Son of 'Red Star over China' trumpeter meets author's descendants
- By Chen Boyuan
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E-mail China.org.cn, September 6, 2015
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Sheril Bischoff, the niece of Edgar Snow's wife Helen Foster Snow (L) meets Xie Liquan's son Xie Xiaopeng on Friday, Sept. 4 in Beijing. [Photo by Chen Boyuan / China.org.cn] |
He explained that Xie Liquan transforming into Snow's trumpeter as a result of the photo was "sheer coincidence," as the "original trumpeter wore a damaged uniform and perhaps Snow thought he wouldn't look good in the photo." "My father was already an officer at that time, and he got a new uniform as reward for a previous victory during battle. He told me that the foreign reporter just said 'drag!', meaning to drag my father over to take the photo," Xie Xiaopeng added.
As Xie Xiaopeng recalled, his father kept asking him and his brother not to boast about the family's association with the photo or the novel, as he deemed being in the photo to be a sheer coincidence. "Even if he had been the actual trumpeter in the text, he would still only be one representative among the 30 thousand Red Army soldiers fighting in northwest China," said Xie Xiaopeng. According to him, the tight political atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution, during 1966-1976, didn’t really allow for an individual to boast his foreign-related anecdotes.
"That foreign journalist told the world about the existence of the Red Army in northwestern China, along with the Communist Party's resolution to engage in an all-out war with Japanese aggressors," Xie Xiaopeng said, quoting his father's words.
Across the Pacific, "Red Star over China" also influenced Edgar Snow's descendants, among whom Sheril Bischoff had the chance to attend the grand military parade. She has been representing her aunt Helen Foster Snow since 1986 and travels often between the United States and China.
"The book depicted the heart and the spirit of Chinese people when they were here in the 1930s. Edgar believed the spirit of friendship and understanding between our two countries would last long," said Sheril Bischoff, after she received a copy of the first Chinese edition of "Red Star over China" from Xie Xiaopeng.
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