Kuliang still inspiring for Sino-US ties

I have lived in China for the past 20 years. I am a university professor but have also written many songs and two books which tell my many stories about China. Many of these stories are about foreigners who lived and worked in China during the 20th century.

During my two decades here I have traveled across the country to big cities, smaller towns and the countryside. But until last year I had never been to nor had I even heard of Kuliang. That changed when I was invited to attend the Kuliang Forum with the theme "Bridging Cultural Differences, Inheriting Friendship and Trust" last December. Following the forum I joined the activity "Reliving the Kuliang Love Affair" which took me to the enchanting village of Kuliang in the mountains near Fuzhou.

The forum and the trip to Kuliang introduced me to a whole new batch of foreigners who had come, lived, contributed and begun to love China. Furthermore, these were Americans unlike most of the others I had learned about.

I was really happy to have the privilege of watching the documentary film Dear Kuliang. The scenery was beautiful and the music was fitting but these were not the most important things. It was the story. A high school student comes to China to find out about the life of a relative who had spent many years as a doctor in Kuliang. She learns not just about the relative but also about many other Americans with similar stories.

There were places in Kuliang I was familiar with although I had only been there for two days. There were stories of people that I had only learned about 11 months ago. The story of Milton Gardner who had lived in China until he was 10 before moving to the United States. Although he never returned to China, he always dreamed of doing so. The story of Gardner's wife Betty, who wrote about her husband's dream of visiting China and later came here herself.

There was the story of Donald MacInnis who had been one of the Flying Tigers in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and stayed in Kuliang. The interview with his relative Elyn reminded me of a conversation I had with her via text messages at the end of September when she returned to China to join the stage at the big parade at Tian'anmen Square.

On the one hand the story of this village and these people was quite distant from my own life and experience, but on the other hand, I found it to be extraordinarily personal.

When I hear someone speak about the "reform and opening-up" policy in China that began in 1978, I usually comment that "China has always been open … to friends". The Kuliang story is an excellent example of that and a reminder that the peoples of China and the US have a long history of love and friendship that must be cherished and built even stronger.

As someone who has lived in China for so long, I hope stories like those of Kuliang continue to inspire new generations of US citizens and Chinese alike to seek understanding, friendship, and collaboration. It is in cherishing these shared histories that we can build a more connected and harmonious future.

The author is a US sociologist and professor at Minzu University of China.

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.