At one mid-autumn Sunday, I finally met Mr. Yang. Although he is such a prestigious guest with legendary life experience, it was to my surprise that Mr. Yang talked to us in such a humble and humorous manner, which immediately driven our tense away.

Mr. Yang first visited the Cambridge Mathematics Department, a world-class centre put together by the legendary figure Prof. Steven Hawking, and also where the talk was going to take place. Mr. Yang specifically inspected the auditorium for the talk, which indicated his carefulness and took very serious to his photographic talk in Cambridge. At 2:00 pm, Yang Shaoming step into the auditorium again to start his talk with the title “Traditions and Innovation Through 60 Years”. During the talk, Mr. Yang shared his personal career experience with the Cambridge students. His photo artworks, together with his vivid explanations, represented his great commitment to his career and huge joy towards the fast-development of China’s economic and cultural construction. During the talk, Mr. Yang’s speech was interrupted by sound applauds many times.

Mr. Yang Shaoming is one of China’s most distinguished and well known photographers. During his career Mr. Yang has witnessed and photographed many of the momentous events in the past 60 years of China’s history. Mr. Yang has photographed all of China’s Presidents since the founding of the PRC in 1949. He was also the personal photographer of Deng Xiaoping for 12 years. This was during the period when Deng Xiaoping was at his most influential with his leadership in China laying the foundations of the “open door strategy.” That strategy has transformed China through the past 30 years with an annual average of 10% economic growth. Mr. Yang Shaoming is the vice president of Chinese Photography Academic Society, and was awarded honorary fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2006.

During Mr. Yang’s speech, his smily face, vivid words and artistic style has impressed all the audiences. This was also largely attribute to Mr SA Wen’s English translation – a well-known News presenter from the Phoenix TV station in Hongkong, which makes the auditorium full of laugh and applauds. After the talk, Mr. Yang also prepared his photo albums and DVD as gifts to Cambridge students. He also inscribed to our CEEDS Soceity “The Future Belongs to You” as his best wish to our Cambridge students.

After the talk, accompanies by some students, Mr. Yang experienced the most traditional Cambridge activity – Punting. This is a truly experience as written in one of the most famous Chinese poem “Say Goodbye Again to Cambridge” by Mr. XU Zhimo. Accompanied by the blue waves over River Cam and historical buildings alongside, We hope Mr. Yang could be impressed by this Cambridge trip.