Welcome to guozheng's Homepage

"Life is just like a box of Chocolate, you'll never know what you're gonna get." -- Forrest Gump

My last name is Ge, it is written as in Chinese. I was born in a beautiful small town in south-east China called Changshu. The town is at the end of Yangtzi River and about one hour drive from Shanghai. As the only son and grandson in the family, my parents have given me all the love and care they can offer.

After high school, I went to Xi'an, the ancient capital of China, a city more than a thousand miles away from my hometown (once it took me 26 hours on the train to get back home). During the four years of my undergraduate study, I took the chance and travelled to most provinces in west China (China is really huge). As a boy from southern China, those wild dissert and moutains only appeared in my wildest dreams. People in those rural areas live simple and pure lives in harmony with nature and no excessive desire for materials. In my university, Xian Jiaotong University, I start to learn not only computer science technologies but also philosophy of life. When we graduate in 2000, it was just a boom time for Chinese IT industries. Most of my friends and classmates are now in the middle mangagement in IT companies in China.

After I am done with my undergraduate life, I took a different path and went to Singapore to explorer new life in Nanyang Technological University. It's a beautiful and clean city close to the equator. I like the sudden thunderstorm after sizzling hot afternoons, I love the spicy tropical seafood, I also made many good friends with Singaporean and Indian students. I believe it is one of the greatest things to blend different culture together and make people of different races live together in peace. Singapore government does a great job on this issue which is still a headache for the US today I think.

One year slipped away quickly and I completed my MS program in Singapore. After stuggling with visa officers FOUR times for no reason (rejected for three times and got accept in the fourth) in US embassy in Shanghai, I was allowed to enter US and start my graduate study in the University of California, Santa Cruz. Here, I enjoy free research atmosphere in our research group and casual Californian life style. I feel very thankful to my advisor Jim Whitehead and colleagues for supporting me both financially and spiritually. As for the next step, I am still thinking what to do. Mostly likely I will join the industry and get some experience before I go back to China in future.

My Family

My parents still live in my hometown. Mom is retired from the local art museum and my dad still works. I feel sorry for them because I cannot be with them and take care of their daily life. They've given me so much but I can return so little.

Fang Yu is my wife, we just celebrated two year anniversay this Feburary. She is the sweetest girl I ever met in my life: super smart, beautiful, lovely, considerate, and warm-hearted. It is a miracle that we rediscovered each other and fell in love in US. We had been middle-school and high-school classmates for 6 six years in my hometown, without knowing much about each other under the pressure of busy "Chinese style" study life. But finally, God leads us together again and I believe we are destined to be together, forever.

Personal Interests

Photography: I own a Nikon D50 with three Nikkor lenses and one Sigma lense: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF DX, 70-300mm f/4-5.6G AF, 50mm f/1.8D AF, and Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM. The equipments are by no means pro, but we both enjoy taking photos and recording our life together. Some of the photos can be found at my flickr page and Picasa online.

Badminton: We are beginner-intermediate level and play regularly. It's a great sports and lots of fun. Currently, we have two rackets: Yonex ISO665 Light for Fang and Yonex MP29 Light for me. They are both good for beginners (MP29 is more offensive). We got those at badmintonalley and some say bbeshop in China has a better price.

Dining and Cooking: Me and my wife have passion for cooking. Chinese restaurants in US manipulate their flavors to cater for westerners, so we would rather cook our own dishes at home. Chef Yan's Yan Can Cook is one of our favoriate cooking shows on PBS. We also love Japanese and Italian food very much. But it is a pity that we never had the courage to try out those dishes at home. We simply search on Yelp and drive over to the restaurants if we are craving for Japanese ramen, sushi or Italian stove pizza.