Editor's note: During their trip to Fuzhou, the visitors shared stories about their ancestors who lived in Guling, a mountainous county in Fujian province, in the early part of the 20th century.

Elyn Gregg Cheney MacInnis,

daughter-in-law of Donald MacInnis who served as a pilot in the First American Volunteer Group, aka the Flying Tigers.

My husband's father came here at age 19 and taught at Yinghua High School for a year before his father asked him to return to the United States to finish his college studies. He then came back as a member of the Flying Tigers to fight the Japanese in the 1940s.

In 1974, he became a member of the US-China Friendship Association and could travel to China from time to time. He worked hard to boost the friendship between the two countries until he died in 2005.

He fell in love with Yinghua High School, with the Chinese people and the country. He always told my husband and me that he had a home in China.

You can see how excited everyone is, both the foreigners who have come and the Chinese who live here. How deep the friendship is! It goes back for so many generations; up to six generations in my family.

Derek Worley Patton,

great-grandson of James Harvey Worley who helped to establish schools, such as Huanan Women's College in Fuzhou.

My great-grandfather spoke perfect Mandarin and also the Fuzhou dialect. He helped translate the Bible. He also helped to negotiate between expats and the Chinese. My family has a photo of six Chinese generals and six Western generals having a discussion. My great-grandfather is sitting in between, just behind them. He was the translator. The Chinese trusted his translations.

My great-grandmother had six children. Most of them were born in China. My mother and her family spoke Fuzhouhua (the Fuzhou dialect). Even after they left China, they kept Fuzhouhua as their secret family language because few Americans could understand it. They had many adventures.

A gravestone we found in Fuzhou bears the names of five members of my family. Of course I want to honor them. I have dreamed of coming here since 1993, but it took a bit of work.

Mark Becker,

great-grandson of Harry Caldwell and Mary Belle Cope who lived in China from the early 1900s to the late 1940s. Caldwell was the principal of a high school in Fuqing, Fujian.

My great-grandfather was born in Fuzhou. My family was here from the early 1900s to the late 1940s. They had houses built here (in Guling) and lived here for many years.

They had lots of friends, and in fact one of the things my great-grandfather used to talk about was the local people he made friends with, families he used to go and stay with.

He wrote a book called Blue Tiger about his adventures hunting tigers in China and other things. He knew that cats like fish, so he got a can of sardines, took them out and thought the tiger would eat them because it was just a cat. But the tiger didn't like them. He later learned that if he took a goat and tied it to a tree, it would bleat for its mother. Then the tiger would come.

He also wrote a lot of manuscripts for scientific papers. He didn't just shoot tigers, he was also a naturalist. He collected birds, eggs and feathers to study. He donated them to the Natural History Museum in New York.

(China Daily 09/26/2017 page6)