My Story

I grew up in Haidian and Shunyi District, Beijing. I graduated from Keystone Academy Beijing in 2025 and earned my IB Diploma. I spent my first year of college at the University of Virginia, then transferred to the University of Chicago.

Besides Computer Science

Music

I play both acoustic and electric guitar. On acoustic I mostly play fingerstyle, and my favorite piece to cover is Youngso Kim’s Like a Star. On electric I play with my band 梦笺 Somninote. We’re currently a cover band focused on Mandarin rock and jazz fusion. I also love covering progressive and math rock.

I sing sometimes too. During my time at UVA I sang tenor in University Singers and in the a cappella group HoosITS.

I appreciate a wide range of music. My favorite genres are indie, indie rock, Midwest emo, post-rock and progressive rock, and there’s plenty of metal, metalcore and musicals on my playlist too.

Making and listening to music has shaped a lot of who I am, and some of my best memories are tied to it. I think I’d have become a musician of some sort if I hadn’t gone the techbro route. I’ll also proudly mention that I am perfect pitched.

Science Fiction

I love science fiction. First of all, science fiction is just cool to me. Worldviews, future techs, and the big ideas in science fiction just fascinates me naturally. Plus, I belive that there are certain ethical dilemmas only science fiction can clearly construct. Science fiction earns a dimension of freedom that lets it isolate and construct ethical problems on a scale and with a clarity that reality cannot offer. It is so interesting to me to think through these problems through the scope of science fiction.

I especially love the work of Liu Cixin, Isaac Asimov and Ursula K. Le Guin. Christopher Nolan is my favorite film director, and Inception is my favorite film.

Other Fun Facts

I love Formula 1. I root for Oscar Piastri and Zhou Guanyu. I went to the Chinese Grand Prix in 2024 and 2025.

I was never a sporty guy, but I do stay active at the gym, on the badminton court, and running on the track or the road. You’d catch me in pretty bad shape right now though, after a recent pneumothorax surgery.

I was never a theater kid, but I find musicals pretty cool. I’ve probably only seen a dozen, but my favorite is Les Misérables, and my second favorite is Rent.

FAQ

Jingbo, Richard and Zhihcheng

People are often confused by the various names I go by, so let me sort them out. Jingbo (靖博, /tɕɪŋ51 pɔ35/) is my legal first name. It’s a phonetic reference to my parents’ hometowns (Jinghai and Zibo), and it means “composed and knowledgeable”. Zhicheng (至诚, /ʈʂɚ51 ʈʂʰɤŋ35/) is the name my parents were going to give me before I was born, and it ended up as my nickname instead. It means “the most truthful”. I use Zhihcheng as my username on most social media (I threw in the extra h to imitate Wade-Giles romanization, and because it looks cool). Richard is my English nickname, given to me by my kindergarten English teacher. I thought it was a fine name, so I kept it.

Please call me Richard. I’d rather go by an English nickname than have people struggle to pronounce my real name, and pronouncing it incorrectly.