Helen Foster Snow Photo Exhibition Tour (Dec. 29, 2021-late Feb. 2022)

At the opening ceremony.

The Helen Foster Snow Photo Exhibition Tour (Changsha) opened at the Changsha Library on December 29th, 2021. It was guided by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), and hosted by the Hunan People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (HPAFFC), the Helen Foster Snow Foundation, and the Jiangxi People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (JPAFFC).

Li Xikui, vice president of CPAFFC, and Adam Foster, president of the Helen Forster Snow Foundation, participated in the opening ceremony online and delivered speeches. Xu Zhengxian, director of the Office of Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and also chairman of HPAFFC; Melissa J. Lan, Consul General of the Consulate General of the U.S.A in Wuhan; William Wang, representative of the Helen Forster Snow Foundation in China; and, Xu Anbo, vice president of JPAFFC, attended. Guo Xiangli, vice president of HPAFFC, presided over the ceremony.

Xu said that, this year marks the 90th anniversary of Helen Foster Snow’s first visit to China. It is well known that Hunan is the birthplace of Chairman Mao Zedong. Helen Foster Snow once interviewed Mao in Yan’an. She visited Changsha and Shaoshan during her tours in Hunan between late 1972 and early 1973, and wrote her monography Hometown of Mao Zedong. Xu hoped to learn more about Helen Foster Snow through these photos, promote her spirit of faith in facts, pursuit for truth, integrity and courageousness, and independent thinking, build a bridge among people of different countries with mutual understanding and tolerance to make up the difference and divergence, and continue to strengthen mutual trust, increase communications, expand cooperation, and deepen friendship between China and the U.S.A, and the world.

Helen Foster Snow’s reports and photos about China, and her monographs later, are of significant importance to the people in the U.S.A and other countries who want to understand China, said Melissa J. Lan. She spent her lifetime promoting people-to-people connections, and enhancing mutual trust between civilizations. She set an example to us, and inspired people of China and the U.S.A to realize these noble goals.

The photos and text were provided by the library of Brigham Young University and the Snow Research Center of Shanxi Province.

The exhibition will be open on the second floor of the Changsha Library until late February 2022.

Translator: Pang Yuehui