Dear friends,

Just like Y2K turned out to be no glitches, (and thus the phrase, Y2, OK?) the year 2000 showed no big surprise to us despite the fact that it is Xiaofeng’s zodiac year.  We had our usual ups and downs, which we would like to share with you.  First let us wish every friend of ours a great holiday season and a prosperous coming new year!

The biggest family event of the year was a trip to Vancouver, Canada [pic1, pic2] during the Independence holiday.  Thanks to our wonderful friends, LuQiong’s and FangLiang’s family, who made our vacation even more memorable and enjoyable.  Like all vacations, we never had enough.  Our impression of Vancouver Canada can be best described by a paragraph found in a travel magazine: “... everything moves a little bit slower on the Islands and life is just a little bit simpler. Islanders pay attention to the idyllic scenery and they rejoice daily in the beauty that surrounds them. They have time to stop and chat. They have time to sit back and relax in the peaceful tranquility, to breathe deeply the clean ocean air, to rejuvenate the soul, and to put things back into perspectives ...” 

For Xiaofeng [pic1] the most memorable event of the year was his college re-union where thirteen of his classmates got together in Las Vegas during the Labor Day weekend. His main impression is that all the female classmates looked young and mature;  guys, on the other hand, looked a bit older and perhaps put on a few more pounds, although he thinks nobody’s character changed.  The true value I see him getting out of the reunion was when he brought home Ma Jie, one of his best friends at high school as well as in college, who came all the way from mainland China.   When Xiaofeng told him that he did not feel good recently, “ you need to exercise”, Ma Jie said.  He himself runs every morning and plays soccer every Sunday with a bunch of teenagers who call him Uncle.  Xiaofeng did take his words seriously and went on the track of exercising daily.  That is the true value I see him getting out of his re-union trip; of course he thinks there’s more...

This year is Xiaofeng’s zodiac year (the year of dragon).  In Chinese saying, your zodiac year can bring you either good luck or bad luck, depending on how well you prepare for it.  “Wearing red underwear and red belt to avoid bad luck, and being reverent to receive good luck.”, mom urged again and again from the other side of the Pacific.  Towards the end of the dragon tail, Xiaofeng feels there’s no reason not to be grateful of his zodiac year.  He finished his third year of research fellowship, and is expecting to receive a faculty position at UTSW next year.

In the middle of the year I (pic1, pic2) left XO Communications (formerly Nextlink Communications) and joined Chiaro Networks, a startup company trying to build high-end optical routers.  So far I have been enjoying working at Chiaro. The team spirit is the best I have ever seen where everyone has such a focus and dedication towards achieving our goal.  High-profile management team, lots of knowledgeable and high-caliber engineers, and no lack of intellectual challenges.  One of the startup success stories which had impressed me greatly was a lecture given by Jomei Chang, a Chinese lady, CEO and president of Vitria technology during the CIE (Chinese Institute of Engineering) Convention 2000. In her lecture Jomei talked about their journey to the success of Vitria Technology. At one point of time Jomei and her husband sold off their first company and were rewarded quite handsomely, a reward that had earned them the financial independence of life. “That is the time when you can decide what you REALLY want to do,” said Jomei, “now that you don’t have to work for a living, now that you can do everything you want.” And the thing they wanted was Vitria technology, a software company that provides Internet infrastructures. Using her words, they wanted to make a difference.

In October Dennis [pic1] turned four.  Having been in school (daycare) for a year, his English sentences could be long ones full of adverbs and perhaps sub-clauses (like he told me one day, Mommy, I ALMOST grow up, I am four), and his far better sounding pronunciation makes him sound like a little American.  He started to make short stories, mixing pieces from Daddy’s stories into his own; sometimes he just cracked us up.  One day he lined up his toy cars and in front of them he laid the police car. “Oh oh”, he said, “the policeman hit someone’s car, bad policeman!” (See he’s rising above policeman).  Then he pushed his fire truck around as if there were some real emergency: “there is a spider, catch it”, he ran faster following his can’t be seen target: the spider. “Oh oh, spider jumped into the lake! Come on, let’s follow it”.  Then he started to sing the fireman song “hurry hurry spray the water…”  I don’t know what kind of scene it will make when the fire truck sprays against a spider and what it has to do with policeman having an accident…

Last but not the least is our little sweet girl Ashley [pic1] . Having not seen me for two hours, she would run towards me and hug my leg (like hugging a big tree) and exclaim “Mom-my!” as if she hadn’t seen me in years and she was extremely delighted to see me again. Many times I felt overwhelmed wondering had I always been such a pleasure to her. In summer time the Texas weather always makes the inside of the vehicle a true oven and it takes a few minutes to cool down.  Driving on the road, sometimes I would look back just to see how she was doing, if she was ok bearing the heat, if she was lonely when her brother was not there. To my great surprise, what’s laying in front of me has always been this perfectly contented, heavenly peaceful face. Sometimes I just wonder what she is so happy about. People all say that kids inherit and learn things from their parents.  I wish it could also be the other way around, that I could learn from her, that I could learn from her forever positive, forever cheering attitude that is forever making a statement: life is good.

Pumping at a gas station while the two of my kids [pic1, pic2, pic3, pic4] sat in the back seats, I popped my head in the rear window and made a silly face. There they were my two worshippers, completely amazed (and perhaps hypnotized), four eyes straightly gazed at me. For kids parents are their living god.  Yes, you have to enjoy it before they reach teens when your words would go in their left ears and come out from their right ears. And no, it is NOT easy to keep your cool when they do something you tell them not to. And no, don’t expect them not to follow your shoes: if you yell at them, they will yell back at you. They are imitating you in every possible way.  Like one day I asked Dennis why he was taking his cow and frog (stuffed animals) upstairs and downstairs, everywhere he went. Pausing a second, “ahnn, ahnn”, he then said, “they need to play with each other while I have my breakfast”. That is clearly another version of “Could you please play with your sister well so that mommy and daddy can have a good dinner?”

That’s all from us. We are looking forwards to hearing your story of the year as we’ve been enjoying reading the letters from some of you. 
    Merry Christmas!