Ｄｉｃｋ　Ｐａｓｔｏｒ：Ａ　Ｌｉｆｅ　Ｄｅｖｏｔｅｄ　ｔｏ　ＵＳ－Ｃｈｉｎａ　Ｆｒｉｅｎｄｓｈｉｐ

Ｚｈａｎｇ　Ｙａｎ

Three old men happily got together again

Chatting about what happened last sixty years

There are still great expectations before them

Dont forget to meet again in Beijing in 2008!

The above lines were written on a scroll by then 90-year-old famous Chinese writer and calligrapher Ma Shitu for Dick Pastor, an American ex-soldier fighting with China against Japanese aggression during the Second World War, who came to have a grand reunion with Ma and myself in Kunming in the fall of 2004. In the early hours of January 20 of 2008, while the Beijing Olympics are approaching, Dick Pastor passed away peacefully, but with a great regret, in New York at the age of almost 90.

Dick Pastor（1918-2008）, a former member of the US 14th Air Force, nicknamed Flying Tigers, had been stationed in Kunming, a southwest China city in 1944, when the US military came in to help defend against Japanese invasion. Ma and myself had been the young students of the Southwest Associated University in the same city, who had initiated a great friendship with a group of American GIs. Dick was one of them.

Since then, this friendship has continued in a zigzag way, heavily affected by the relations between the U.S. and China. Back in 1945, three of the GIs in the group (Ed Bell, Howard Hyman and Jack Edelman) had the fortune to meet Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong in Chongqing who predicted the friendship between our two peoples was bound to blossom even though at the time the US government was hostile to the appearance of a “new China”. Since the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, the US government broke with China and our personal relationship thereby cut off for thirty years. Due to their insistent support of the recognition of new China, Dick and other members of the GI group suffered persecutions during the 1950s McCarthyism hysteria. Likewise, in the ten years of turmoil during the “cultural revolution”, each of us involved in the American friendship activities were labeled as “international spies”. All these dark clouds were driven away only by the normalization of relations between the U. S. and China in 1979. Our friendship since then could be resumed and flourished again. And it even continued to our second and third generations.

As a trade union journalist, Dick had been always politically active in the American progressive movements against racial discrimination and for the end of notorious Vietnam War. Being in China during the Second World War had almost changed his life. Since then he has been energetically involved in the promotion of friendship with China. First he worked for the American Committee in Aid of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (INDUSCO) and later for the US-China Peoples Friendship Association (USCPFA), a nation-wide popular organization since the seventies.

As early as in 1972, following President Nixons “ice-breaking visit” which changed the Sino-US relations, Mr. and Mrs. Pastor made their first trip to China after the war. Dick Pastor inquired about the whereabouts of his Chinese friends wherever he went, as if he were looking for his kinsfolk. Then, the “cultural revolution” was in its height. We were either locked up in “cow sheds” or doing manual labour at the out-of-the-way May 7th Cadre Schools. How could he find us? In fact, even if he had found us, we would not have been allowed to see him, an American. Following him, our other American friends also visited China successively. Despite their repeated efforts, none succeeded in getting in touch with us. This puzzled our American friends greatly.

Dick Pastor had a long-time dream: a great reunion with his Chinese friends in the same old place of Kunming. But he was not allowed to take such a long travel until his health was rehabilitated. Over a year, he carefully made his best effort to attain the target set by the Doctor. And finally he made his dream come true in September 2004 together with his 90-year-old wife Naomi. Touched that he would make this trip across the Pacific even in a wheelchair, Ma Shitu from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, and I myself from Beijing immediately flew over to join him. The authorities of Yunnan Province, which had benefited from the contributions made by the American Flying Tigers during the war, warmly and hospitably hosted us with the best facilities available. We had a miraculous reunion after 60 eventful years of China and the world. We were invited to tell our unique stories to the new generation students about this unusual part of history. We were taken to see a modern Kunming that we no longer recognize. With our memories to guide us, we were unable to track where we had frequently met, picnicked or carried on hot debates every fortnight between 1944 and 1945.

Through endless discussions during the reunion, we three all agreed that the world has changed a great deal more than we had dreamed it could sixty years ago. In fact, our two countries, the U. S. and China, are playing a decisive role in the world affairs. It is true that there have been differences between our two governments. But it is even truer that the relations between our two peoples have always been friendly on the basis of increased mutual understanding. Our profound and everlasting friendship provides a brilliant example.

A group of American and Chinese cameraman and producer had covered this trip and made it into a 60-minute documentary 60-Year Story of A Beijinger—A Chinese Journalist and His American Friends. In 2007, Dick Pastor watched its English edition with great satisfaction. In one sense, it is aradiant record of Dicks life-long love affair with China.

When Olympic Games open in Beijing in August 2008, I am sure Dick Pastor will be watching it happily and closely from the heaven.