In the spring of 1992, while working in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China, I came across a newspaper article titled "Ah, Guling! tells the story of an American couple who are full of nostalgia and yearning for a place called "Guling" in China, and longs to revisit their hometown but fails to do so. Her husband, Milton Gardner, a former professor of physics at the University of California, came to China with his parents in 1901 and spent a happy childhood in Fuzhou, where he was particularly impressed by the Guling Mountains. In 1911, the family moved back to California. In the decades that followed, his greatest wish was to return to his childhood hometown of China. Sadly, Gardner was not able to do so until his death. On his deathbed, he kept chanting "Kuli."

g，Kuli

g”。 Mrs. Gardner, though unaware of what her husband said, "Kuli."

G" somewhere, but in order to fulfill her husband's lifelong wish, she went to China many times to search, but in the end she returned to no avail. Later, with the help of a Chinese student studying in the United States, she finally found out that the place Gardner was referring to was Guling in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province. After putting down the newspaper, I immediately contacted Mrs. Gardner through the relevant department and specially invited her to visit Guling. In August 1992, I met with Mrs. Gardner and arranged for her to visit Guling, which was a longing for her husband when he was alive. On that day, nine of Gardner's childhood friends, who were in their 90s, sat around with Mrs. Gardner to talk about the past, which made her very happy. Mrs. Gardner said excitedly that her husband's last wish had finally come true, and that the beautiful Guling and the warm Chinese people made me better understand why Gardner was so deeply attached to China. She said that she would pass on this friendship forever. I believe that there are many, many more touching stories like this among the people of China and the United States. We should further strengthen exchanges between the Chinese and American peoples and lay a solid foundation of public opinion for mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the United States.

-- "Creating a Better Tomorrow for the U.S.-China Partnership: Speech at the Welcome Luncheon for U.S. Friendship Groups" (February 15, 2012)

Further reading:

On April 8, 1992, the seventh page of the People's Daily published an article titled "Ah, Guling! The author, Zhong Han, is a Chinese student studying in the United States. By the time Chung met Mrs. Gardner, Gardner had been dead for two years. From Gardner's mouth, Zhong Han learned that Gardner's parents were former U.S. personnel stationed in China, and that less than 10 months after his birth, the family moved to China. He lived in China for several years, "until the establishment of the Republic of China, and then moved back again."

His childhood life left a deep "Chinese imprint" on Gardner. The article writes that in Gardner's living room, there are many "Chinese elements": there is Tang Yin's "Lady Picture", there is a small wood carved city god, and there is a full-body statue of Liu Xuande, the emperor of Zhaolie, cast in iron...... Gardner has always had a "Chinese heart", and his greatest wish is to go back to his childhood Chinese hometown to have a look, but China and the United States had not yet established diplomatic relations at that time. After the Sino-US relations improved, the old man was unfortunately paralyzed and suffered from cancer. As he lay dying, the old man was still muttering "Kuli."

g，Kuli

g”。

In order to fulfill her husband's wishes, Mrs. Gardner visited China in the early summer of 1988, but returned to no avail. It wasn't until the spring of 1990, when she was sorting through Gardner's belongings, that she found 11 stamps from her childhood collection and work, many of which had the words "Fuzhou Guling" on them

"g" is "Guling".

In the spring of 1992, Xi Jinping, who served as secretary of the municipal party committee in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, immediately instructed the relevant departments to contact Mrs. Gardner and warmly invite her to visit Guling. Mrs. Gardner then traveled from San Francisco to Beijing to Fuzhou. Under Xi Jinping's arrangement, Mrs. Gardner came to Guling, where her husband had been in Zizi before his death, and saw with her own eyes that beautiful place, and saw the clouds and green mountains that her husband had wandered in when he was a child. During her stay in China, Mrs. Gardner also presented to the people of Fuzhou a pair of lacquered vases that her husband had collected during his lifetime, which are still treasured in the Fuzhou Museum.

A place name in my heart, a good story of friendship. Guling and Muscatine are thousands of miles apart, but they meet across the ocean that spring. Xi Jinping's account of the relationship between Guling is a glimpse of the deep-rooted history of Sino-US friendship. Over the past 20 years, Xi Jinping has used this moving story to tell the world that people's participation and support have always been the foundation of friendship between countries.

These two passages truly express Xi Jinping's ardent expectations for deepening people-to-people exchanges and sub-national cooperation between China and the United States. One is that after Mrs. Gardner's successful visit to Guling, Xi Jinping sent her a congratulatory letter, in which he said: "I believe that Mr. Zhong Han's "Ah, Guling! The touching story will be widely circulated in Fuzhou and beyond, and will inspire more people to continue to work hard to enhance the friendship between the Chinese and American peoples. Another passage is Xi Jinping's visit to Muscatine in 2012, when he sent a message to an old friend: "The development of China-US relations is inseparable from the enthusiastic participation and strong support of the people of the two countries. Further enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between the 1.6 billion people of China and the United States will determine the future of bilateral relations. ”