Thank You Letter from Xiao Fei

Dec. 27, 2009

Dear Mentor To,

How are you? Although it seemed like only yesterday when I started at university here, my university life will soon be completed under your financial assistance. If not for your help, I really don’t know what my life would have become.

I have matured a lot during 3 years of university studies. I now realize that I was rather naive before, and I am glad that I have gone to university, without which I really don’t know what a person I would be today. In these 3 years, what I have gained most is not the professional knowledge but rather other things. University gave me a platform on which I could interact with other people my age, all of whom have their own interesting lives and stories to tell. I have learned countless things from them, and, in the process, my outlook on life and my values have evolved and become more complete. When I was in senior high school, like many others, I thought that it would be useless to go to university and I might as well just go out and find myself a job. Now I know how wrong I was back then!

I am about to start working, but I feel a little bit unsure of myself at this point. I don’t want my descendants to have the kind of life I had — I don’t want them to feel financially burdened for their schooling. What I studied is agriculture, so that is what I will practice in the future, but, having chosen this profession, I don’t know what I will become 10 or 20 years later. What I do know is that, however difficult my path may be, it will not be more difficult than what I have gone through in the past. If I can endure the past, I don’t think there will be worse situations that I cannot live through.

Mentor To, I truly admire you. Had I been in your position, I don’t know if I could do what you have done. I am able to calmly face AIDS because of what happened in my family, but if not for my family history, I don’t know if I can face it with the same calmness. You have helped so many students and transformed our destiny. Even though many of us may have not done work for your foundation, I believe that, if we are ever needed for anything, we will definitely not stand idly by.

Finally, I wish you good health and happiness always.

Xiao Fei