Xiplomacy: Xi Jinping and his American friends

BEIJING -- In April 1992, the People's Daily, a Chinese newspaper, published an article titled "Ah! Kuliang."

The story is about Milton Gardner, an American who spent his childhood in a southern Chinese town called Kuliang before moving back to the United States in 1911.

Over the following decades, it was Gardner's long-cherished dream to revisit Kuliang, his childhood hometown.

Regrettably, that dream had never come true. In his final hours, Gardner kept uttering the words "Kuliang, Kuliang."

His wife, Elizabeth Gardner, made several trips to China to fulfill her husband's wish but was unable to locate Kuliang. Later, among her husband's belongings, Gardner discovered a collection of faded stamps bearing postmarks that read "Kuliang, Fuzhou." With the help of a Chinese student, she figured out that Kuliang is in Fuzhou, a city in East China's Fujian province.

Many Chinese readers were touched by the story, including Xi Jinping, then secretary of the Fuzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, who immediately had officials contact Gardner and invite her to Kuliang.

On Aug 21, 1992, Gardner arrived in Fuzhou. On the following day, she finally visited the place her late husband had always missed.