Eight Years On

I woked up to the fresh Autumn air this morning, here in London, the sky was a bit cloudy but it looked promising that the sun could break through soon. Then all of sudden it hit me that it's been eight years since the world was devastated by the tragic event in 9'11.

Eight years on, most of us seem to have put the horror, sorrow and anger behind us (at least for those who were directly affected by the event). But are we livinig in a better world now vs. eight years ago?

Afghanistan is still in a mess with no basic security and a flawed election does not help the democratic progress. Too many young soldiers from US and Britain died, but the real question is if this is a war that could be won in the traditional way. Terrorism could be subdued but never eradicated by war, unless the underlying conflicts in the ideology and long running Israeli and Palestine issue is being addressed and resolved, we could not win this war. We need more dialogue and the will to make compromises to build a brighter future.

Iraq war is a costly mistake that America made, acknowledging it doesn’t necessarily grant the solution. In the eight year post 9’11, sadly the Middle East conflict has not been mitigated or resolved, in fact it has been intensified, and now spreading to other countries as a consequence.
There has been interesting development in the world political and economic stage, China, as the wise men predicted in the 1990s, is becoming a new economic powerhouse. It goes with the Chinese saying “20 years on the east of the river and 20 years on the west of the river”. The world is round, the economic development is going around in circles as well, and it will be interesting to see where the next super star will be born. And it seems that the Economy is still going in boom and bust cycles, and we learned that in the past twelve months that history or glory of an institution could be created but could disappear without a trace, lessons learnt is that if things sound too good to be true, they are probably not true.

Ten years ago, I decided to go and explore a new world. I am still glad I spent three years of my very prime time in America. I learnt a lot there, mostly not in the classrooms. I guess the most important thing I learnt is to live on my own through difficult, challenging time; you get emotionally resilient by holding faith on yourself. I found America is quite an easy country to live, provided you have a good professional job. But except New York and San Francisco, where I do find the diversity and variety, I found most other places a bit boring for me.

The day eight years ago, I will always remember. I was working in an office building in downtown Chicago just across street from Sears Tower when the plane crashed into the first twin tower in NYC. I was reading news on Bloomberg website, thinking it was just another aviation accident. But when we were sent home an hour later, it became very clear something had gone very wrong there. I remember calling my close friend – it was turning chilly in the autumn air in Chicago and I was wandering on the empty ground outside my apartment building. Friends, in turbulent times, are the best assets in the world.

I always wanted to explore Europe, although I never thought I would be working and living in London, life is full of surprises, and this is one of the best ones. I guess in some way I could say I am living in my dreams. In the past eight years, I have been fortunate enough to meet some wonderful people, explore the Europe continent and progress my career, now living in my dream city with someone I love, what more could you ask? Well, we want our dream house, this would be the goal for the next six months. And some day, I will start writing again. It is never good to be too indulged in your own nutshell. It might not be a perfect world out there, but I am still glad to be part of it.