Chen Saijuan Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Executive Director of Shanghai Institute of Hematology, Ruijin Hospital (Affiliated to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Medical School)

Leukemia, a disease particularly afflicting males under 40 and females under 20, has become the No. 1 killer of youngsters in China. Traditionally, chemotherapy was used to cure the disease, but the treatment is painful, with a high recrudescence rate. In recent years, marrow transplant procedures have produced good results, but the treatment is restricted due to a limited number of donors. In addition, the cost for such operations is expensive, usually at about 300,000 to 400,000 yuan, an astronomic number for most Chinese families.

As early as in the 1980s, before the advent of molecular medicine, a compound Chinese herbal remedy prepared by experts of traditional Chinese medicine, consisting of realgar, root of red-rooted salvia, heterophylly falsestarwort root and other herbs, had been well accepted in clinical use in China. However, its functional mechanism in terms of molecularity was not then fully understood.

Chen and her team decoded the mechanism using biochemical methods, thus illustrating that the combination theory of herbs in traditional Chinese remedy is scientific, and therefore enduring.

Chen and her team’s achievement was reported on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS, as the very first study that was conducted with modern methods and well illustrated the curing mechanism of compound Chinese herbal medicines, and this fact was acknowledged by the medical world.

Zhang Yimou General Director of the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

For the 1.3 billion Chinese citizens and all those who love sports and peace, the Beijing Olympic Games were an unforgettable gala event. During the Games, Phelps took eight gold medals, Bolt scored 19’ 30” and broke the men’s 200-meter race record, and Li Xiaopeng created new records for Chinese gymnastics. They and other sports stars of the Games will be remembered forever by the city of Beijing.

But perhaps the most unforgettable event of the Games was the opening ceremony. With the slow unfolding of the painting scroll in the National Stadium, a 5,000-year-old civilization was presented to the world.

From the resounding countdown of 2,008 fou drums to the smiles of 2,008 lovely children, from the chanting of “harmony is the value of performing the rites,” and “all within the four seas are brothers,” to the displaying of different variations of the Chinese character “Harmony” used in different times; from the opening up of the Maritime Silk Road by Zheng He to the flying of doves of peace into the night sky, the opening ceremony fully expressed the Chinese people’s wish for world peace, while enabling the world to better comprehend the opening up and tolerance of the country.

Zhang applied new and high technologies to the traditional stage and the group calisthenics. Space age materials, lift stages, LED systems and special effects mostly developed by China were incorporated into the gala, which for the first time adopted the multimedia digital production method in an all-round way.

As the general director, Zhang led the entire team in the project for two years. And with his unexpected creation and precise implementation, he presented to the world a unique and splendid opening ceremony.

Zhang offered to the world a great gift of spectacle and goodwill in the summer of 2008.

Yang Yi Chinese Writer Living in Japan

Alone, she went to Japan for education, and her path of life was fully extended to that nation. There, she married, divorced and then became a single parent of two.

Like the average people portrayed in her novels, Yang leads a down-to-earth life. But the woman with delicate and fine sentiments stays attuned to life. She began to write, making use of experiences collected while working as a reporter, and in the Japanese language recounting stories of the average people who lived nearby.

Yang said that she wrote her novels in Japanese because of the pressures of life. As to winning the award, “The Akutagawa Prize is something above a cloud,” she said. “It has nothing to do with me.” What Yang never expected was that her novels would bring a special feel to the Japanese language, enthralling the most particular of Japanese readers. In 2007, her first novel, Young Wang, won an award for new writers in the literature world in Japan. On July 15, 2008, her new work, Morning Soaking with Time, won the 139th Akutagawa Prize. It was for the first time that this top Japanese literature prize with 73 years of history was awarded to a Chinese. No non-Japanese writer had ever before won the prize.

The jury commented that Yang’s novels were written out of the strong will to live on, even if waging a life-and-death struggle in a vivid yet brand new way, and this feeling can only be experienced by those who have crossed the border.

Yang Yuanqing/ CFP

by Gao Yuwen/CFP

by Lao Bei/CFP

Jin Jing

Besides the athletes, entrepreneurs were also competing hard at the Beijing Games. Since the Olympics first began to adopt a commercialized mode, the business value of the sports gala – a focus of extraordinary public attention – was recognized by the business world. Becoming a part of the Games can generate big business and international credibility.

For the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China IT enterprise Lenovo Group was a top sponsor. According to the agreement, Lenovo was the only IT sponsor of the Games, providing it with computers and ancillary equipment to ensure the smooth and sound operation of the Games. Lenovo is the first enterprise from a developing country to be listed as a top sponsor of the Olympic Games, and it serves as a model for other Chinese businesses ready to develop internationally.

Yang has worked with Lenovo for two decades, advancing from being a technician to the board chair of the largest IT group in China. He witnessed the growth of IT trade in China, and led the group in its development from a local enterprise to an international company. He has set a good example for those enterprises that aim to expand overseas.

Yang led the group in providing comprehensive support to the Games, and through the sponsorship, Lenovo laid a solid foundation for its development in the post-Olympic period.

Wang Chuanfu Chairman of the Board and President of Build Your Dreams Co., Ltd.

Wang Chuanfu became the youngest division chief serving with a large state-owned enterprise, and was once dubbed as the “King of the Battery.” But in 2008, people noticed him mostly for his dream of electric vehicles. Today, confronting the energy crisis and focusing on environmental protection, we greatly value the electric vehicles of Build Your Dreams (BYD). Wang entered the auto manufacturing industry in 2003. In five years time, Wang has well established his company in China’s highly competitive auto market. Meanwhile, through experience accumulated from working in the battery industry, he produced hybrid gas-electric vehicles based on his own intellectual property.

His action has significantly pushed forward the whole auto industry in the country, putting it on equal footing with the world’s top automakers. On the basis of his observations of the development of world auto industry, Wang creatively proposed to discard the research and development of the traditional vehicles and stride directly into the electric vehicles period. BYD’s strategy is to use electric vehicles to leverage a commanding lead in the future of alternative energy technology.

In September 2008, American investor Warren Buffett’s investment company signed a strategic investment and stock subscription agreement with BYD. According to the agreement, the former will subscribe 225 million of the latter’s shares at the price of HK$8 per share, accounting for 10 percent of the total BYD shares after its recent placing of shares. The transaction will reach a total of HK$1.8 billion. Industry insiders believe that the fact that Buffett, who is known for his precise and shrewd insight, acquired so many BYD’s shares indicates his confidence in Wang’s strength in electric vehicle technology.

Zhu Xinli Chairman of the Board and President of Huiyuan Group Co., Ltd.

Sixteen years ago, when Zhu Xinli left his government office to take over a county fruit cannery on the verge of bankruptcy in the mountainous Yimeng Area in east China’s Shandong Province, he discovered some remarkable facts. On the one hand, there was a rapid increase in demand in the fruit juice market overseas, and on the other hand, one could hardly find any fruit juice products in the market in China, where is produced most varieties and the greatest quantity of fruits in the world.

He was determined to engage in the vast market. In the following 16 years, he focused almost solely upon establishing and operating the Huiyuan Fruit Juice Company. His painstaking effort paid off. What began as a small fruit cannery is now the largest producer of fruit juice in China, taking a lion’s share in the fruit juice market in the country. At the same time, its great processing capacity has provided farmers with opportunities to gain great wealth.

In September 2008, to expand its production in the fast growth market in China, the Coca Cola Company announced that it would purchase Huiyuan Group at the price of HK$17.92 billion. Zhu holds 41.53 percent of Huanyuan’s stocks, which will be sold for HK$7.4 billion. That will be the biggest deal in the history of China’s food and beverage trade. If the transaction is approved, it will be Coca Cola’s biggest deal in China since it entered the country in 1979. This purchase signifies that the Chinese market has further opened to the world.

Jin Jing Olympic Torch Bearer

At the age of nine, when Jin Jing began to understand the meaning of beauty and youth, she lost part of her leg due to a malignant tumor in her right ankle. Facing the cruel fact of being confined to a wheelchair forever, she did not give up. She casually said that it was only a short episode in life, and continued to go to school and fell in love.

Physical limitations did not shackle the development of her mind. She came to greatly relish the joyous moments in life, while disdaining destruction of beauty by violence and evil.

In April 2008, during the Beijing Olympic torch relay in Paris, a few “pro-Tibet independence” activists attempted to grab the torch from Jin Jing, who was doing her part of the relay in her wheelchair. Jin was not afraid; she held the torch tightly with defiant pride. That image was broadcast live to every corner of the world, moving many who sat before TV sets. Later, when she was asked during an interview if she was afraid at that moment, the fencer and the silver medal winner of a World Cup said that, “They would have to crawl over my corpse to take the torch from my hand.”

Jin Jing revealed to the world the outlook and passion of average Chinese people, and she became known as the “smiling angel in a wheelchair.”