Happy New Year, dear friends!

Every Chinese New Year, I receive numerous blessings and greetings. Before I moved to the UK in 1997, New Year greeting letters came from all over China; I started receiving the greeting cards from more than thirty countries since I published my first book ‘The Good Women of China’. After MBL was set up in 2004, I have received so many cute children’s drawings from the adoptive families who have adopted Chinese children, more than twenty countries, and nearly one thousand volunteers greeting emails from five continents! In the process of our life being changed by the modern digital technology, blessings become more accessible and interesting: the words of gratitude are changing with each passing day in the pictures and videos of mobile phones, and one by one love is passing on.

Chinese New Year is in two parts, before the first day of New Year, people clean their houses, to prepare for foods and the gifts for the family members, relatives and friends; on the New Year Eve and the first day of the New Year, its family gathering time; from the second day of the New year, people would go out to bless and thank relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbours…

So, Chinese New Year is also a time for people to thank family and friends!

Therefore, on behalf of The Mothers’ Bridge of Love (MBL) team, I have the honour to thank all MBL volunteers and supporters, as well as the families who have adopted Chinese children in 27 countries: thank you for sharing the same passion with MBL, and your supports in the past 18 years!

I would like special to thank MBL volunteers, who created the MBL Cultural Dialog during the pandemic lockdown, thanks to them for inviting people to join the online exchanges, and seek consensus in the differences between China and the West. In 2021 there were monthly MBL Cultural Dialog, through Zoom and various Chinese social media forms, including WeChat, video clips, Tencent and TikTok, with Chinese and English interpretation. 10 MBL Cultural Dialog have achieved a great success: a series of international famous speakers, including political commentator and writer Martin Jacques, scholar and author professor Julia Lovell, "Economist" American reporter Roseann Lake, Taiwan TV host Xu HaoPing, Chinese novelist and investors Feng Tang, British 48 group chairman Stephen Perry, Chinese folk costume expert professor Deng Qiyao, FT columnist He Yue…etc., with audience from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and Hungary and many other countries. MBL Cultural Dialog has been reported by several news outlets in both China and the UK.

I am very excited to share with you: MBL Cultural Dialog will be upgraded in the Year of the Tiger, the monthly interview will be a quarterly panel discussion, so as to provide participants with a wider range of topics. The first issue of the Year of the Tiger will be on March 5 between three women who successfully entered the British financial industry: careers in the west, the international family, and how to enter job hunting in the west. This is a MBL gift to the young friends from school to society in the Year of the Tiger.

February 1st 2022 is the beginning of the year of the Tiger in China.

According to legend, in ancient times, the lion was in the twelve animals, no tiger. But Jade Emperor thought the lions has different appearance between male and female, also has a poor family reputation, he decided to remove the lions. Tiger’s males and females have the same appearance and are beautiful, also very powerful and good family guardians. So，Emperor asked the tiger to join the twelve Chinese animals, inspiring the world to forge ahead with the vigour and vitality of the tiger.

Over the past two years, the world has been suffered from a pandemic, with more than 300 million people being infected and more than 5 million being killed by COVID-19! Over one hundred countries are now fighting the disease together. I hope that the arrival of the Year of the Tiger will bring mankind a firmer will and ability to fight the pandemic, and also look forward to more friends joining MBL to share their love and helping the world together!