【正文】 t theywould see palaces andtemples everywhere they went, but instead they found massivecities filled weren’t sure thatthey’d like the food here inChina, but they actually loved it, and theylearned how to use inthe end, one of the students told me –and thisis his quotehe said,“Coming home was reallyexciting, but was at the same time sad.”Now, meeting these students reminded methatwhen we live so far away from each other, it’s easy to develop all kindsof misconceptions and ’seasy to focus on our differences –how we speak different languages and eatdifferent foods andobserve different as I travel the world, and I meetyoungpeople from so many countries, I’m always struckby how much more we have that’sbeen particularlytrue during my visit here in see, the truth is that I grew up likemanyof mom, my dad, my brotherand I, we lived in a tiny apartment in Chicago, which is one of the largestcities in father worked atthe local water we didn’thave much money, but our little homewas bursting with evening, my family would laugh andsharestories over ’d playcard games and havefun for summer nights, I remember, when our apartment gottoo hot, we’d all sleepoutside on our back meant everything to us, includingourextended grandparentslived nearby, and my elderly great auntand uncle lived in the apartmentdownstairs from when theirhealthstarted to decline my parents stepped in, helping my uncle shave anddress eachmorning, dashing downstairs in the middle of the night to check onmy in my family, like in so many ofyourfamilies, we took care of each while we certainly weren’t rich, my parents had big dreams formeand my had only a highschool education themselves, butthey were determined to send us both they poured all of their love and alloftheir hope into us, and they worked saved every Iknow that wasn’t easyfor them, especially for my see, my father had a seriousillnesscalled multiple as he gotsicker, it got harder forhim to walk, and it took him longer to get dressed inthe no matter how tired he felt, no matterhowmuch pain he was in, my father hardly ever missed a day of work, because hewasdetermined to give me and my brother a better every day, likeso many of you, I felt theweight of my parents’ sacrifices on my day, I wanted to make while most American kids attendpublicschools near their homes, when it was time for me to attend high school,I tookan exam and got into a special public high school where I could get abetter the school was very far from my home, soI had toget up early every morning and ride a bus for an hour, sometimes anhour and ahalf if the weather was every afternoon, I’d ride that same bus back home andthenimmediately start my homework, often studying late into the nightandsometimes I would wake up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning to study even it wasn’t whenever I got tired or discouraged, Iwould justthink about how hard my parents were working for I would remembersomething my motheralways told me –she said: “A goodeducation is something that no one can take away from you.”And when it was time for me to applytouniversity, I had many options, because in America, there are many are aretwoyearmunity colleges which are less areuniversities where you take classes at night while workingduring the you don’t have to beatop student to attend a even if your parents don’t have much money or you live in a tinytown in a rural area, inAmerica, you can still attend you can get scholarshipsand governmentloans to help pay your I attended Princeton University formyundergraduate degree, and I went on to Harvard University for mygraduatedegree in with those degrees Iwas able to bee alawyer at a large law firm, and then I worked as anexecutive at a cityhospital, and then I was the director of an organizationthat helped disadvantagedyoung my story isn’t unusual in of our most famousathletes, like LeBronJames, and artists, like the singer Janelle Monae, camefrom strugglingfamilies like mine, as do many business leaderslike ’s the head of a pany calledStarbucks,which many of you may have heard was a boyhis father lost his job, leaving their got a scholarship to auniversity, and eventually built thelargest coffeehouse pany in the then there’s this other guy I know whowas raised by a single mother whosometimes struggled to afford food for like me, this guygotscholarships and loans to attend became a lawyer and aprofessor, and then he was a state senator andthen a national then, hebecame Presi