Yes, it was certainly an annus horribilis—in other words, a bad year in laymen’s terms. Untold millions—billions—have suffered either directly or indirectly as a result of the pandemic. And there was an assortment of other calamities this past year as well. Personally, I experienced many losses and disappointments over the past year, which I won’t go into here. Also, I won’t mention politics; it goes without saying that it’s been a rough year for everyone. And like everyone else on this planet, I’m looking forward to moving on to the next year. Hopefully, it will be a better one.

And yet, “every cloud has a silver lining”—or as the Chinese are fond of saying “Old Man Sai lost his horse—maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” 塞翁失马焉知非福 sai weng shi ma yan zhi fei fu. In the old Chinese folktale, Mr. Sai loses his horse, but then he goes on to gain and lose a series of other things. Life has a way of balancing out in the end. Or so Chinese wisdom suggests. Thus, in the spirit of gratitude, here is a list of ten things that I’m grateful for in 2020. 

1) I am grateful that I had the opportunity to form a band with DKU students and staff and perform at our annual Chinese New Year’s Gala in Jan 2020. The gala and performance took place literally one day before the news of the pandemic led the school to shut everything down. We were lucky to get this experience in, and fortunately nobody that I know of in our community was directly affected by the pandemic, which at the time was centered in our partner university’s city of Wuhan.

2) I’m grateful that my wife and our two daughters and their Chinese grandma and I went on a trip to Singapore just as the news of the pandemic was hitting us in China. We had planned this trip for Chinese New Year holiday, and we decided to go regardless of the situation. As it turned out, we had a great time in Singapore, and it would be our last family holiday for quite some time.

3) I’m grateful that I got to spend a week back in China as the pandemic reaction gathered force and speed in early February. I was able to experience and document the most amazing lockdown I’d ever seen, and I saw how all of Chinese society was galvanized and mobilized to fight off and prevent the spread of the virus. 

4) I’m grateful that my daughters and I were able to spend three weeks in California, in the month of February. We did a soft quarantine in a hotel suite for two weeks, followed by a visit with my aunt and uncle in the Berkeley Hills. We also had brief visits with some friends of mine and a former student with whom I spent a whole day catching up as we toured the Stanford University campus and the coastline of the Bay Area. We also visited some fine parks and national wildlife refuges in the Bay Area. My love for this golden state shines on.

5) I’m grateful that we spent six months with my parents in my hometown of Acton Massachusetts. This was totally unexpected of course. We went there in March to pass some time until our schools in China opened up again. Little did we know that the USA was gearing up to experience its own version of the global pandemic, and that our country lacked the wherewithal, the willpower, the coordination, and above all, the leadership to fight down this pandemic. By the end of March, the writing was on the wall, and we were stuck in Acton for an uncertain amount of time, which ended up stretching out to six months. During that time, I explored my hometown and environs by foot, bike, and car, and spent quality time with my parents in my old hometown, more time than perhaps since I was a youth getting ready for college. Which brings me to….

6) I’m grateful that I was able to explore nature more deeply than I had ever done before. After reading The Overstory by Richard Powers, I started geeking out on trees. Pretty soon, I was traipsing through our local forests with or without my parents and daughters in tow. By late spring, I was on a mission to discover and experience all of the great conservation lands and wildlife refuges in our great state of Massachusetts. I didn’t make it to all of them of course, but I did visit quite a few of them. In addition to trees, I also focused on getting to know the birds and other wildlife better and understanding their connections. When I wasn’t out searching for them, they came to my back yard. Owls, turkeys, deer, eagles, hawks, and numerous other feathery and furry creatures visited the area behind our back porch which looks out onto the forest and conservation land. A metaphor perhaps for enlightenment? “Without going out of my door… I can know the ways of Heaven…”

 7) I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to reconnect with old friends. The pandemic and the onset of social distancing gave us the tools and the need to connect online through Zoom and other media. I found myself spending hours catching up with people who I hadn’t seen or really conversed with in years. And I got involved in a DnD game online with some old pals from my high school days. We are still playing the game even now that I’m back in China.

8) I’m grateful that I reconnected with an old love of mine: Bicycling. Over the summer, I took many long bike rides in the area surrounding my hometown of Acton MA. I either rode alone, with my stepfather, or with an old friend who grew up with me in the neighborhood. My love for the sport of cycling and for the terrain that surrounds my hometown—the rolling hills, pastures, farmland, forests, fields, towns, villages, churches, and vistas—were both thoroughly rekindled.

 9) I’m grateful that I was able to explore my home state Massachusetts with my daughters, and to bond with them while showing them the place where their dad grew up. My daughters had been to Acton many times, but they had never spent more than a week or two there at a time--at least, not since my second daughter was born in the neighboring town of Concord 11 years ago. Since most public places were closed down for a while, and since social distancing rules were in force, I took them to nearby conservation lands and wildlife refuges for walks. In July, we explored the hills and waterfalls of Western Mass. together and climbed (drove up actually) the highest mountain in the state, Mt. Greylock. Later that month, we had our best trip to Cape Cod, where we spent three lovely days enjoying the beaches, wildlife zones, shoreline, and fine restaurants. 

10) Last but not least, I’m grateful that I was able to return to China and to teaching full-time. After eight years of administration work, this year I was granted the opportunity to take on a full-time teaching load. Despite all the initial challenges, I enjoyed our conversion to an online teaching platform. When we were finally able to return to China and to our schools, I enjoyed getting to teach once more in a classroom, while taking care to involve those students who were still abroad via Zoom technology. Our university provided tremendous support for online and hybrid teaching, and we were able to get through the academic year as a result. It was far from an ideal situation and I’d much prefer that all my students were in the classroom and on campus with me. Then again, Zoom and other technologies have opened up a brave new world of online and remote communication that has enabled us to communicate with people around the world in new and unprecedented ways. I look forward to seeing how these technologies continue to develop and enhance our ability to communicate and to teach and learn across vast distances. If there is one lesson that this pandemic has brought home, it is that we are all deeply connected with each other on this planet, no matter how far away from home we may roam.