About

Martha Kent once told Clark Kent, the alter ego of Superman, “You know, the world could always use more good reporters.” I think she was actually telling me.

Toddler

I still cannot forget the day in 1985 when my mum had the foresight to take me, a 5-year-old toddler, to watch the 1978 Superman the Movie. When I was a kid, I always dreamed of having the powers of Superman, saving the world and to fight for truth and justice as a top-notched reporter. But soon I found out that without those superhuman powers, I could not be as crime-fighting as Clark Kent did in the Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. That was why I thought being a journalist was just a childhood fantasy for me. Therefore, I did not even bother to choose my major in journalism when I was a freshman in my undergraduate studies.

Teenager 

There was this morning in the second half of year 2000 that changed my life. When I got up and still lingered in incomplete consciousness, I turned on the TV, clicking the remote randomly in hope of something that might be interesting enough to wake me up. When my finger paused at TVB Pearl, a HK TV channel watchable in my hometown Guangzhou which was supposed to have nothing in the morning, I suddenly noticed the ABCNews logo. A news show called World News Tonight then followed, with a very unique magnetic voice behind the scenes telling the headlines. When I saw the stunningly handsome face in its first person, I was tazered. And he simply did not just have a pretty face. He was an urbane old man, whose way of telling stories earned my trust. And that man is Peter Jennings. It was from then on that American broadcast journalism was introduced in my life.

The ensued 9/11 non-stop television broadcast by Peter Jennings and other American newsmen further convinced me that I should pursue journalism studies at the Graduate School of Journalism in Columbia University (CSJ). But exactly how should I train my journalistic sense? Immediately after, I took part in various journalism-related extracurricular activities. I used my spare time to join the university-run journalist guild and got two articles published. And I even became an anchor and had my own show. But of course, in order to maintain a high GPA, I had to focus on studies pertaining to my major – English in International Trade. So I did not invest too much time as Chloe Sullivan did for the Torch on the hit TV series Smallville.

Professional Life 

Later on, bombarded by on-and-off business news on the Enron debacle and the demise of Arthur Andersen, I was intrigued by the life of auditing. I became an auditor in one of the Big-4 accounting firms. For almost three years, I would like to thank it for giving me the financial literacy that someone just could not have quickly learned in other settings. However, it was not easy for me to live my life being who I was, crunching numbers all day long. So when the newly found Guangzhou English Channel needed new blood, I did not have much doubt resigning.

Life of a TV reporter was completely different from being an auditor. It rebooted my interest in applying for the full-time Master of Science in broadcast journalism at CSJ. I hope to become a professional TV broadcast journalist with strong writing, research and reporting skills thru the study at CSJ.