Two months ago I received a wonderful surprise from a friend that I had been trying to contact for a long time. I first got a phone call from a stranger. He had a gift for me from somebody that he’d met on a recent visit to China.

Zhanmin was a visiting research associate at a local University Physics Department where I was working in optical fiber sensors R & D at the time. I drew the short straw and had been the one to meet him at the airport when he arrived on his journey that was the first time this learned man actually saw a caucasian person. His abilities with English and my inability with Mandarin left me with my standard humiliation. Over the next year we shared conversations and dinners that were far outside our assigned tasks. He stayed at my home the two weeks after his off-campus lease expired before returning to Shihuang.

I was honored to take him to the airport with small gifts for his wife and four year old son as I saw him off, along with a copy of Animal Farm by George Orwell. A week later the media was telling me about the events of Tiananmen Square and I carried concern and guilt when none of my letters to him were answered over the next year.

A few years back, while interloping at an international conference, I met a group that had a member that knew the institute of his address. I gave him the information but never heard any more but he often crossed my mind. When this stranger told me he had been contacted by somebody that heard he was coming from a completely different department of the same University, given a letter and gift for me, and asked to try to contact me, I was stunned to say the least. I have since been able to exchange some GENERAL e-mail THROUGH his intermediary to the net.

This has to be one of the most pleasing re-connection to someone from the past I’ve had. His present to me from his home of the Terracotta Soldiers is among my true personal treasures.

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