Madeline Korbel Albright, the first female Secretary of State, was born at Prague of Czechoslovakia in 1937. At the age of 60, she was nominated as the Secretary of State by Bill Clinton in his second presidential term (1997-2001).

Colin Powell, the first African-American Secretary of State, was born and grew up at the slum districts of New York City. When he was 64 years old, he was appointed as the Secretary of State by George Bush Junior in his first presidential term (2001-2005) and approved by the Congress. The political journey of Colin fits the expectation of desire from the African-Americans, fighting from the bottom of the society – slum districts – to the top of the society.

Condoleezza Rice, the first female African-American Secretary of State, was born at Birmingham, Alabama in 1954. When Colin Powell quitted his job in Nov. of 2004, George Bush Junior nominated her to be the successor. In 2005, her nomination was passed in the Congress, and, at the age of 51, she became the first female African-American Secretary of State. Condoleezza is an old friend of Bush family, other than that, her diplomatic strategy click more to the President. Colin Powell preferred to handle the diplomatic issues guided by multilateralism, collaboration and negotiation. So he was regarded as a representative of the Dove. Condoleezza was on the opposite direction – a Hawk, unilateralism and dealing with issues through military measures.

Madeleine’s father, Josef Korbel, was a diplomat who served in Czechoslovakia government until 1948 when he was sentenced to death during Communist coup. Afterwards, he was granted political asylum in the United States and hired to teach politics by School of International Study in Denver University (DU) in 1949. The School was founded by Dr. Ben Cherrington in 1929 and Prof. Korbel was the Dean in 1964. He was also the founding Dean of Graduate School of International Studies at DU, in 2008, for commemorating him, the School got a new name – Josef Korbel School of International Studies. Condoleezza Rice was enlightened and encouraged by Prof. Korbel and her interest transferred from music to international politics in DU. Back then, nobody could have expected she would be the first female African-American Secretary of State.

It is more than a coincidence that both Madeleine and Condoleezza are the experts on Soviet Union and East Europe issues. Think about it, Josef was Madeleine’s father and Condoleezza’s mentor. I dare to suppose, even after the Soviet Union was dissolved in 15 post-Soviet states, Russia is still the most important rival to US, no wonder the experts in Russia could be the Top 3 administration leader in US government. Now, China is one of the most important nations in the world, I have reason to believe the experts in China will be something in US as well.

I was addicted to 24 hours for quite a long time when I was in college. It was in 2004. At that time, the President in this crime serial was an African American. I remembered I was curious when the United States would have a real African-American President. And 4 years from then, Barrack Obama did it.

The evolution of the civil rights regardless gender, ethnic and religion takes a long way to go. Even in America, generations and generations of the minorities, blacks, females, struggle for their own rights from the beginning of establishment of the United States, and its history is only 236 years.

A friend of mine said, in her opinion, China is a desperate and hopeless country, nothing is real, nobody you can trust, especially the government. I don’t see it that way. We have corruption issues, unstable factors and various kinds of problems, but which developed nations elsewhere did not have these? The other side of the coin is, China is better and stronger than before, and it’s for real. Do not take any progress for granted. We are a big country, over 1.5 billion populations in overall country. It is unprecedented achievement for us to feed and dress ourselves by our own. It is natural to have obstacles, the key point is to confront with the blocks bravely and overcome them in the end.

Hero, superman, heroism, individualism, such kinds of topics are the favorite of American TV series or movies. But in the real world, everyone is the hero. Be yourself, be open-minded, be enthusiastic to the world, you will have fantastic experience in this Planet.