About me
My name is 李昭洲 (Pinyin: Lǐ Zhāozhōu ). 李 (Lǐ) is my surname and literally means plum, 昭 (Zhāo) means manifest or illustrious, 洲 (Zhōu) means island or continent. I was born and raised in China.
I enjoy taking walks in the city after work. I have a passion for reading, especially science fiction and history. One of my favorite novels is A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. My favorite Chinese authors include Li Juan(My Altay), Liu Cixin(The Three-Body Problem), and Liu Zhenyun(One Sentence Is Ten Thousand Sentences). While I am not a hardcore anime enthusiast, I enjoy many excellent works (e.g., Sound! Euphonium and Delicious in Dungeon). On weekends, I often spend time building small Python-based gadgets for fun (see this page).
Three stories
While at university in Beijing (2007-2011), I was an active member of an amateur astronomy club (北斗巡星会) and co-organized many stargazing camps and sidewalk astronomy nights with friends. I loved hearing people's exclamations when they saw the moon's surface or Saturn's rings for the first time through our telescopes. This experience partly inspired me to become an astronomer, though I am now more of a theorist than an observer.
In 2008, following the devastating Wenchuan earthquake, I served as a disaster volunteer in Pengzhou (a city in Sichuan) to help villagers rebuild their lives and support children with their studies. Many villages in the area were completely destroyed. It was during this time, amidst frequent aftershocks, that I formed several lifelong friendships.
In the summer of 2010, a friend and I cycled 1400 kilometers along the Chinese Grand Canal (大运河), from Beijing (北京) to Jiaxing (嘉兴). During the journey, we slept in a tent most nights. We saw many beautiful landscapes, but the most unforgettable was the ancient course of the Yellow River in Jiangsu Province, where the greenery was dreamlike.
(A map of the Grand Canal)