The world has over 6.6 billion people. One-fifth of them live in China, where I grew up and became the person I am now.

The changes that China has undergone are astounding. I have been privileged to have seen China "grow up" with me, in a matter of speaking. I was born just a few years before the Cultural Revolution in China and I have seen with my own eyes the best and the worst of that period in time.

I have seen China through the first few years of its economic development. Astounding, unstoppable, the whole world watching from a distance now says, but I felt it. China's economic growth touched me, as it would hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese who have found a better life as China continues to grow.

I have spent the better part of the last two decades living abroad but I travel regularly between China and Europe for my work. This has let me view what's happening in China from a different perspective. I don't look at China with rose-colored glasses. I have seen her ups-and-downs, the challenges she has faced as she tried and still tries to cope with the changing times. The Tiananmen Square incident is one of the touchstones in my life, I left China for abroad soon after.

China, because of its vastness and long history, is a lot of things to different people at any point in time. That's why I have decided to tell my story. I believe that the greatness of a country can only be measured against its effects and influences on its people.

Let me share the China that I love and know best with you, maybe it will show you a side of China you've never seen before.