刘婷婷：河南师范大学选手，第17届21世纪杯全国英语演讲比赛三等奖获得者。

个人简介：

我叫刘婷婷，来自河南师范大学外国语学院商贸英语专业。性格开朗，平日待人热情，善于和老师、同学、朋友相处。我一直对英语抱有极高的热情，平日喜欢看美剧，英文电影。并在大学如愿以偿的选择了英语专业。除英语外，对法语，日语也有浓厚的兴趣。

演讲稿：

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning!

Please look at this picture! This over weight person is half sitting and half lying on a bed-like device, moving around on fixed tracks, doing everything by the slight push of the button connected to the computer system! This is a picture captured from the movie Wall E. And this is the man of future. Maybe at that time, we won’t have to exercise for hours to keep in shape, for everybody looks just the same; maybe at that time, we won’t bother to move our jaws to eat, only drinking nutrient fluid; maybe at that time, we won’t even have to go someone’s place to visit him, just a click of the button, this person’s image will in no time appear in front of us. What a highly developed world!

We’ve benefited a lot from the upsoaring development in technology. Genetical modification provides us with adequate food; modern transportation makes long distance travel easier; computer technology turns everything possible. Satisfying and convenient, isn’t it? It seems we are still far from becoming that big stupid meat ball fabricated in the movie.

But looking around, my five-year-old nephew is fatter than the normal size owing to the fast food; “Fast food culture” propagated by television and computer deprives his thinking ability and creativity; my father who suffers from hypertension and obesity doesn’t ride his bike to his working place any more, only five minutes’ drive, ignoring his doctor’s advice of exercising; almost all my friends keep wearing their glasses or contact lens as their daily routine because of the side effect of computer and cell phone screens; my sister has a video chat with us through QQ on each new year’s eve instead of coming home from work in Hong Kong. What’s worse, the natural environment cannot endure our ignorance anymore, it protests by taking revenge on us. “Survival of the fittest” is the law of nature. But the situation seems not so optimistic. We human beings are not fit and young any more both physically and psychologically with the seemingly advanced technology. The pace of human civilization development is growing faster than ever to the declining years. Are we pushing forward too fast? I am lost in contemplation. Humanism is not only what Petrarch upheld in his poems, nor what Da Vinci implied in his Mona Lisa, nor Shakespeare and his Romeo and Juliet, but what Eugene Smith, a contemporary humanitarian photographer, depicted in his photos of war-torn area and polluted living environment. 

I’m afraid one day we will meet our destiny like the people in Wall E. I’m afraid we can no longer admire the power of movements in sports; I’m afraid we will never enjoy the satisfying process of chewing and tasting food; I’m afraid the warm feeling of a face to face talk will be something luxurious. Or maybe, Eugene Smith’s worry finally comes true, and we won’t have the chance to see it happen as we human beings would have already been destroyed by our own hand in nuclear wars by then.