昨晚偶然看到本院老師發的一條微博，大致意思是講西方國家很多著名大學沒有門和牆，而中國大學門越大越顯得大學越氣派！看到此微博，我立刻想到了本科在英美文學課上王玉明老師說過的一番相似的話，並作如下闡述：
何曾想過，平時上課腦子記不住知識的我會想起某個老師在哪節課課講過什麼話，實在讓我驚喜。深夜，我發了一封郵件給王老師，請求他把寫的那篇文章發給我看看。本來沒抱什麼希望，畢竟老師那麼多學生那麼多事需要處理，但沒想到凌晨12點老師回復我並將文章發給我，實在讓我感動萬分！文章內容如下：
Where Is the Gate?
（王玉明，安徽農業大學英語系主任，副教授）
The gate is to a university in China what the face is to a Chinese. Nearly all Chinese universitieshave big and eye-catching gates, some of which are even versions of Arc de Triomphe. The gate is more than gate, but rather the university itself. In most Chinese minds』 eye, without a decent andmagnificent gate, the university would be dwarfed and drowned.
This summer, I attended a program at Yale. With a typically Chinese impression of university gates, I on the second day started my hunting journey for Yale’s main gate, by which I could take a photo for my parents. I knew well that their son posing by the gate of this dream university was whatthey expected the most on the photo. Unluckily, my search all the afternoon arrived nowhere. I didn’t find the main gate, not to say the gate with eye-catching Yale logo. A couple of days later when I got recovered from 「jet lag」, I again started hunting journey. Fortunately, I made it this time. A Yale gate from nowhere slipped into my view, a small and humble one, which is at best a side gateof a local and obscure school in China. But it is Yale’s main gate. My second search also uncovered the truth that Yale has almost no walls. No walls, no gates. That’s Yale.
I later visited Harvard, Princeton and MIT. The same story—most of them have almost noexpected gates. Instead, university architecture and community buildings share colors and style, and campus is generously open to outsiders. Harvard and MIT in particular are well integrated into thelocal neighborhood and in sheer harmony with the off-campus community. Campus roads and city streets are well connected, with no definite lines between. At these discoveries, I was incurablyshocked. I failed at last in America to find a university gate which could meet a Chinese’s expectation. To make the matter worse, a new question began to haunt me: 「Why are these locally situated colleges and universities without even a decent gate highly internationally identified?」 With the new question, I left the States. Upon my return to Beijing and with our university gates rushing back into my sight, strangely, I was shocked again, in the way I was over there at Yale.
然後我將此文分享給我的兄弟瑞哥，他對王老師的文筆表示嘆服，並在第一時間翻譯了全文：
《大門在哪？》作者：王玉明（安農大外院）
譯者：汪中瑞
中國大學的大門就像中國人的面子一樣重要。幾乎中國所有的大學都有著氣勢磅礴、引人注目的大門，甚至有些大門簡直就是凱旋門的翻版。大門不僅僅只是一扇門，更是這所大學本身的一個象徵。在大多數中國人的眼中，如果一所大學沒有一個華麗壯觀的大門，那麼這所大學就會顯得黯然失色、略遜一籌。
今夏，本人有幸參與耶魯大學的一個項目。帶著中國人對於大學校門的傳統印象，我在第二天就開啟了我在耶魯的「尋門之旅」，我想在耶魯的大門旁邊拍張照片給父母看。我很了解父母，他們最期待看到他們的兒子能在這所被譽為「夢想殿堂」的高等學府大門前拍照留念。遺憾的是，我整個下午的「尋門之旅」都是徒勞無功。我根本就沒有找到耶魯的主門，更不用說那種帶有吸引眼球的耶魯標誌的大門了。幾天後，我克服了時差，又開始了「尋門之旅」。欣慰的是，這次我找到了。一扇耶魯之門突兀地映入了我的眼帘，那扇門極為小巧、簡潔，在中國充其量也只能算是一所土氣又默默無聞的學校的偏門罷了。然而它確實就是耶魯的主門。我的第二趟「尋門之旅」同樣也揭示了另一個真相：耶魯大學幾乎沒有圍牆。沒有圍牆，沒有大門，這就是耶魯。
我後來又參觀了哈佛、普林斯頓和麻省理工。和耶魯情況一樣，這些大學幾乎都沒有令人期待的那種大門。相反，大學的建築與周邊社區的建築在色彩、風格上都極其一致，校園對外來人員也是自由開放的。尤其是哈佛和麻省理工，它們與當地鄰裡完美融合，與校外社區和諧共處。校園道路與城市街道緊密相連，沒有明顯的界限。發現這些現象，我感到十分震驚。我最終無法找到哪所美國大學有著中國人期待看到的大門。更嚴重的是，一個新的問題開始縈繞在我心頭：為什麼這些高等學府坐落在當地社區之間，甚至連一個像樣的大門都沒有，卻能在世界上享有高度盛譽呢？帶著這個新問題，我離開了美國。回到北京時，我腦海裡浮現出我們大學校門的樣子，奇怪的是，我又一次感到震驚了，（最後一句不知道怎麼翻譯好）
The experience strikes me profoundly and we must keep in mind that perhaps even a single word slipped from your teacher's mouth could have incredible significance on you in some day.
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