Curating the legacy of 1930s eyewitness to a changing China

She recited Snow's poem on friendship:

Friendship is no common weed / that grows along the way. It's highly cultivated / And watered day by day / You've always known what friendship is / Gnosis and praxis too / You stand at every crossroad / So good and strong and true.

After Snow died, besides a funeral service in Connecticut, three other memorial services were held in her honor: in Xi'an, in Beijing and at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said Bischoff.

The Beijing memorial service was held at the Great Hall of the People. "It was the highest honor bestowed to a foreigner by China," she said.

Bischoff is passing the torch to the next generation. Adam Foster, the third generation of Snow's family, created the Helen Foster Snow Foundation about a half year ago to honor her legacy and to continue what she started — building bridges of international understanding.

"We do that through education to help Americans and Chinese understand this critical time period that led to the founding of modern China. We educate people to understand the early sacrifices the Communist pioneers made," said Adam Foster.

He is keenly aware of the current relationship between the US and China. "Right now, we have a lot going on in Washington that is based on fear. I really believe that the fear is rooted in the fact that Americans were uneducated about China.

"When we think of China, we think of Russian Communists. It's totally different. It's really sad that information was kept from Americans for so long. It led to this fear of China that's really unfounded," said Adam Foster.

He believes that issues in bilateral relations can't really get solved until this generation of Americans becomes more educated about that period of history.

"How did the modern China come to be? What are the stories, what were the sacrifices of those people? Those are the stories that have not been told in our education system. This is part of the reason why we created the foundation," he said.

Contact the writer at mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com