I had dreamed of seeing New York City ever since high school, when I watched the movie Sex and the City, about four women there, trying to find themselves as well as love. The show encouraged me to be braver and more independent, and to work harder.

Even now the melody and lyrics of the song It's Amazing in the movie — "It's amazing, it's amazing all that you can do. It's amazing, it makes my heart sing. Now it's up to you" — come to mind whenever I get stuck.

After I arrived in New York, I tried my best to fit in the place, which at first seemed totally bizarre. Then, naturally, I fell in love with the city. Later I even felt nostalgic about it when I thought I had to leave after just two years, never realizing my departure would come much sooner than that.

But my mixed and miserable emotions are not just the result of personal loss.

It was not just my individual departure that hurt. The pain was also about a group of people whose job is to explain differences and promote communication between countries.

In my short foreign assignment, I had the opportunity to cover the China and the United States Outstanding Chinese Awards Ceremony. The event was held on the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States. "We hope the awards ceremony will bring more outstanding achievements and development in the next four decades and boost China-US trade volume, which will benefit the people of our two nations," said Charles Wang, vice-president of the awards panel and adviser to the US Labor Department. "This is the picture that we want to see."

I had covered the LuminoCity Festival, a 16-acre light exhibition featuring Chinese lanterns. It dazzled visitors with its "Let It Glow Christmas" show at Randall's Island Park in New York. The show was wholly designed by a Chinese student studying in the US and all lanterns were crafted by artisans from Zigong city in Southwest China's Sichuan province. They made the lanterns in Zigong and shipped them to New York.

Huang Ping, China's consul general in New York, encouraged the designer and young people like her to use their imaginations to combine Chinese traditional culture and folk art with local residents' customs and preferences to bring joy to locals. Huang said it was a way to teach them about Chinese culture and enhance people-to-people exchanges.