WEBVTT

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Hi everyone.

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I'm here to wake you up, because
I'm speaking in English about Chinese.

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So, could get a little complicated, but --

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I want to take you with me on a search
for traces of culture in language.

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Because I feel that this
can help us overcome

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the outer limits of cultural difference.

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I'm taking Chinese
because I study Chinese,

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and Chinese is often thought,

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Chinese characters are often thought of,

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as very simple pictures representing
what they're supposed to refer to.

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because Chinese doesn't have
a phonetic alphabet.

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So, if we look at this sign,

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we can try to guess what it means,

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and maybe you guessed right,
it's actually just a painting of water.

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So, the sign for water looks like water.

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However, there are many characters
in Chinese

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which will have much more profound
and poetic meaning,

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because they actually refer back
to their cultural and historic context.

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So, I want to take an example,
this is the word "xiang";

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it means "to miss someone".

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So, it's composed
of 3 different characters.

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On the bottom we have heart,

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which is obvious
when you are missing someone.

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On the top we have, on the left, a tree,
and on the right, an eye.

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So, it's kind of weird.
Why do we have tree and eye

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or wood and sight together in the word,
which means to miss someone?

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So to find this out, we have to go back
around 3,000 years in history,

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and look at a Chinese divination book,
the "I Jing",

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which is also called
the "Book of Changes",

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I'm sure you've all heard of it,
or some of you.

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And in it there is one sentence,
which is quite banal,

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and it combines these two words.

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So, the sentence goes something like this:

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What we can see most of
on Earth are trees.

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So, it's a very banal sentence.

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But ever since this sentence,
these two characters have been combined

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in different Chinese words
to have the meaning "to see".

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So, if you remember this,

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we can look at this character
and think of a story.

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Basically, in my heart,
I'm thinking of a person,

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I've missed this person.

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I get up, I go to the window,
and look out,

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hoping to see this person,

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but all I see is trees.

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Before I continue to the next character,

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I wanted to talk about another thing:
Memory.

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Memory is very important in our connection
to thought and language,

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and what I notice
when I was intensively studying Chinese,

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is that my memory started to change.

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I started to get a photographic memory.

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That means that
when I remembered words,

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I started to remember
how they looked on the page.

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This is something I couldn't do before.

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Another thing is,
that when I started to dream in Chinese,

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which happened around a year after I was
studying the language and living in China,

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I actually started to have
a different dreamscape,

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which felt and looked differently
in my dreams.

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So, these are all just different examples

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of the neurological
and psychological process

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which goes on in our brain
when we're learning a new language.

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Scientists have done
a lot of research on this,

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and we found out that language is actually
the fundament of our memory.

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And so when you learn a new language,

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actually, you're also learning
a new way of remembering things,

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and also you have a new perspective
on what it is you remember.

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So, the next character
I want to talk about,

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is one about individuality,
because it means I or me.

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And before I explain the character
I want to ask --

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just think about it --
why has China --

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why have Chinese scientists
and researchers and artists

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won so few Nobel Prizes?

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Because the truth is that China has won
remarkably few Nobel Prizes

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compared to the size of its population.

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You can count them on your hands.

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So why is this so?

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Is it because China is not
an innovative country?

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I think far from it.
There's actually a different reason.

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Let's take an example, in the 60's,

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a Chinese research team developed
a new way of producing synthetic insulin,

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and they were supposed
to be nominated for the Nobel Prize.

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Now, the Nobel Prize Committee
asked the Chinese institute

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to submit the exact names
of the researchers

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who had made this discovery.

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And what the noble prize committee got,
was a list of 230 names.

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So, it was everyone
in that Research Institute,

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from the director down
to the cleaning lady.

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(Laughter)

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So, basically they weren't nominated
and didn't win.

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But this this is a different perspective
on individual achievement,

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and the way individual achievement
contributes to the group.

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We can still find it today in,
for example, the political context

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when harmony is emphasized.

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Or we find it in the scientific context

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when we're talking about the difficulty
of intellectual property rights

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being put in place in China.

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So, basically this sign reflects
all of these thoughts.

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Because it's composed of two characters:

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On the left, we have a hand
which is grasping;

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on the right, I don't know
if you can recognize it, an ax.

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So, basically, an ax can be a weapon,

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but it can also be an instrument, a tool.

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I interpret this sign as meaning
that an individual, I or me,

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is someone who actually contributes
to the group,

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either by working for the group,
or by protecting the group.

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To explain this sense of community,
I wanted to take another example,

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which is eating.

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Food is so important in Asian culture,
we could talk about it until dinner time,

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but I'm just going to take
this simple example,

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and say that you'll never see
a person eating alone in China.

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So, this is actually something,
if you think about it,

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we do quite often ourselves.

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We grab a sandwich on the go,
we have a snack, we eat alone.

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But in China, there's a sentence,
there's a phrase,

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it's "吃獨食",
[Pinyin: chī dú shí]

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it means "to eat alone" word-for-word,
"to eat alone".

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But if you say it about another person,

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if you say, "This person is eating alone,"

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it actually means this person
is very egotistical,

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and only thinks of him or herself.

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So, if you reflect on that,

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you notice that eating together
with other people

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is a responsibility,
a way of taking care of others,

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but it's also the prerequisite
to experiencing culinary pleasures.

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So, to enjoy the food,
you have to eat it with others.

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That's why Chinese tables
are mostly round.

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And even the act of paying for a dinner --

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When you're out in a group,
you've eaten dinner,

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they'll be one person, so: I will pay,
I will pay because -- for everyone --

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because I know that next time,
someone else will pay for everyone.

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Now, you may think this is of no interest
and it's like banal,

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but actually it inscribes the relationship
between me and this group

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into a continuity, into time,

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and it produces a stability
and a sustainability

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to the relationship
I have with this group.

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Finally, I want to come
to the third character I want to present

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which is love,
so representing all emotions today.

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And love is often thought to be universal,

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so we're supposed to
recognize it everywhere,

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and it has the power
to overcome all limits.

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But, actually, if we start thinking about
the way love is lived and perceived

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by individuals,
and inside of different cultures,

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there's actually a big difference
the way we understand love to be.

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For example, already in the West,
83% of Americans feel

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that true love is possible
without physical fulfillment.

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However, only 34% of French people
agree to this.

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So, we see then in France,
romantic words, language, literature,

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is very important in relation to love.

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Coming back to China, I would say
that it's almost the opposite,

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because in China many couples,
and also many married couples,

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actually, have never told each other the
three magic words "I love you".

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If we look at this sign --

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oh, yeah, by the way, being too romantic
in China, it seems insincere --

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so guys remember this, could be useful.

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(Laughter)

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So, if we come back to the character --

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you've already seen
two different characters --

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so this one has the hand on top,

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it's held over a roof.

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And under that roof we have one
which we could recognize,

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it's the heart -- again.

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And under the heart,
we have the sign for friendship,

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which is actually two hands
clasped into each other.

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So, if we take this thing seriously,

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we understand that
the Chinese notion of love,

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which is embedded in this word,

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is a notion of a feeling,
which is living together as a family,

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and which becomes more valuable over time.

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This is relevant, because our idea
of romantic love is actually the opposite,

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it's something which is special
in the beginning.

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That's why, for example,
young couples in China,

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they will try to marry very fast
after they've met each other,

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maybe even two or three months
after they first met.

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You will never see a Chinese couple
splitting the bill,

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each person paying for themselves.

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Why? Because, already,
they have associated the concept of love

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with the concept of family being one.

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Before I conclude, I wanted
to talk about fighting

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because fighting is important in emotion.

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And there's actually a quite -- almost --

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well, many Chinese couples fight
in a special way,

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which is called "几天不说话",
[Pinyin: jǐ tiān bù shuō huà]

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and it means not to speak
for several days --

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so it actually means
not to speak to each other.

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It's the silent treatment.

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I've actually witnessed this
with a middle-aged couple,

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and they didn't speak to each other,
after they got angry with each other,

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for 7 days.

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So, 7 days they were cooking,
making meals for their kids,

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doing everything as usual,
except in silence.

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And after 7 days,
they suddenly started to talk again

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as if everything was back to normal

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and they didn't talk about
what they were upset about or the past.

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So, it's just from this type of phenomena,

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we recognize that, actually,
words and language

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influence the way,
we, as individuals, feel emotions.

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And also that words are important,
just as important as objects,

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they have just as much meaning
for others, and weight,

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so we should be just as careful
handling our words,

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as we do when we're handing
material objects.

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So, to finish I took this image.

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This is a pictogram
from the Chinese sign for you,

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it's only part of the sign,

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and it actually represents,
with some imagination maybe we --

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it represents threads on a loom,
métier à tisser,

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a cross into a pattern.

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So, I wanted to take this image
as a symbol of our own personalities,

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our own personalities made up
of many different strands,

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and they're woven into a certain pattern,

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in the way we grew up
in our family and our culture.

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And, basically, learning
a different language

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gifts you the opportunity
to untangle these strands,

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and weave them again
in your own new and authentic pattern.

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So, what I want us to remember,
is that learning a language

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is not learning
another professional skill,

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it's actually giving yourself
the opportunity to change.

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For example,
I'm actually a German-American,

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and I live in France and in China,

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and each time
I switch languages or places,

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I actually show a slightly new side
of my own personality.

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So, basically, learning
a different culture or different language

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is an opportunity for change,

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and I want you to think that if you learn
an exotic language,

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it might just be your own gateway

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to a different way of dreaming,
eating and loving.

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Thanks.

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(Applause)