"Letter to Daniel", by BBC Correspondent, then working in Hong Kong

Written in 1996, Letter to Daniel, a piece addressed to his newborn son, is written by BBC foreign correspondent Fergal Keane, then working in Hong Kong.

The piece prompted an emotional response from audiences.

"When you're older we'll tell you that you were born in Britain's last Asian colony in the lunar year of the pig and that when we brought you home, the staff of our apartment block gathered to wish you well. "It's a boy, so lucky, so lucky. We Chinese love boys," they told us."

To read the piece:
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To listen to the piece:
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"In a world of insecurity and ambition and ego, it's easy to be drawn in, to take chances with our lives, to believe that what we do and what people say about us is reason enough to gamble with death. Now, looking at your sleeping face, inches away from me, listening to your occasional sigh and gurgle, I wonder how I could have ever thought glory and prizes and praise were sweeter than life."

"And it's also true that I am pained, perhaps haunted is a better word, by the memory, suddenly so vivid now, of each suffering child I have come across on my journeys."

Fergal Keane's reflections, 10 years after he wrote the letter:
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