Farewell speech

Over the years, I have listened to quite a few farewell speeches, which were mostly unmemorable.

Most chinese just like to say a lot of thank-you, to a lot of people.

But I think Bill Gate's recent press conference was quite impressive, and it was almost touching.

"I want to say that one of the hardest things about my decision is that a couple years from now I'll miss working with Steve every day as I have for the past 26 years. I couldn't ask for a better business partner, or a better friend."

"Yeah, I've never taken more than a two-week vacation, and this time it will actually be about seven weeks, so that is very long. A little bit of that will be in Africa. Actually, I'll be doing some Microsoft stuff while I'm there, but we have a Government Leaders Forum that's the first couple of days that I'm over there, and then actually a fair bit of it I'll be here in Seattle enjoying the Seattle summer."

"I don't know what it's going to feel like not to come in here every day and work 10 hours and just have that as a simple decision thing, okay, what am I doing today, oh, get over there and work my 10, 11 hours, and do my best, send a lot of e-mail, meet with some of the best engineers."

I think most americans would do their farewell speech this way, with a vivid recount of their daily activities, and to demonstrate a mixed feeling of anxiety and nostalgia. In contrast, chinese people are always full of meaningless "thank-you" shit, to a long list of people, and that usually makes the speech unbearably boring and somewhat faked.

If I were to give a farewell speech at Genting someday, I would model my speech after Bill's. And I would probably make a cheap joke of this kind- "And finally, I could place my bets on the table"