Intl friendship crosses seas and mountains

Five generations have continued US family's education legacy in Fuzhou

As the autumn semester arrived this September, 82-year-old Gordon Trimble and his wife Sonia Trimble flew back from the United States to Fuzhou, capital of East China's Fujian province, to teach at Fujian Hwa Nan Women's College and continue a five-generation family legacy.

Since 2005, the teacher — always recognizable by his Hawaiian aloha shirts — has returned annually to offer practical English courses. He also takes his students to Kuliang, a historic mountain resort in Fuzhou, to share century-old stories of friendship built by early foreign professionals who came from the late 1880s to the early 1900s as teachers, doctors and diplomats.

Lydia Trimble, his great-grandaunt, was part of this historic wave, arriving in Fuzhou in 1889. Driven by a belief in female empowerment through education, she founded the precursor to Fujian Hwa Nan Women's College in 1908, southern China's very first institution for women.