Live To Tell ...
NOTE: This page contains Chinese Simplified characters (GB2312 encoding).
I was born and raised in mainland China, the province of Shandong (山东, see the red star in the map). Shandong was the hometown of Confucius as well as the famous strategist Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮). You may also know Shandong from the city Qingdao (青岛), as in "Tsingtao Beer".
I grew up in a small town called Zhucheng (诸城), where I always walked to school, where we had a square artificial pond with a pavilion in the middle, and where I received excellent education from hardworking teachers. When I was about 12, my family moved to Weifang (潍坊), a medium-sized city famous for making hand-crafted kites. But no, I am no expert on kites...
In the early 90s, I spent my college years at USTC (University of Science and Technology of China). One of the best universities in China, it was founded in Beijing in the 50s but moved to the city of Hefei (合肥, see the blue star) for political reasons. After a process that is too complicated to get into here, I chose computer science as my major and started my C programming experience on some Intel PCs (8086) with no hard drives. Oh, those were the days... Forget Windows, PCtools rule!! Later, we were lucky enough to have access to a few 286s and even -- wow, a 386!! Fascinating.
I spent my last year of undergraduate study in Beijing (北京), doing research at the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Science and writing thesis for my Bachelor degree. Beijing is a great city, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent there with my classmates. We traveled to many places in and outside the city, including a very memorable trip in the snow to the Great Wall.
Also during that year, I applied for graduate study in American universities. Well, I got lucky, and was admitted to the Computer Science program at Harvard University.
My graduate school years were challenging, exciting, and fruitful. It did take me a while to get used to a whole new environment, everything from everyday living to language to classroom styles. Once I settled in, however, I started to enjoy what Harvard and Boston had to offer. Sure, Harvard is a fairly old-fashioned institution, and isn't known to be a "fun" place like MIT (a.k.a. "that other school down the river"). However, Harvard is also home to non-traditional things such as The Ig Nobel Prizes ceremony, which I found very entertaining.
The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences had a fairly active student community, and I was always happy to get involved. Throughout the years, I took on several volunteer and leadership roles in various student organizations. I don't think I was a natural leader, but I tried to make up for it with enthusiasm and personal relationships. The experience confirmed to me that I enjoy organizing group events. Too bad I couldn't use that as a career.
One thing that I discovered during that time was my strong interest in theater art and filmmaking. I acted in two plays, directed one (Christopher Durang's "Beyond Therapy"), and produced Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" during my final year. "Arcadia" was a very ambitious project, but thanks to a great cast and a talented crew, the show was very successful. It remains one of my proudest accomplishments to date.
I also made two short films as part of the Dudley House Digital Film Festivals - One was a love story, and the other a mockumentary. They were not perfect, but it was a start. Due to other distractions, I have not made another short film since I left school, but I have done some editing projects on my own, and I do plan to make more short films in the future. (I am interested in all aspects of filmmaking, but I seem to have a special knack for editing.)
Just a note: I am happy with my study and research work as well. But since this page focuses on my life in general, I don't want to bore anyone with the academic stuff.
I also travelled to a lot of places while I was a student. I visited all the major cities in the Northeast, both cities in California (joking), and many National Parks in the Mountain Time Zone (or what I call the "amazing nature zone"). There are still many places I need to go to, such as Florida, Chicago, and the majority of National Parks. Went to Canada, of course; and thanks to academic conferences, I got to visit Paris, London, and Isreal. Eventually I want to visit most major countries in the world. That might take a while. Anyway, one of these days, I will show you the best photos I took in a new webpage called Zheng's Travel Photo Album. Just don't ask me when.
I met some great friends in my graduate school, some of whom I must thank for my personal growth and professional development. The unfortunate thing about a school environment is that people come and go every year, and it's difficult to keep in touch with everyone after we have all moved on to other chapters of our lives. No matter what, I will always cherish my memories from those years. In some ways, I still miss being a student; but I was also happy to "enter the real world", so to speak, as I had to do eventually.
That brings us to my current life in Seattle, which you can read about in the front page of this site. Things have continued to be hectic, but... Rather have too many things to do than too few, I think...
Looking back, it seems that I have come a long way from growing up in a small town that not many people have heard of. I guess I have been gradually "upgraded", from Zhucheng, to Weifang, to Hefei, to Beijing, to Boston... Each step takes me further away from my hometown, and introduces me to a larger world. It's like climbing a mountain. When you look down, your starting point appears so far down, that you don't know what it would be like if you fall all the way back. On the other hand, the top of the mountain always seems so far up, and it may even get harder as you go higher. Do we have to reach the top? Not necessarily. But the higher you get, chances are that you will see more beautiful sceneries. So enjoy the climb.
Have a very nice day!
What does my name mean in Chinese?The first character 王 (Wang, pronounced in the second tone i.e. rising) is my last name, and it means "king". Ironically, there was only one emperor in Chinese history with this last name, and he didn't reign for very long. English speakers usually pronounce "Wang" differently as it sounds in Chinese. The "a" here sounds similar to the opening sound in "arm". People in Hong Kong spell the same last name as "Wong", and they also pronounce it that way.
The second character 铮 (Zheng, in the first tone i.e. flat) is my first name. The correct pronunciation is somewhere between "jung" and "jerng". This character describes something quite interesting: A chiming sound made by metal clanking, such as swords in a sword fight. In Chinese it is used in several phrases that all have very positive meanings. So it is a nice name, if I do say so myself. You may see other Chinese people with first name or last name Zheng, but most likely it is a different Chinese character even if it's also in the first tone.
