Americans have been coming to China for centuries and they will continue to come long after my generation has left this world. In fact, the first ones arrived in China in 1784 aboard the ship Empress of China, hoping to trade American ginseng for Chinese tea, porcelain, and other goods. I have always enjoyed reading and hearing about these experiences, whether they happened a hundred years ago or last week. Even with the great strides the world has taken and the developments these two countries have made, a trip from America to China is still an undeniable adventure. Young men and women floating along in their lives in America with no hardened idea of what they want out of life may find themselves taking the flight to China and once there a new world of opportunity opens before them, and yes, even adventure. China can intoxicate men with its vibrant cities, ancient culture, and a language that can make the most cynical of students see the beauty of learning a foreign tongue. This country can literally provide everything that some young Americans need to make sense of this world, to see the way forward.
When Mozart first sat down at the harpsichord there must have been a click in his brain, a puzzle fitting into place. For some, China can provide a similar epiphany. It was this way for me and I know I am not alone in my sentiments. While I am not saying I am destined to devote my whole life to China, I am just as sure that there was a profound click in my brain after my first trip to Beijing as a high school student. It wasn’t something I could just brush off as I headed back to America. There was something about this country that fulfilled my childhood dreams of foreign discovery in such a profound way and it gave me something useful to pursue in life. Ever since that cold January day when I landed in Beijing that’s what I’ve been doing. I don’t know where it will take me, but I know it will be worth it.
If this all sounds overly romantic, please excuse me. I’ve just finished reading the story of an American that came to China to study a full five years before I was even born. His name was John Zeidman and for him, like me and many other others, “China seemed to bring everything together.”
The story I read was written by Calvin Trillin and published in the New Yorker magazine on October 7, 1985. I found my way to this mid-eighties copy of the New Yorker by way of a journalist I respect a lot, James Fallows. You see Mr. Fallows just published a small article (all articles feel small in comparison to New Yorker articles) for the Atlantic magazine about an American couple who live in the town of Xizhou in my former home province of Yunnan. To keep it short, they are trying to keep Xizhou from becoming the tourist wasteland that other historical towns in the hinterland of Yunnan have become (I’m looking at you Lijiang). They run a community center/inn than supports the local arts and provides a more fulfilling way for visitors to appreciate that most beautiful and interesting corner of China. Something mentioned in the article stuck out at me, though. In the article we learn that the American husband, Brian Linden, came to China in the early 1980s as a student:
Soon after his arrival, he was spotted by a movie director while jogging down a Beijing street and cast as the lead in a Chinese movie. The film, He Came From Across the Pacific, was based on the tragic story of John Zeidman, an American exchange student who caught viral encephalitis in China and died in 1982.
I had never heard of John Zeidman, but I was instantly interested. For a Chinese movie to have been made about an American student who came to China at that time, when relations between America and China were just beginning to include student exchanges, it was bound to be, at the very least, a good story and most likely a big deal. Luckily for me before I came to Shanghai I packed a good chunk of my father’s “The Complete New Yorker,” which is stored on DVDs, and I had the 1984-1997 disc. So today while there was a lull at work I stuck in the disc and brought up the article. The information used in this post is entirely from that New Yorker article, unless otherwise noted; there was little more that I could find about him online and no photographs. If you have a subscription to the magazine I suggest you read the article online.
I would like to add that in writing this post I don’t want to hurt anyone by rehashing a painful story, it was just that I found this young man’s experience in China so absolutely fascinating and heart wrenching. The fact that no one I know my age living in China has heard of him is unacceptable to me. Historians tell stories worth telling and this is without a doubt just such a story
