CLASS OF 1956 | 2015 | ISSUE 3
Hi, fellow classmates,
George and I hope that you are planning, or at least considering, your return to campus for our Grand 60th Reunion on May 19–22, 2016. It will be great fun to join you there and to celebrate our survival and loyalty to Wesleyan. Bring your spouse.
Don Ritt has begun an important conversation on Physicians Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST). Please read his comments and mine that may be found in the online version of Class Notes: classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu/class-of-1956/
George kindly wrote this marvelous story of Chien family and country loyalty for our current column:
“Our family trip to China in July (2015) was not unlike the third act of an improbable, real-life show.
“If you remember my slide show at our 2011 Reunion, or my profile in the spring 2013 issue of Wesleyan, you might recognize in our 2009 trip a sort of first-act exposition. Our primary goals were to see a total eclipse from my birthplace, Shanghai, and to visit my father’s grave in Kunming. Well, our eclipse was rained out, and our local agents couldn’t find the grave. However, our guide, Jasmine Zheng-Behrens, found a documentarian who had included my father in his work-in-progress about the Burma Road, on which my father’s war-time task was to build and maintain bridges. He was killed while flying to inspect a bombed-out bridge he’d built. Professor Ge flew from his project location in Burma to dine with us in Kunming. He told us that my father was remembered and revered in Yunnan for his sacrifice and for the bridge, subsequently renamed for him, over the Lancang (Mekong) River. These revelations, in a word, eclipsed our disappointments.
“The second act came the following year when we returned to Yunnan for a ceremony of remembrance on the bridge on the 70th anniversary of my father’s death. This time our cohort included my brother, Alan Chien ’52, and members of his family. On the way to the ceremony we were shocked to learn that days earlier the bridge had been taken down! Our somber mood was tempered by the knowledge that our quest, recorded by Yunnan TV, would be shown nationwide and that the bridge was not demolished, but dismantled, to be rebuilt in another location, away from the flooding caused by a newly-built dam.
“In the fall of 2013 I learned that the Chang-kan Bridge had been relocated and reassembled. In 2014, eight family members signed up for our return tour: our children, Judith Chien ’84, David, and Paul; David’s wife, Cheryl, and daughter, Jeannette, now 14; nephews Chris Chien ’83 and Dan, and Dan’s wife, Becky. All three branches of our family were represented: Chris’s father is my brother Alan ’52. Dan’s was my brother Philip Chien ’53, sadly long deceased. For Dan and Becky, it would be not only their first trip to China but also their first out of the USA and their first commercial flights.
“All of our trips to China have encountered pre-departure obstacles. In 2009 it was bureaucratic objections to our visa applications and Ann’s ruptured ankle tendon, which had to be repaired six weeks prior to takeoff. In 2010 we put off a late, troubling health issue until after our return. This time it was tickets. The agent bungled our booking, misspelling our name—but not our credit-card number. We had 10 reservations but were billed for 20. MasterCard cancelled eight tickets, and when we pointed out that it should have been 10, they cancelled ten more, leaving us with two tickets for 10 passengers. After two months of wrangling, it was finally resolved, two weeks before our departure. I spent more time on the phone, each time with a different person, than I spent flying from Newark to Boston to Beijing. But all’s well that ends well; the flights proceeded without a hitch.
“From Beijing we flew to Kunming and drove to the Stone Forest, a natural geological wonder, a national park, and an International Heritage site. Its strangely shaped limestone pillars have stimulated imaginations over the ages. Ann and I delegated the exploring to the younger generations and took the less challenging walk.
“Next, the bridge, now set in a remote location on a tributary of the Lancang River. About one-and-a half football fields long, it was the first steel suspension bridge in China, built with components from the USA and carried to its original site by hand and foot over the Burma Road. The towers are newly poured concrete, but the superstructure, cables, supports, and platform are mostly original. It’s now a bridge to nowhere, really, intended only for pedestrians and inaccessible for motor traffic. Three free-standing marble slabs identify the bridge and tell its history. They are all in Chinese, of course, so we couldn’t read them. The Bridge proudly stands as a monument in what will probably become a park.
“On the bridge were the local historian, who presented us with a hand-drawn map showing the original location of the Bridge; TV crews from Yunnan and Shenzhen, 750 miles away; local reporters; Mr. Ge; and a representative of Yunlong County’s governor, who invited us to lunch at the governor’s residence. After exploring and photographing the bridge and its surroundings, we had our modest ceremony, bowed thrice to my father’s portrait, posed for group photos, and ate (without the governor). Lunch over, the historian walked me to our bus. I tried to thank him, but he wouldn’t have any of it, instead thanking me passionately for what my father had done 70 years before and for its impact on the region. Extraordinary!
“We were interviewed individually by both TV crews. By general consensus, Jeannette stole both shows.
“For the remainder of the trip we were tourists—a night in Dali, a day in Kunming, then back to Beijing. Call it the coda to our grand finale. We went to the Wild Wall, a partially restored section of the Great Wall. It was the fourth section of the Wall for Ann and me—we have only about 13,168 miles to go—but the first for Dan and Becky. On our last day we went to the Forbidden City, the 999-room imperial-palace complex. Ann fell in a cobblestone courtyard and partially tore a ligament in her left elbow. We waited until we were home to have it treated. This time, unlike 2009, she was in a cast after our trip, not before it. But now she’s as good as ever. Actually better.
“Oh, yes. My cousin in Chengdu saw a report of our trip on the Shanghai news.”
Bob Runyon | rrunyon@unomaha.edu
George Chien | gchien@optonline.net