. When a black person appeared on television, they always seemed to be smiling in this funny way and saying, "Oh, man!" This gave me an uncomfortable feeling. Before I had actually established relationships with any black people, I always had this feeling.

　　But then when I found myself with black classmates, my views slowly began to change. The person was still black -- that hadn't changed -- but now he was a classmate; he became part of the "inside". I started to understand him, and I realized how smart he was. He made a lot of sense when he talked. We got along great. And this broke down that cultural barrier that had been there at the beginning. Things that you aren't able to make sense of or understand at the beginning start to make sense to you. You see the same old things in a very new light.(听英文51177,作者简介511772)

　　相关链接：看世界：留学生们，跳出小圈子吧