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There are times in one’s life when a world shaking event happened and one can remembers EXACTLY what one was doing at that moment and where. I was driving to work in the morning just pass the FreshPond traffic circle in Cambridge when the radio reported that a plane had struck the world Trade Center in NY. Minutes later when I arrived in my office and continued listening on radio, the second plane struck  the second tower. It was then I instinctively knew that the US will go to war in the Middle East. I was wrong about the target – I thought it will be Iraq because ordinary US citizens at the time did not have the intelligence on Afghanistan and El Queada that the government had.

At the time, I was about to start on my new job at Tsinghua University in about a week time. I seriously thought about cancelling my trip. The shock, disbelief, and sadness felt by ordinary Americans were hard to describe. In particular, there were  also news reports that there was wide spread cheering by students on Tsinghua campus about America getting what she deserved. People thought this was no time for an American to be travelling to an unfriendly place.

In any case, ten years have passed. The world is a very different place than she was ten years ago. I had a most satisfying second career and third career in Tsinghua and on ScienceNet, China. Tonight CCTV international channel has an extensive coverage of the 9/11 events. I was able to watch in Beijing the tenth anniversary memorial service live in the US with very little interruption. As an ethnic Chinese and an American citizen for over half a century, it is truly 感慨万千 and for all kinds of reasons, glad to be alive.