Zhang Dan, a teacher with the Pukou Elementary School in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, sent Annan a dove-shaped silk handicraft and a poem on January 1, expressing her desire for lasting peace across the world in the new century.

Annan said in the letter that Zhang's idea represents the common aspiration of mankind, which is for all nations to coexist peacefully, like good neighbors.

Zhang's family suffered a great deal from war: one of her uncles was killed and her father badly injured by Japanese solders during the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945).

Zhang had been working on her handicraft since 1977, when she began attaching fallen strands of to a piece of silk in the pattern of a dove, the universal symbol of peace.

(Xinhua 02/08/2001)