Quotable

"I was deeply moved by this speech, in which Obama spoke in a substantial and vivid way, talking about himself and his family. There were no empty or big words, so I think Chinese students would love to hear that."

Sun Yeqing, deputy principal of Hefei Shouchun Middle School in Anhui province, explains why he asked the 3,000 students in his school to read aloud one of Barack Obama's speeches at the beginning of the new semester. The practice has raised eyebrows of some parents and Internet users, who criticized the school for disrupting the students' cultural orientation. The US president made the speech at the beginning of a new school year in September 2009 at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, in which he talked about the importance of education.