LiuDengLi (John)：
My life has been one of travel and adventure. My father was Chinese and my mother is American of Scottish descent. When I was 13 and 14 I had the opportunity to travel around the world on ships for 1 and a half years together with my family.
During this trip, I visited many countries in Asia, Africa and Europe and crossed the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans for the first of what has turned into many travels. This was a great time and a good introduction to geography and world culture.
I first came to the Chinese mainland in 1979 and there I met the amazing Kosima Weber who was impossible to miss because she for some reason wore all brown clothes when all the Chinese dressed gray, green or blue. We immediately became a couple at the Beijing Language Institute.
I had the opportunity to help build two production and editing video studios and filming Chinese language training which turned out to be my main Chinese language education.
After about a year in China I was hired by CBS News to be a producer/cameraman and then spent the entire of the 1980’s covering the biggest stories in geopolitics, economics and culture in the late 20th century.
Growing our young family and observing and documenting history became my normal life and it was exciting,contemplative,and always interesting and beautiful. Kosima flourished as a tremendous mother to our children and became a great photographer and CBS.
I met Liang CongJie when I was working with CBS News in the 1980’s when we interviewed him about his father, Liang SiCheng’s, work documenting and working to protect China’s architectural heritage. Meeting Liang CongJie and his lovely wife, Fang Jing led to Kosima and my becoming their friends and visiting often with them.
When I began to work to bring environmental films to China and build the China Environment and Sustainable Development Reference and Research Center. We were helped and guided by Professor Liang CongJie.
My first introduction to Dr. Jane Goodall was reading the book 'In The Shadow of Man'as a teenager. This was so impactful for me that it pushed me throughout my life to strive to understand the natural world and my relationship to it.
Over 70 some years of my life I have been privileged to travel to 6 continents observing and documenting many ecosystems both being able to learn and teach about the importance of living systems.
When I first met Dr.Jane Goodall in person I found her very kind and normal person. She came and visited our family in our home and met my father and mother, our children and she was very excited to meet FIDO(our dog) who was very much part of our family.
I was helping to organize Dr. Jane Goodall’s early trips to China we also had the pleasure of working with Professor Liang together with several other prominent Chinese Environmental and Ecological Pioneers.
This included producing, writing and directing the film 'Jane Goodall - China Diary' for National Geographic Television.
Knowledge is responsibility and in recent years I have founded a movement of eco-systemn restoration camps and communities that now numbers 86 in over 30 countries but will soon have more than 100 groups.
You can learn more about the Ecosystem Restoration Communities at
<http://www.ecosystemrestorationcommunities.org>.
If you are interested in any ofthe dozens of films I have made or my published work you can find this at
<https://knaw.academia.edu/JohnDLiu>
My Parents, China, Dr. Goodall, Professor Liang CongJie, Fang Jing, and of course Kosima have all been inspirations to me throughout the years and decades.
LiuXiaoDao:
It might have been through John’s work or perhaps because of the Beijing International Society that I first met Liang CongJie. We very quickly got excited to find we shared a passion for protecting the environment. At the same time sharing so many ideas about education and teaching/learning foreign languages with Fang Jing. Then Liang CongJie materialized his dream and environmental legacy with founding the Friends of Nature. We mused about the English name and when he learned that I was doing design work, and I received his call about designing the logo. I remember I was deeply moved and felt the importance and pressure of creating a truly inspiring logo.
I always try many different approaches. Imagination, scribbling and playing with design elements. How to express with a logo the concept of friends of nature, protectors of nature and love of nature.
When I drew the two leaves I deeply felt the imagination simply pouring onto the paper in front of me.
Two leaves like friends holding hands:
a dark green leaf with white lines and a white leaf with green veins swirling together like Yin&Yang.
At the same time the hands that look like leaves or the leaves that seem like hands are hugging the earth, protecting it from all sides.
Yin&Yang are showing how we all play a role, complementing each other protecting nature and Mother Earth.
Liang CongJie was so enthusiastic and became Dr. Jane Goodall’s ‘voice’ during her first visits to China. It was beautiful to see him so deeply fascinated and admiring Dr. Jane.
When you designed the logo of Friends of Nature, you said that the best of the whole ecological system is yin and yang, the way to balance. Can you give us more examples? Does Mr. Liang CongJie know that one of the inspirations of the logo design is hugging the earth?
Do you have any educational experience in graphic design and where? What graphic design cases have you worked on? What does design mean to you?
I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, however in art history. Yet I simply love culture and beauty and loved the challenges of creating designs that are beautiful and inspiring.
I created calendars and postcards, manuals and environmental publications. I also coordinated the German School Year Book for more than a decade.
How do you feel after the Friends of Nature logo is adopted?
I was truly exhilarated and felt deeply grateful when I learned that Liang CongJie and the founding team loved the logo and was registering it! I felt the amazement of being able to serve in my humble way something very big in the making.
In 1980, how did you meet John and make a lifelong relationship? Here is a romantic story, right? Are cross-border marriage and long-distance love (John often travels around the world) challenging for you?
John and me, we met ‘in the early days’, when foreigners were still a novelty, at the Language and Culture University in Beijing in 1980. As John entered the school by himself, he was somehow allocated to share the room with a German roommate with the same name Johannes. Thus our tiny German group came to somehow adopt John.
I know I definitely came to China determined to focus on my studies, yet John and me soon became inseparable. Seemingly from very different cultures we were joyfully surprised that in spite of the differences and our initial language barriers we agreed in so many ways about life and love - and nature.
Both our lives were always filled with uncountable tasks and experiences. And we often ended up having to deal with different things at the same time. Still we always remained deeply connected. During the time our four children were small my days remained busy beyond imagination and John mostly traveled by himself. For two years we managed to work and travel together, but that was sometimes challenging. We had many opportunities to travel together or sellers tell. But never ever were separated in the way that Covid kept us apart for several years. It was certainly a very unusual rather unreal experience. In some ways it felt like time stood still during the time we were separated.
This was perhaps the time our garden became most important. The garden is an ecological oasis with wild areas, a wooden hedge, older trees, the soil always covered with vegetation, home for earth worms and microbes.A garden where no artificial fertilizers or chemicals are used since decades. Thus during Covid times I found that so many plants that grow there are actually edible. I would be able to find many planted or wild plants that would truly enrich my menu. Instead of shopping I would spend hours planning my meals in my mind,testing new and old ways of mixing and preparing. I would discover that eating this way is satisfying body and soul. One ends up eating much less, since the variety the freshness and beauty would replace quantity. One feels deeply nourished in such a simple way.
We can truly protect nature simply by eating well. What we eat is defining the world we live in.
I deeply admire John’s determination for ecosystem restoration, the work of his life. There is always so much to share, so much to do. It’s such a gift and such privilege to live such a rich life together no matter of where we are!
