Cherrie刘宸妤

I was born into a family of doctors. Every evening at the dinner table, my family would talk about things that were well over the head of the layman. My grandpa would explain where the excretory system of a crab is and show me its sphincter ani as if he was lecturing students rather than sharing a meal. When I was a little girl, my mother drew a diagram of an eye, in order to teach me about myopia.

Chinese children are mollycoddled so often that they do not deal well with emergencies. When I was growing up, classmates would ask me what they should do about minor illnesses and injuries. This made me think that becoming a doctor may be my destiny.

But I have another side.

I have an uncle who is studying Russian literature and world history. Every long, hot Shenzhen summer, he keeps me entertained day and night with stories from history. From stories about the Persian war to the Trojan horse, from Hellenistic culture to gods and goddesses, he strengthened my imagination and my knowledge.

When I grew older, I started to study world history on my own, I started to imagine every country as a person, with its own name, personality and back story. As the United States has grown up, she broke away with her big sister England. When the Berlin Wall finally collapsed, Federal Germany took back his haggard elder brother Democratic Germany with pain etched in his heart. China and Russia once joined hands, but in the end, one went south, the other went north.

To this day, the two things I am most interested in are medicine and history.

So whenever someone asks me, Chenyu, what would you like to be in the future? My answer is: a doctor, who travels the world working for the World Health Organization. I want to be an active citizen of this brilliant world.

The world I come from

Carrie 王佳薇

In addition to Mandarin and English, I live in a world where I weave two dialects into my own personal language: Sichuanese and Cantonese. It is rare for a Chinese to speak two dialects.

I spent most of my childhood in Sichuan with my grandparents. As well as speaking the dialect, I have the traits of Sichuan people, such as a love of spicy food, rooted deep in my soul.

My grandparents raised me to never back away from a fight. I was also taught how to escape when tied to a fence by my clothes. They taught me that monsters must be confronted.

"Sometimes you will get knocked down, but you cannot stay down. Do not sit around feeling sorry for yourself. Keep going forward and keep reinventing yourself. When you grow up, you will understand the importance of this attitude." My grandparents played a big part in toughening me up.

My first year in Shenzhen, I was 11, and Shenzhen was 25. In Shenzhen, I learned to be independent from my parents. This is a busy city. People walk fast, some even eat breakfast on the way to work. It is not fashionable here to stop and smell the roses.

I taught myself Cantonese by listening in to my classmates' conversations. When I was in grade 7, I found myself alone on a flight to Beijing where I was to participate in a writing competition. I suddenly realized that I, like Shenzhen, had been forced to grow up fast and was all the stronger because of it.

I embody the qualities of the Shenzhen people: their fast-paced lifestyle, passion for beauty and compassion for the needy. I learned so much in my two hometowns and the lessons merged to make me the person I am today. I think I took the best of both cities and focused my interest and attention toward writing and journalism.

Of course, there is more to me than this. I have some of my ancestors' strong will and determination. In fact, I discovered that I am as unique as every fingerprint on the face of the earth and determined to make a difference.