John Pomfret

But on the other hand, in the midst of the chaos, you find normal people. You find people who are willing to risk their lives to tell you what they saw, even though they have no dog in the fight.

The one indication that I got that I was doing the right job in Bosnia was that at different periods of time all the factions came down very hard on me.

My main form of transportation at that time was a bicycle, because bicycles could move though the crowd.

I was posted to China in the summer of 1988, which was the greatest time ever, I think, to have been in China.

I grew up in New York City in the late '70s, at a time when U.S. - China relations were something that was on the front page of The New York Times on a regular basis.

I think some of the best reporters are the ones who can really illustrate the differences between societies, at the same time trying to connect the fact that there are a lot of shared values in addition to those differences.

The work is a calling. It demands that type of obsession.