The train took more than 21 hours to cover the 700 miles from Beijing to Suzhou. Everyone clamored to hear about life in America. A border war had broken out less than a week earlier, and thousands of casualties were reported on both sides-tens of thousands would die before it was over-but no one in the carriage seemed to care. "Maybe he just got back from Vietnam," someone joked. It's funny, the things that stick with you I remember he had sacked out without removing his mud-encrusted combat boots. A People's Liberation Army soldier lay snoring in a nearby berth, bundled up in a military greatcoat. Some had only old-fashioned cloth slippers to protect their feet from the icy weather. They carried their belongings in cheap travel bags and squares of worn, patched fabric. Many of them had never seen an American before. Through the gloom and swirling cigarette smoke of a no-frills "hard sleeper" carriage, other passengers peered at me in wonderment. 20, I lugged a heavy suitcase (filled with gifts for long-lost relatives) aboard Train 119, heading south from Beijing. No one could be sure the honeymoon would last, so I wasted no time in getting a visa.
#Imperial glory democracy or autocracy full
1, 1979, the day Washington and Beijing restored full diplomatic relations after 30 years of hostility. I was born and raised in the American Midwest, along with two more brothers, and I dreamed of one day meeting the sibling the communists had stolen from our family. Guangyuan grew up in the care of our mother's parents in Suzhou, a city celebrated for its elegant gardens where emperors, courtesans and poets once dallied. Then Mao Zedong marched into Beijing in October 1949, and the world changed. Perhaps they also didn't fully appreciate what was happening to their homeland. Papa and Mama expected to be gone only long enough to complete their university degrees, and they didn't want to uproot him. Our parents, who named him Guangyuan-"Distant Light"-had entrusted him to relatives in Suzhou while they visited America in the 1940s.
My eldest brother was 7 years old when the Communists seized power in China.