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I hope to go to the Arctic in 2015. In July or August, I plan to take a boat from the Longyearbyen, a city in northeast Norway, go all the way to the north and land on some small islands.
My final destination is around 81 degrees north latitude. Maybe that will not be the right time to see the Aurora Borealis during my trip, but I really hope I can take some pictures of polar bears, walruses and other animals. I can perhaps shoot the polar bears hunting if I’m lucky. It is pity that I didn’t get pictures a humpback whale leaping out of the water in Antarctica, so I hope I can make up for it in the Arctic.
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I devoted a lot of effort this past year into advocacy work for domestic violence victims and better anti-domestic violence legislation. I put my teaching and writing on hold to concentrate on this important work. I was very happy to see the draft law released to the public last month. Of course I hope this law will be put into effect in 2015.
I will continue with this meaningful work, but I hope that I will be able to spend more time on my other passions as well!
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Without a doubt, my biggest achievement for 2014 is my marriage to a beautiful Chinese woman from Tianjin named Wang Shijun. We met online. After a few weeks, I suggested that perhaps we should get together for lunch or dinner. I was willing to travel there from Beijing, but she insisted on coming north. At that time, I had no concept of the logistics.
She lives an hour and a half by bus from downtown Tianjin. Then there’s the train ride to Beijing, followed by another hour on the subway to get to my place. All in all, it’s a five-hour journey. I asked her once to tell me why she would go to so much trouble to meet a man she barely knew in another city -- and a foreigner at that. She didn’t hesitate to answer. She said, simply, “I followed my heart.”
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The biggest achievement I made in 2014 was that I established my own company and made some breakthroughs in my business. My clients spoke highly of my team’s performance in the promotional activities of two national-level scenic spots and extended their wish to deepen cooperation with my company.
My regret is that I failed to balance well between work and family. I was not able to spare enough time to be with my parents due to the heavy workload.
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If the Year of the Horse was an exhilarating one, I believe the Year of the Goat will be even more, both personally and professionally.
Our team has already prepared a work plan with over 25 initiatives to improve Foshan's business climate. I believe it is very powerful and it will help the city to become a better location for foreign investors. It will also help the local government support Chinese companies to "go global". I would also like to become more engaged in the local community and likewise, engage the community in our work even more.
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In the first half of 2014, my novel Testament of Gangdise came out, which could be a sort of ‘harvest’ for me. The story was adapted from my personal experience that has been inside me for many years.
I also put a lot of effort into another work, Patients at Muli County, a special coverage on the living conditions of the patients in a poor county of southwest China’s Sichuan province.
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My biggest joy was the birth of our second child, and my biggest regret was having the second baby too soon. I decided to have my second child when my first was one year old.
I’m tired now, and the jealousy from the senior is getting stronger. My heart tears apart when I see her unhappy, especially when she makes some strange requests and is unreasonably difficult. But I’ve to put up with all these things every day. The sister is happy to see her little brother, but not happy to see us together.
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In 2014, I spent a lot of time in China. My biggest achievement is that I managed to visit many places in China, especially in Shanxi and Chongqing where I saw a lot of things I did not know before, including how farmers grow vegetables and fruits and produce rice, crabs and prawns in a paddy field. I also got to know how farmers improve their production methods and get richer over time.
Development in Chongqing and Shanxi gives me confidence that China will continue to prosper under the current leadership.
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Last year turned out to be the best period of my whole life. I was hired as frontline staff by Nzone Skydive company in Queenstown, New Zealand. People there were super nice and they tried to make my life full of love and laugh.
I also learned more about the meaning of life, especially how young people should achieve their dream in New Zealand - not just enjoy the sunshine and slow pace of life but try their best to achieve something every day.