Mr. Sun's Lost Love in Pudong...

Monique and I live in Pudong China, the fast growing sister-city to Shanghai, which is located on the opposite (west) side of the Huangpu River from Pudong. A mere 20 years ago, in an effort to help catapult China into the 20^th century, then President Deng Xiaoping announced that the sleepy little farming district of Pudong would become China’s new financial hub. The traditional cityscape you frequently see that represents Shanghai today, is actually a view of Pudong, and it did not exist 20 years ago.

With tremendous growth comes change at an amazing pace. In our district, that is manifested by new buildings, high volume roads, and two new above-ground “subway” lines being built nearby. Each day as I pass this subway construction I’m curious about what shape it will take – the subway supports seem enormously tall! Much taller and larger than similar lines I’ve seen elsewhere in the city.

In Communist China, the State (on behalf of all its citizens) owns all the land underlying homes and offices and leases the land out to homeowners and businesses with the understanding that the State can take the land back when needed. Accordingly, when progress needs to be made “for the good of the people”, individuals pay the price. In this case, the people who lived in the path of the subway line were given alternate living arrangements elsewhere, and told to move out. Shortly thereafter their homes were razed and any evidence of their previous lives was erased from the landscape.

This afternoon, wanting to understand where the subway station would be and where the above-ground lines would submerge underground and where the new bus lines would connect, etc., I set off on my scooter to the construction sites to get some answers. As I neared a flattened neighborhood, I spotted an elderly gentlemen standing in the rubble who I assumed would have a good grasp of how things were developing. Instead of explaining how the subway lines would run, he shared with me his story of long lost love.

Mr. Sun is 76 years old. He lived in this neighborhood when he was growing up. In those days it was pristine farmland with clean clear air, the cropland traversed by pathways and canals and creeks. As a boy, on hot summer days, Mr. Sun and his buddies would swim in the creeks, and in the evenings they would try to scare or bother the girls of the neighborhood.

As he got older one of those girls caught his eye and they eventually started “dating” (as it were). Over time they fell in love. She was much prettier and smarter than the other girls in this little village, and he was so proud to be with her and loved her deeply. When he was 22, and she 21, he finally asked her to marry him.

There was a problem, however.

Mr. Sun’s father was moving out of the area, and as a dutiful son, he would be expected to move along with his family. The girl he wanted to marry, also wanting to be a dutiful daughter, felt that she needed to remain near her family who was staying in the village. Against this backdrop of competing responsibilities and filial duty, on a fateful fall day over 50 years ago, Mr. Sun and the love of his life tearfully parted ways, never to see each other again.

Now, a lifetime later, his wife having recently passed away, Mr. Sun returned to this little village to try to find the girl he loved so deeply so long ago. Standing in front of the pile of rubble that had previously been her home, Mr. Sun could find no one who could tell him anything about her. Had she gotten married? Is she still alive? Where does she live now?

Making matters worse, there was no one with which Mr. Sun could share his memories or his pain – except for the strange foreign guy on the electric bike who was in the right place at the right time. With wistful fondness he tried to communicate her exquisite beauty, her soft femininity, her stoic strength. As I discerned a crack in his voice and a tremble in his lower lip as he shared these tender memories there was little I could do. I didn’t know what to say, nor how to say it.

At long last, Mr. Sun allowed me to take his photo, after which he tucked his jacket under his arm, turned and slowly shuffled down the dusty pathway amid strangers and rubble in this little village that used to be his.