TED’s own Lisa Bu takes the TED2013 stage now to tell a very personal tale of a journey through literature that began, well, with a shattered dream. Growing up in Hunan, China, in the 1970s, Bu’s parents (yes, she had a Tiger Mother) believed there was only one sure way to happiness: a safe and well-paid job; no matter whether she actually liked it or not. She, in contrast, dreamed of making a career as a Chinese opera singer. But no adults would take her seriously, and when she reached the age of 15, she knew that she was too old to be trained. Her dream was not to be. “I was afraid that for the rest of my life, second-class happiness would be the best I could hope for,” she says. “But that was so unfair! I was determined to find another calling.”

With no one around to teach her, she turned to books, and what follows is her fresh take on some old favorites, including what she took from titles such as Jane Eyre, Cheaper by the Dozen, and Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth, a book banned in China she was only able to read after she moved to the US in 1995. “The Bible,” she comments, “is interesting, but strange.” A big laugh here — “that’s a topic for a different day,” she adds wryly.

Moving to a new culture, Bu developed a new habit: Comparative reading, a standard practice in academia that she took to with alacrity. She read books in pairs, to understand the same tale from different perspectives. She read books written by friends such as Katharine Graham and Warren Buffett to compare shared experiences. She read books on different religions. She read books in different languages–finding herself not lost but found in translation.

“Books have given me a magic portal to connect with people of the past and the present,” says Bu. “I know I shall never feel lonely or powerless again. Having your dream shattered is nothing compared to what many others have suffered. I have come to believe that coming true is not the only purpose of a dream. Its most important purpose is to get us in touch with where dreams come from, where passion comes from, where happiness comes from. Even a shattered dream can do that for you.”

It is because of books, she concludes, that she is on the TED stage today. “I live happy, with purpose and clarity (most of the time). May books be always with you,” she says, to applause from many more than just her TED colleagues.

Here are the books only available in Mandarin:

Correspondence in the Family of Fou Lei 傅雷家书

Complete Works of Sanmao 三毛全集

Lessons from History 历史的经验，by Nan Huaijin 南怀瑾

Here are the speakers from this session. Click on their name for a recap of their talk:

Freeman Hrabowski creates opportunities for students of all backgrounds to pursue advanced degrees.

Real life begins at 30? Well, no, says Meg Jay. Her research in her new book shows us why 30 is not the new 20.

TED’s own Lisa Bu has built a career helping people find great stories. Now she tells her own story.

Young inventor Richard Turere invented “lion lights,” an elegant way to protect his family’s cattle from lion attacks.

Announcing the TED Prize Winner, Sugata Mitra, and his bold wish, funded by $1 million from the TED community.

The Sleepy Man Banjo Boys is made up of 10-year-old banjo sensation Jonny Mizzone and his brothers Robbie, 14, on fiddle, and Tommy, 15, on guitar.

Last night at the TED offices, we held a special event: a miniature TED all about voting. Three amazing speakers took the stage to present ideas and stories related to our electoral process.

First up, was TED’s own Lisa Bu, our Content Distribution Manager, who spoke about her experience traveling from China in 1995 to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Because individual bank accounts are not the norm in China, Bu shared that she came with her tuition and living expenses money all in cash, stuffed in her pockets. She felt “very important” being able to open her first account.

Bu also found herself surprised to find that everyone — not just politicians and celebrities — get obituaries in American newspapers. “Every life, even a baby’s, is worth remembering publicly. I was moved deeply,” says Bu. “That kind respect and appreciation for individual life — for me, that’s the essence of democracy.”

Bu’s basic point: that if it isn’t a right you are born with, the fact that we all can vote is pretty amazing. After all, in China the American Idol-like television show Super Girl was canceled because officials worried it was promoting democratic fervor.

Computer scientist Barbara Simons, co-author of the book Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count?, spoke next, explaining why internet voting may not be such a good idea. “I call this talk, ‘If I can bank online, why can’t I vote online?’” said Simons. “My goal is to tell you it’s not safe to do either.”

As Simons explained, no website is immune from outside attacks — not the FBI, not Google and certainly not online voting systems developed by localities for elections. She shared what is referred to as the “DC Hack.” In 2010, Washington, D.C., did a pilot test of its online voting system, inviting computer experts to give breaking into the system their “best shot.” Students at the University of Michigan succeeded almost instantly, recoding the system to play their college’s fight song anytime someone cast a vote. Even worse — election officials didn’t realize the system had been hacked. They later discovered the attack after reading message boards.

And hacks and viruses aren’t the only issues with online voting. Online voting would make it too easy to disrupt voting in specific areas, by launching “denial of service attacks,” i.e. having outsiders intentionally overwhelm the network. Furthermore, it would make it too tempting for someone inside the election process — from those who code the voting system to poll volunteers — to tamper with results. If a voting system is comprised, there is no way to do a recount. That very situation happened in a recent election in Estonia, where 25% of the election ballots were cast online. Many believe that the voting system was rigged, as the online ballot results were inconsistent with paper votes, but there is no way to prove it.

Overall, Simons stressed that that any voting system has security risks. She called for us to be more thorough with post-election audits, even if it means an election cannot be called the same night. But, she said, her warnings are not an excuse to skip voting. “The easiest way to be disenfranchised is to note vote,” she concluded.

New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen, of the website PressThink.org, ended the evening with a talk about why he is continually drawn to — and repulsed by — election journalism. As he shared, only 33.5% of countries in the world are rated as having a truly free press. As one of the few, why does our press make the coverage decisions it does?

Rosen points to a few disturbing phenomena he has noticed in this election year — that while newscasters were once active voices, both in debates and in the framing of issues, they are letting themselves be pushed out of the frame by allowing candidates to do this work themselves.  In the past, Rosen says, journalists have been afforded respect on the principle of, “I’m on the scene, you’re not, let me tell you about it.” Recently, he sees journalists and broadcasters giving up this authority. One consequence: that for the first time since 1988, the issue of climate change was not brought up all election.

So what can be done? A lot, says Rosen. He would love to see citizens build the agenda for which issues are most important to them, and then have newscasters and journalists flex their reporting muscles to make sure answers are given. Second, he’d love to see a distortion index — that in addition to fact checking, there be some measure of how far and wide pieces of misinformation have spread. And finally, he wants news networks and publications to look to answer questions for the public, rather than letting talking heads from both sides debate without conclusion.

Overall, last night’s event was a lively discussion that made us excited to vote today.