WEBVTT

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And in the past nine months,
I've named 250,000 Chinese babies.

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(Laughter)

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Hi, my name's Beau.

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I'm 17 years old.

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I named the first 162,000 for free
to promote the site.

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And then I started
charging 60p for the service.

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I currently name around 850 babies a day.

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(Laughter)

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On the 6th of September,


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a local newspaper came
to interview me about the site,

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and to my surprise,
the BBC picked up the story.

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After that, it just went crazy.

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Within 48 hours, 187 news channels
in 18 different countries

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had written a story,

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and they were all talking
about 'Specialname'.

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Basically, what's all this Chinese
baby naming stuff about?

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In my first week back at school,

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I had just done OK in my GCSEs,

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and my plan was to ease my way
into my A-levels unnoticed.

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I'm quite shy, so I like
to stay under the radar.

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And I don't really like the way
I look in the photographs very often,

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so the idea of being viral
and the whole experience

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was very overwhelming.

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I'd only told a few of my closest friends
about creating the site,

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and I hadn't told my school,

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because I didn't think anyone
would be very interested.

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And when I began getting bombarded
with messages from teenagers

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asking for advice,


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adults asking for me to employ them,

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and some Russian man
asking for the rights to franchise,

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it was slightly strange.

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One of the strangest things
was my friend saying

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that a girl where she lived had been set
a business studies homework on me.

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I was fine with being
in the Gloucestershire Echo

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next to the apple-picking festival,

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but I really didn't know
how I felt about being a project.

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One of the things I did like
was, after the Times article,

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my friends were telling me
how their parents were having a go at them

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for, 'Sitting around all summer,

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and Beau's been naming all these babies.'

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(Laughter)

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And even prompted a half apology
from my mum and dad

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for not joining the Young Enterprise Club,

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which is like an entrepreneur
society at my school.

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Yeah, so enough about me
and more about the site.

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What's this baby naming stuff about?

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I've been going to China with my mum
and my dad for about five years now,

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and that's because my dad
has business in Nanjing.

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So this meant that holidays in my family
were quite different.

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My friends would go to Cornwall,
and I would go to the Great Wall.

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I wasn't too happy about that.

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And then in Chengdu, about two years ago,

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with my mum and my dad
when we were visiting the pandas,

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a business colleague of my dad, Mrs.Wang,

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asked me to suggest an English name
for her three-year-old daughter.

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I was surprised and obviously flattered.

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I didn't want to give
a bad recommendation,

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so I said, 'Oh, can you describe
your daughter a little bit more for me?'

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She then said to me that her daughter
was pretty, intelligent, reserved,

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but the main thing she stressed was

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she wanted her daughter
to be able to surprise people

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with the things she could achieve.

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I gave it some thought,

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and I suggested the name Eliza,
based on Eliza Doolittle from Pygmalion.

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Luckily, Mrs.Wang was delighted,

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and she then, in the rest of the holiday,
went on to describe to me

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why Chinese babies would one day
need a Western name.

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Chinese babies are given a Chinese name,

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which contains around two or three
Chinese characters.

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This creates a unique name
with a carefully constructed meaning,

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and, I mean, this is great
if you're a Chinese,

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but these names
don't work outside of China.

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We can't read them,
we can't pronounce them,

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and we can't remember them.

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This means that also
there's another little problem,

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and the Chinese characters
can't be used in email addresses.

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So if you don't have a Western name,

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you can't email, purchase online
or basically function in the 21st century.

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So why don't Chinese parents just give
their child a Western name by themselves?

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And this is because on the internet
in China a lot of it is censored,

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and the majority
of websites are restricted.

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So even if they were able to gain
access to a baby naming site,

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they'd have to be able to read English.

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Historically, your English teacher
in China would give you your English name,

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or you'd pick one yourself.

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And this is where it gets funny,


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and universities
start receiving applications

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from Goofy Li,

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Rolex Wang,

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(Laughter)

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and Gandalf Wu.

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(Laughter)

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Yeah, but while we're feeling superior
and we're laughing at the Chinese,

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I do think it is important to remember

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that these poor translations
can be embarrassing either way.

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So for example,

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this tough guy thought
he was getting a tattoo what said,

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'Strength and Powerful'

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when really it says 'Angry goldfish'.

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(Laughter)

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Also, I've realised
that we are actually all quite similar

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and that mums everywhere
have one thing in common,

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and that's that they want
the best for their child.

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I thought that rather than make a mistake
and pick a silly name,

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they'd enjoy using a service
where they can pick an appropriate name

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based on their own choice
of characteristics.

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There are 16 million babies born
in China every year,

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and now they're allowed two babies each.

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I thought it might be profitable to help.

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(Laughter)

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So, I think the best way to show you
is to just show you.

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Let's pick a special name.

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So here's the homepage.

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There's two icons, a boy and a girl,

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and below are cartoons

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where you can see how bad your life
will be without a special name.

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First off, there's a kindergartener
who's happy she has a special name

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because it means that her teacher
can remember her name,

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and she can make friends easily.

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Then, there's Minnie,
who didn't have a special name.

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She couldn't go to university,

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and she now just has to sit at home
while Catherine and William graduate.

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Then, there's a businessman
who is embarrassed

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because he doesn't have a special name

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and he knows that his English name
has a bad meaning,

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so he doesn't want
to give his card over to his partner.

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OK, so today I'm going
to pick a baby girl.

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And then, there's 12 characteristics,
and I'm going to pick five

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which I think best represent
how I want my baby to be when she's older.

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Today, I think I'm going to make her
intelligent, confident.

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I'd quite like her to be honest,

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and I'd also quite like
her to be creative,

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and we don't want her
to be too much of an overachiever,

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so empathetic.

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Then we begin the naming process
by clicking on the green button.

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And then it'll start to load

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as a specialist is beginning
the naming process.

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Then, when the icon pops up,
we know our name's been chosen,

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and when I press the green button,

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you put in your Alipay ID,

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which is the equivalent
of PayPal in China.

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I get 60p; you get three names.

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Here are three names:

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Karen, Ella and Julia.

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Each name is displayed with a meaning,

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and then with that name,

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you also get two examples
of a famous person with that same name.

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For example, Karen: 
Karen Carpenter, the singer,

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and Ella: Ella Henderson,
X-Factor contestant.

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Below there's - I didn't mean
that to be offensive -

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(Laughter)

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there's an orange button,
and then if you click on this button,

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you can then share your three suggestions
with friends and family via WeChat.

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But I'll get back to that.

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A lot of people ask me
how I have time to name all these babies.

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And much like Google has time to find
everything for everyone all at once,

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I use an algorithm.

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The techie people in the room

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will know how simple
a filter and score algorithm is,

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but the basic principle
is that I built a database of 4,000 names,

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added five characteristics to each name

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which I think best represent
what that name means.

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The user then picks five characteristics,

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and then the algorithm
matches my five to their five,

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and three suggestions are given.

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Why three? This is the cool bit.

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I'm 17, I don't know you,
I can't name your baby.

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(Laughter)

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So basically, you get three suggestions

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which I think best match
how you would like your child to be.

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Then you share these three suggestions
via WeChat with your friends and family,

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and then without the risk
of a cultural mistake,

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you pick your special name.

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In short, the parent picks
their baby's name, not me.

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I just give three suggestions.

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So for example,

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'Ella' is liked by grandfather,
'Julia' is liked by a little sister,

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brother likes 'Ella',

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and then obviously, the husband
will agree with his wife.

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It's a fun process,

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and it brings all friends and family
together a really happy time.

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It takes three minutes; it costs 60p.

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And yeah, I just thought
it was a nice thing actually.

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Sometimes it's not about just making
the money; it's just a nice thing.

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Ever since the story
about my website went viral,

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I've been given
some amazing opportunities,

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one of which is being able to come here
and talk to you today.

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I've also tried to make sense
of what happened in that first week

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when I came back to school,

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and this is about as far as I've got.

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So, I'm going to read it with you.

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I think in the diverse world
that we live in

NOTE Paragraph

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when every day
we are prompted by the media

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to focus on and fear
the differences between cultures,

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we see war and terror and sadness.

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I think maybe the reason

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newspapers in 18 different countries
reported this story

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was because actually we are more the same
than we are different.

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We'd rather laugh off our cultural
differences than fear them.

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We'd rather celebrate success
than read more failure.

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And this story invited people
to be optimistic for 24 hours.

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If a British child can make
something from nothing,

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then maybe the future is not that bleak.

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The story also shared
the human side of China,

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a country often depicted
as a sinister global power.

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While we're laughing at silly names,

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we're also reminded that actually
we're all trying to fit in and get along.

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Imagine the global impact
that could be made

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if next week the same newspapers

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printed a story
about how similar we all are.

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Maybe then we could feel safe enough
to enjoy the differences.

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I think that would be special.

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(Applause) (Cheering)

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Thank you.