After I was transferred back to the Foreign Affairs Office of the Provincial Government, I was assigned to work as a leading interpreter for nearly all of the key visiting groups and delegations.
One day in September 1978 my leader talked to me. “A visiting group, sponsored by the national office of the Friendship Association, will visit Xi’an and Yan’an. You are assigned to work out a schedule for this group and do the interpretation for them.” Then he gave me the plan sent by the national office of the Friendship Association. At the sight of the name Helen Foster Snow, I was so excited and nearly jumped up. “Isn’t she the American writer I have been expecting to meet for so long?” So the golden September of 1978 witnessed the beginning of an ageless friendship between Helen Foster Snow and me as well as my life-time pursuit.
Years later I kept thinking one particular question. Why was I given such an assignment? Was it coincident or serendipitous? My boss gave me this opportunity probably by considering two factors: first, this was a key visiting group and a quality interpreter was needed; and second, I had worked in Yan’an for almost four years and I was more familiar about the history of Yan’an than anyone in the office. I was definitely sure that the leaders of the Foreign Affairs Office had no idea that I had studied Helen Snow’s books and was very familiar with her experience in China in the 1930’s.
I still remember that the TV crew Helen Snow brought with her arrived at 2 p.m. In those days when we received foreign VIP groups, we did not use vans or buses; we used cars regardless of how large the group was. For her delegation there were four crew members in 3 cars. All the key foreign guests had an interpreter. Helen Snow was accompanied by the director-general of the Foreign Affairs Office plus an interpreter. They used car #1. At that time the division of work in foreign affairs activities was very clear and strict between the leaders and the interpreters. The leader served as the escort and talked to the foreign guest; interpreter was only allowed to repeat what the leader said to the guests and what the guests said to the leader. Interpreters were interpreters, not speakers.
As soon as we arrived in the People’s Hotel, the only hotel in Xi’an at that time, Helen began to discuss her plan and special request for filming. That very evening Mr. Zhang Ze, one of the top leaders of the Provincial Government, hosted a welcoming banquet in honor of Helen Snow for her return trip. Mr. Lu Man, director-general of the Foreign Affairs Office, accompanied Mr. Zhang.
Helen spoke at the banquet. “This is my second return trip to China. I met a lot of old friends. We all felt very happy and excited and cherished our common experience in the 1930s, but my friends could not speak English and our conversations went on through interpreters. During this trip, I also met some of the young people who spoke fairly good English, but knew very little about the history in the 1930s. As soon as I arrived in Xi’an today, in only a few hours I’ve had a new discovery that is not so small. This young man from your office not only speaks good English but also knows a lot about the Chinese revolutionary history in the 1930s and is also very familiar with my China experience. I have a request. Beginning from tomorrow, I want An Wei to sit in my car, and I hope you will agree with this request.”
“No problem”, Mr. Lu Man replied immediately.
So this was my first face-to-face meeting with Helen Foster Snow. I never imagined that I would “fall in love with her at the first sight”. What was more, she gave me such a nice compliment in front of my leaders.
After her 1978 trip to the Northwest Helen Snow began to write to me, and I did not answer her until I received her second letter. Following these two letters, Helen sent me articles about her 1978 Northwest trip. She wrote so well that I could not help myself from translating her into Chinese. I sent one of them to a leading literary magazine Yan He (Yan River). It was published in its October issue the next year as a key article in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. I then mailed this issue of the magazine to Helen Foster Snow and expressed my sincere thanks and congratulations to her. Upon receiving this magazine, she asked a Chinese scholar in Yale University to translate my Chinese version back into English. When she read the English translation, she was very satisfied and excited, too. Three years later in 1982, when we met again in Madison, Connecticut [the first time I was there] Helen told me, “Your translation was very good. You did not only express the original message in an accurate way, but also expressed my humor. I know it is extremely difficult to accomplish translating humor accurately.”
After 1979 our exchange of letters was becoming more and more frequent. Helen kept writing to me and kept sending me her manuscripts one after another, asking me to get them published in China. Helen’s manuscript of An American’s Experience in China was written on what she experienced, heard and thought during her 1978 trip. I picked up and translated several chapters about the Northwest and got it officially published by the Shaanxi People’s Press in 1980, entitled Travel to the West in 1970s, because the original Chinese title of Edgar Snow’s book was called Travels to the West. So her book was a sequel to this.
I was deeply touched and educated by reading, studying and translating Helen’s works, and I had a better understanding of this outstanding American woman, writer and journalist. But why was Helen Snow forgotten for such a long time? Why did Edgar Snow become a hero and top journalist in US-China relations and the symbol of the US-China people’s friendship, yet Helen Snow was never mentioned? During their 10-year stay in China the Snows worked together and participated in creating history, in establishing his position as an international journalist, and Helen Snow’s merits should not be forgotten. In fact, many of the important historical events which made Edgar Snow very successful and enjoy global prestige were initiated by Helen Snow. Many of the things were completed jointly by the Snows. But why was Helen Snow not mentioned? Obviously it was not fair, nor realistic, that all the credit went to Edgar Snow. I was determined to do my best to help Helen Snow come back to the Chinese readers. At the same time I was trying my best to get as much first hand information as possible through translation and study with the purpose of revealing the true facts and try to get back the fairness for Helen Snow and help get her the credit and recognition that she deserved.
However, it was very difficult because it had been taboo. Even if you wanted to write or say a few words sympathetic to Helen or in principle before 1987, because of political and historical reasons, and the reasons related to people-to-people relations. For instance, in the summer of 1985 there was a huge international symposium on Edgar Snow in Huhhot in Inner Mongolia. I dared not present a paper about Helen Snow. What I dared to try was to translate and distribute about 20 letters between Edgar and Helen Snow from the summer of 1937, while Edgar Snow was in Beijing writing his Red Star over China and Helen was in northern Shaanxi to collect additional information by interviewing Mao Tse-tung and 64 other senior and junior leaders. Many of those letters were about how the Snows worked as a team in writing RSOC. I distributed these because it showed what an important role Helen Snow had played in Edgar Snow’s Northwest trip and the writing of Red Star over China. Even though these were their original letters, they were doubted, and I was severely criticized by one of the radical scholars from Beijing.
Before the 1980s my understanding of Helen Snow was very superficial. I only understood that she was a very talented, very smart, courageous and outstanding woman. So my study at that period of time was just from the perspective of a serious translator. My purpose was clear - to do a better translation of her works and get them published in China.