Interviewee: Wang Jiaquan, male, 41, project manager

Place of birth: Dingyuan County, east China's Anhui Province

Current residence: Huizhou, south China's Guangdong Province

Cities visited: Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Hefei, Chengdu and Haikou in China

Understanding of "Better City, Better Life": The city should be clean, environmentally friendly, and have a pleasant climate. It should also have convenient transportation, plain and honest people, and steady economic development.

Oral history:

I was born in a rural area in Anhui and worked in Anhui and Zhejiang provinces after college graduation. In 1999, I went to Lenovo Science and Technological Park in the Huiyang Economic Development Zone in the city of Huizhou by chance, and have lived here ever since. Over the next 10 years I witnessed tremendous changes in the city: roads widened, the living standard improved, and the number of Fortune 500 companies in Huizhou increased.

The history of the Huiyang Economic Development Zone is a microcosm of the city's development.

When I first went there 10 years ago, I waited for a long time before I could get on a bus. The narrow and bumpy asphalt road leading to the Development Zone and the wilderness along the road gave me a scary thought that I might have gotten on an unlicensed bus until the bus finally stopped at a modern plant surrounded by wild reeds in a remote valley.

Today, the Development Zone has built a gardenlike square covering tens of thousands of square meters, a series of residential quarters, and a large new campus for the one-hundred-year old Chongya High School.

The Huinan Highway, which opened to traffic in 2009, passes along the Lenovo Science and Technological Park, connecting downtown Huizhou and Huiyang districts. The bustling Hui'ao Highway, less than 500 meters away from the park, connects downtown Huizhou and Dayawan districts. The shuttle buses running on these highways cut the travel time from downtown Huizhou to the Development Zone in half.

Apart from the impressive city development, the natural environment attracts me a lot, making Huizhou worthy of the name "the eco-city."

Boasting a beautiful natural environment, Huizhou is known as "a city half covered with mountains and half covered with lakes."

My little daughter and I are regular visitors to the 100-meter-wide Dongjiang River, which zigzags through Huizhou City. People fish on both sides of the river, cheering for every rise of the fishing rods, and tourist boats float idly on the river. Quietly sitting on the grass and watching my daughter run and play in the fresh wind, I can't help thinking how happy my life is.

Huizhou people often visit Honghua Lake Scenic Sport and West Lake Park, which is located downtown and boasts a large number of historical and cultural sites.

As a coastal city, Huizhou enjoys tourism resources such as Dayawan and Xunliao bays. The city is home to Luofu Mountain, one of the 10 renowned Taoist mountains in China, and Tangquan Spring, which was named the "No. 1 hot spring in China" by Su Dongpo, an eminent poet in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). He had written a great number of poems during his stay in Huizhou to show his affection toward the city.

I feel at home living with kind Huizhou people in this medium-sized historical and cultural city. With the familiar Huizhou saying, "We are one big family wherever you come from," all residents, whether they are native residents, Hakka people, or immigrants, share the city harmoniously, reflecting the tolerance of the city.

The city's sound, livable environment attracts people from neighboring cities such as Shenzhen and Dongguan, and even from Guangzhou and Hong Kong, to purchase houses and apartments to settle down here. I seized the opportunity and bought an apartment here in 2006 and registered as a Huizhou citizen.

I often have business trips to Dongguan and Shenzhen. The gray sky and heavy traffic there almost suffocate me, making me feel sorry for the people there. Living and working under pressure, they could never enjoy life as people in Huizhou do.

Although Huizhou is experiencing fast economic development, it isn't as noisy as neighboring cities Dongguan and Shenzhen. People living in Huizhou are substantial and enjoy tranquil lives, which is the real reason I choose to live here.