The other day in Face Book, a UK young guy expressed his curiosity about my activities in face book . He said , “ I didn’t know people of your age used face book ?! ” Well , I told him it was quite natural to think it is unusual for people of my age ( I might be much older than what he imagined ) to use face book , but that means I am really having a motivate , active ,younger , modern and updated mind.
I remember one day in the early 1970s, when I was a young worker of a melting factory in P.R.China, a friend of mine showed me a big calculator which can only deal with some “ complicated ” problems like the “√ ” . I was so shocked about that . I did wonder that in this world there was such a miracle invention ! My friend told me secretly that it had been made by a military factory his brother was working in . That was my young age ! And also when I began to learn English during the 1970s. I even dreamt of having a machine which may show me all definitions of a word I am looking up to avoid me from holding those heavy dictionaries. Those are computers we are using today . My dreams have come true now.
The great invention of computer and internet is really a fantastic revolution of human beings. The world has changed a lot since this invention . Computer networks are quite advanced and popular nowadays. Chinese people are also taking advantage from computers and the internet . Billions of people in China are using internet , and among them , young people can get most of the advantages because of their young , active acceptance and smart intelligence . Most young kids have become experts in this field. Once when I asked questions to one of my old students who had graduated for years, he shook his head and said : “ Hey, Mr. Pan , you have already fallen behind . ” What a shame ! I don’t want to fall behind. Why don’t I pick up this useful tool and take advantage from it ?
No advance is to fall behind; Falling behind means being defeated .To be updated , we have to learn , learn and learn again. Never too old to learn. My 85- year- old mother has an old friend who is 88 years old . He is always sending me emails with attached powerpoint documents compiled by himself, and he is quite updated to transfer lots of newer and useful information to me. He is a very good example to us .
Thanks for the computer skills, I can get used to my immigration life here in the U.S.A. . I use internet to check out useful information , deal with many daily activities and chat with friends all over the world. With the help of one of my student Xiao Luo ( Rob Rohan) here , we have built up this Chinese communicative website which is such a wonderful stage for us to present the glorious Chinese cultures and language and share our opinions and experience in teaching and learning Chinese. We are now setting up many friendly links to different websites, like Face Book and Linkedin etc. to let all participators take more advantages from this resource . We can still do more , can’t we ?