The best writing is often very personal. All kinds of experiences-serious, funny, unexplained, fleeting-can influence our lives and help make us who we are. Tell us about a person, place, or event in your life that has particular meaning for you, and why it is important to you. We'd especially like to hear about someone or something that has affected your life that may not have affected or even been noticed by other people.　最出色的写作往往是非常个人化的。形形色色的经历——或严肃，或幽默，或不可名状，或转瞬即逝——都有可能影响到我们的生活，使我们成为我们现在的样子。请告诉我们对你具有特殊意义的某个人、某处地方、或你生活中的某一事件，并说明为何对你意义重大。我们尤其希望了解对你的生活产生了影响的人或事，这些人或事或许还不曾影响到他人，甚至还未为他人所注意。

　　　　　　Blueprints and Footprints / 蓝图与足迹

Wenzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, those are some of the small, medium and big cities of China. The first is where I was born and grew up and the others are where I lived for a couple of years and had my education.

I have had such a nomadic urban life because of my father, an architect. He is frequently invited to design buildings in different cities across the country and he has the habit of really being part of the city before he actually sets down to his design. He would continue to live in the city to experience what it is like to be part of the city where a new building has gone up.

My father is different. He is constantly on the move but he leaves behind him something constant and long-lasting. For me, his story has become a symbol of all the endeavors of life—that everyone of us is on the journey of life, a life which is all too transitory and fleeting but we endeavor to make it endless by creating something eternal. In this sense, my father is a traveler and he leaves his unmistakable and indelible footprints along his journey of life.

Those footprints are indelible and eternal because he has tried to make all his buildings soulful, each having a life and a soul of its own, perfectly harmonizing with the surroundings while being unique and distinctive. The residential complexes he designed in Suzhou have contributed to making it the most livable city in China where the 2001 APEC Summit was held. In others, the International Trade Centers have become the landmarks bearing witness to the vibrant economic booms in those dynamic metropolises.

I am also a soulful design, a masterpiece, by my father. When I was born in 1990, we were not quite well off. My deepest childhood memory was my father still working during midnight designing blueprints in order to earn money that could buy good milk powder that would make me healthy.

Our frequent relocations tended to create initial disorientation to me in each new city we have “settled”. I had to adapt to strange environments, listen to strange dialects, eat strange food, experience strange culture and meet new people and make new friends. But when those consecutive strangeness and novelty are made a regular condition of life, I find they are most rewarding in their own ways. They have made me adaptable, open-minded, sociable, and ready to turn the negative into positive. By traveling across the country and to other countries, I have acquired cross-cultural and international perspectives.

As my father became well established as a major architect in this country over the past decade, we are very well-off by any standard. In Shanghai and in Beijing, I have been receiving the best education available—International Baccalaureate--given by an outstanding cohort of international faculty. I have been receiving rigorous artistic cultivations in painting and calligraphy. The friendships I developed with my classmates and teachers in different cities, as well as the art works I have created, are the footprints that I have been leaving along my own journey of life.

Although materially quite well-off, I have been educated by my father to have a loving and caring heart. By naming me “Si-Dan”(thinking of simplicity), my father expected me to never forget that “less is more”, a overriding principle in architecture. I am always told that the value is life is measured not by what you have but by what you give. He told me stories about how Rockefeller’s daughters committed themselves to charity. His teachings explained how I made very generous cash donations in May 2008 in the wake of a deadly earthquake measuring at 8.0 M in Sichuan, in which over 85,000 are confirmed dead. That was just one of many instances I am committed to public welfare.

As I a to complete my IB, I am encouraged by my father to be on the move again—to receive the best education in the United States to enrich my knowledge about this world, to enhance my personal cultivations, to experience the fascinating American culture, and ultimately to develop myself into a personal capable of making useful contributions to our society. I believe I have inherited that wanderlust of my father’s, forever on the move in search for something unchanging and long-lasting. I may not become an architect like my father designing blueprints, but I will definitely leave my own firm footprints in a meaning journey of personal development and self-actualization.

　　　　　　　　　　蓝图与足迹

　　温州，苏州，南京，广州，深圳，上海，北京，这都是些中国小型、中型和大型城市。温州是我生于斯、长于斯的故乡，其它的地方，我则短暂地居住和读书而已，每处最多也就呆过一、两年。

　　我之所以过着这样一个游牧民族般的居无定所的城市生活，全都因为我的建筑师爸爸。爸爸经常受邀去全国各地不同的城市进行建筑设计，而他则有这样一个怪癖：在实际去着手设计之前，他首先要真正成为这个城市的一部分。新建筑拔地而起之后，他依然要在这个城市生活一段时间，去体验作为这个城市的一部分，生活会是什么样子的。

　　我的爸爸确实与众不同。他经常四处奔波，但每到一处，就会留下一些固定和持久的东西。对我而言，他的故事已经成为生命中所有努力的一个象征，即我们中的每个人都处在人生旅途。这个旅途很太过短暂，转瞬即逝，但是我们可以通过努力创造一些恒久不变之物，让人生成为永恒。在这种意义上，我的父亲就是一个行者，在其人生旅途中留下了明晰的、不可磨灭的足迹。

　　这些足迹是不可磨灭的和永久的，因为他力图让他的所有建筑物都充满灵性，都富有其自身的生命和灵魂。它们既能和周边的环境和谐地融为一体，又能显得独一无二，与众不同。比如，他在苏州设计的一个个住宅区群，为苏州成为中国最宜居城市作出了巨大贡献，那里曾在2001年举办过APEC峰会。在其它城市，一座座国际贸易中心已经成为当地的地标性建筑，见证了这些充满活力的大都市的经济繁荣。

　　我本人也是我父亲的一个充满了灵性的设计产物，一项杰作。19XX年，当我出生的时候，我们一家的生活条件尚不富裕。我印象最深的童年记忆是，我半夜醒来时，可以看到我父亲依然在伏案工作，设计图纸，以此得到一些收入，来购买质量不错的奶粉，以使我能够健康地成长。

　　经常性的搬迁，使我往往在新“安顿”的城市里，开始时极不适应。我不得不努力去融入陌生的环境，听陌生的口音，吃陌生的食物，体验陌生的文化，认识新的人群，结交新的朋友。但是，当这些持续不断的陌生和新奇变成我生活中的一种经常性的际遇时，我发现它们以其各自的方式使我受益匪浅。它们使我变得适应力极强，思想开放，善于与人交往，往往能变不利为有利。通过在全国各地旅行，并走出国门去往异国他乡，我已渐渐具备了跨文化的和国际性的视野。

　　在过去的十年中，随着爸爸成为中国国内首屈一指的建筑设计师，我们一家的生活也变得富裕起来。由此，在中国最大的两个城市北京和上海，我接受了所能获得的最好的教育——在一群杰出的国际教员的授课下，攻读了国际文凭（IB）。我还在书法和绘画方面受到严格的艺术造诣方面的训练。在不断变换的城市里，我与老师与同学所建立起来的友谊，以及我所创作的艺术作品，这些都是我在自己的生命之旅中留下的足迹。

　　尽管物质上相当富有，但我父亲还是常常教育我要有一颗仁慈关爱之心。父亲给我取名为“思澹”（思索质朴），希望我永远不忘建筑学中的一个至高无上的经典原则——“少即是多”。父亲不断地给我讲述洛克菲勒的女儿们是如何投身于慈善事业，告诉我生命的价值不是以你拥有什么来衡量的，还要看你给予和付出了什么。正是由于他的谆谆教诲，2008年5月，当中国四川发生八级致命强震，导致85000多人遇难时，我便慷慨地进行爱心捐献。当然，这只是我致力于公益的诸多例子中的一个，而我的这些举动，完全离不开父亲的言传身教。

　　随着我即将完成国际文凭课程的学习，我爸爸又鼓励我踏上新的征程——去美国接受最好的教育，以丰盈我对世界的认识和了解，提高个人的涵养，体验迷人的美国文化，并最终使自己成为一个能够为社会做出有益贡献的人。我坚信自己继承了父亲身上的旅行癖，永远行进在人生旅途上，去寻找某些恒久不变和持久永恒之物。我可能不会成为一个像我父亲那样伟大的建筑师，但是我一定会在我个人发展和自我价值实现的征程中，留下我坚实的足迹。