I am Enrico Lunghi, an Italian researcher who got the opportunity to do a two-year postdoctoral program at the Institute of Zoology (IOZ), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, through the CAS President's International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI) for International talents. This was my first postdoc position after my PhD, which I obtained a year before.

My experience began in May 2019. From Pistoia (Tuscany region) I moved directly to Beijing. It was my first time in China (and in Asia as well). I was super excited to begin this new adventure but, at the same time, a little bit worried about the difficulties I would encounter there because I would have had to begin a new life without any knowledge of the local language. Fortunately, my supervisor Professor Zhao Yahui and his students helped me with every task I had to do to start my life there, from obtaining the work visa to fiding a a suitable home. That was awesome! I did not expect such effort from people who barely knew me, and thanks to them, everything went well. I really cannot thank enough my supervisor for his kindness and for his help. Professor Zhao has not been just a supervisor, but he turned out to be a very good friend too! This good relationship created great harmony and trust between us, a condition that allowed for a great collaboration. I really enjoyed the time I spent in Beijing and I loved discovering and getting to know Chinese culture. I spent so much time walking around the city. This is a thing I always do to get to know the cities I am visiting or living in. I had the chance to visit some of the must-to-see places, such as Tian'anmen Square, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Hutongs and Shichahai.

I met many people and made new friends in Beijing, with whom I really enjoyed not just visits to cultural places, but also the nightlife. I luckily found a small studio close the IOZ, which allowed me to easily walk to work every day in a short time. Nonetheless, I was close to the Olympic Forest Park, a lovely area where I played sports and hung out with friends.

The only regret I have is related to the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020. This event interrupted my stay in Beijing after only nine months. I flew back to Italy, where I am still stuck because of the travel restrictions, to stay with my parents and do my best to keep them safe. Professor Zhao and I stay in touch regularly to keep each other updated on our respective situations. Anyway, the pandemic did not stop us from doing science. During this tough time, Professor Zhao and I worked on many papers, as we embrace cave biology in its entirety and thus, we focused on different cave species from the Chinese cavefishes (which represented the topic of my PIFI project).

Honestly, besides all the obvious complications, 2020 was a very productive year. I published 13 papers in total, including some in high-ranked journals such as Ecology, Ecography and Scientific Data. The period I spent in Italy with the support of PIFI allowed me to perform new data collections that are now gathered in high-quality datasets (one of these is about to be accepted in Scientific Data) and will provide materials for many papers in the next future, which I would love to write and publish again in Beijing. From a professional point of view, my PIFI postdoc was a great step forward for my career and independence, and I felt very grateful that my knowledge has been appreciated by my supervisor. Overall, within the two years of the postdoctoral PIFI position, my scientific production was the following: 18 papers published (or in press) in international journals (including four papers published in journals with 5-year IF > 5), 1 paper about to be accepted in another journal with 5- year IF > 5 (minor reviews already submitted), 1 more paper submitted, and a large amount of data collected during the last year that will allow great scientific research in the future. While I was in China in 2019, I was invited to give a seminar at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of CAS and I also gave a seminar at the regular meeting of postdocs at the IOZ in Beijing.

Since I left Beijing, I have given four webinars. In 2020, I also co-edited a special issue of the journal Diversity focused on cave communities. My scientific research was also awarded the 2021 Young Investigator Award by the MDPI journal Diversity. Furthermore, I started collecting data on another cave animal: the Italian cave salamander (Speleomantes italicus). This has led to a series of high-quality papers, and many more are coming out in the near future!

I really want to thank the Chinese Academy of Sciences for the extraordinary opportunity to live and work in China, an experience that I really would love to repeat soon. I hope they also enjoyed my company and are satisfied with my scientific work during my PIFI postdoctoral contract.

Take care and I hope to come back and see you soon.