Five Stainless Steel Screws Standing at the balcony of my apartment, I can see from a long distance a huge modern steel construction, the Olympic Sightseeing Tower. When the air quality in Beijing is good enough, the Tower can be clearly seen, but if the PM 2.5 pollution index is high, it will be hidden in a heavy smog. So I can determine whether the air is suitable for outdoor activities with a glance at the Tower. An ironic skill, isn't it? The Tower is composed of five individual screw-like structures, and the local people would love to call it by the nickname "Five Screws" ("五颗螺丝钉"). It is quite vivid. Whenever we ask my 15-month-old son Armand, "where are the screws?" he always points out to the balcony with his little hand. This afternoon I received a package. As I pulled the case apart, Armand was very curious about a couple of screws detached from it. "These are screws," I explained to him. As soon as he heard that, he looked out of the balcony with a confused look on his face.

About My Profile Photo When I was invited to set a profile photo, I chose to upload this one. It was taken on the last Chinese Mid-autumn festival, September 8, 2014, and what appears in it is one of the mooncakes I made for our family. These cakes had crisp skin and were stuffed with a seasoned mixture of minced beef, chopped onions, preserved Sichuan vegetable named “Fulin Zhacai”, and so on. When taken out of the baking oven, they smelt very delicious. I ate four hot mooncakes along with a cup of strong oolong tea; even my sister, who was on a weight-reduction diet, couldn't help to eat three. Mooncakes are a necessary food for Mid-autumn festival in China, and some people call that day as "Mooncake festival" jokily. There are a great variety of sorts of mooncakes available in the supermarkets or online shops; unfortunately, most of them taste too sweet or too greasy. But if you make them yourselves, you can improve the recipe according to your preference, and you don't need to worry about taking too much sugar, fat or preservative.