Excerpt

Wu sprang a surprise on Lucie and me. “We are going to the country!” he announced. The next day the three of us left Shanghai for the week. “Good, clean air!” he promised. “Green trees! You will get a better picture of China!”

He had elaborate plans. He reserved V.I.P. seats for us on the express train, and in the best car. What a super-surprise. Fast. Smooth. Comfortable. So clean. How nice. Better than our Amtrak, I thought.

Along the way we saw so many handsome and prosperous houses – loud testimony to the boom times in this high-tech corner of China. In a quick two hours we were here in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province.

We thought we were going to the country. The boondocks. How wrong we were. Hangzhou is big and modern and impressive. It boasts more than 2.5 million people, which is bigger than most American cities.

“Very fine university here,” Wu told us. “Second best in China. Like Yale.” Not nice words for us. We’re from Connecticut. Yale is number one!

A huge, gleaming sedan awaited us. A young man came forward. Wu's friend Lu, we thought. Wu had been saying nice words about Lu. This was not Lu. This was a chauffeur sent to pick us up. He drove us to a downtown office. In fact, it was in the city hall. Inside, it was with unusual deference that Wu introduced us to its occupant, a smallish, middle-aged man, speaking to him in Mandarin. Or maybe it was the local language. Then in English he said to us, “This is Mr. Sung. Mr. Sung is a high Communist leader in this area. He is a man of elevated responsibility.”

“Welcome,” Mr. Sung said with a broad smile, extending his hand. I had my business card ready for him. I went to proffer it with both hands. “Thank you,” he said, but gave it only the quickest of looks, which surprised me. Then he continued, but in Chinese, which Wu rapidly translated.

“Mr. Sung says, ‘You are from America! Americans are our good friends. Please accept my apology that my English is not so very good.’”

I said, “Please tell him it is much better than my Chinese!” and Wu put that in his language. Mr. Sung gave me a big smile.

Then Wu introduced Lucie to him and Mr. Sung turned on the charm. What a practiced politician, I thought. She was smitten by him. “What a nice man!” she gushed to me.

He was about 50, short and slight, gregarious and friendly. I did not think of Communists in these terms. Just the opposite. I thought of them as big and tough and overpowering. But I had never met a Communist. I thought of Communists as bad. Lucie felt the same way. Don’t we all?

In a minute or two I mentioned to him he was the first Communist Lucie and I had ever met. He grinned.

“I hope you will get a better idea of what we Communists have sought to achieve here in China,” he said. In his language, of course. Wu translated happily.

Now a young man approached. He was smiling. He wore a sharp business suit, crisply pressed. His black shoes had a perfect polish. Wu beamed. They shook hands vigorously. And happily prattled on in Mandarin.

Turning to us and still smiling, Wu said, “This is my friend, Mr. Lu. Mr. Lu is my buddy. Is that right word? Buddy?”

“Yes, the perfect word, Wu,” I said. “We can tell you are very close friends. Wonderful!”

Mr. Lu was about 30. The two knew one another in Shanghai. Wu told us Lu was a computer programmer in what he called “the Wall Street of China. Yes, we have a Wall Street like your Wall Street! Oh, Mr. Wu is the nephew of Mr. Sung.”

I was startled to hear this. Mr. Sung was the big Communist. And his nephew was a high-powered guy on Wall Street – a Capitalist! How ironic. How remarkable.

Mr. Lu was quiet, contrary to his uncle and Wu. But earnest and sincere.

Wu now explained that all of us were going to the home of Lu's father and mother as part of the Lunar New Year celebration. Saying goodbye to Mr. Sung, we drove for nearly an hour along an expressway, then through crowded villages, then up a bumpy narrow road, and stopped at a rough, ancient farmhouse on top of a banking. Lu's parents' home. Now we were definitely out in the boondocks.

A heart-warming homecoming by the whole family. Mom and Dad and several children. We were ushered inside the big house.

A big table stood in the center of the room. Benches, but only one chair. We all crowded around the table. Great conviviality. Generous meal – a dozen bowls and platters of food. Same bountiful experience as in Shanghai. We feasted on this and that with our chopsticks, eating and drinking slowly and talking long, so that the dinner went on and on.

During all of it, Lu’s Mom hovered over us, urging us to try this, to eat more of that. She never gave herself a chance to enjoy her own dinner. Again Lucie and I did our best, expressing our delight at every strange bite and veiling our unease. Lu’s father spoke hardly a word. His nature, I assumed. I could tell he was proud and very content.

He was the manager of a small textile factory. Lu later told me a story about him. As a young man his dad had served in the army for four years as a cook on duty far away. He got to know civilians close to the base. Very hungry.