With a chance-job offer from China's Foreign Languages Press, Uwe Kraeuter, a German sociology student in his 20s, arrived in Beijing 30 years ago, the capital of a country that seemed "further away than the moon."
Three decades later, Kraeuter is still in China, with a family of four and a business mostly in cultural exchanges.
It was in China, where he found his wife -- "the real princess" of his life. With her, a well-known Chinese actress, he has two pretty daughters, and the family now live in a cozy home in Beijing.
Above all, he said he has been enjoying living in the fast-changing country, which he believes is becoming "a real central power in the world."
"Being part of two cultures in the East and the West, I do feel spiritually enormously rich," said Kraeuter, summarizing his 30 years in China.
Offer from China
Born in the small town of Hitzacker/Elbe in West Germany over 50 years ago, Kraeuter said he began to develop an interest in China when he was very small. His grandfather, who had been to Shanghai as a sailor, told him many stories about China and the Orient.
He became a leftist during his student days in the University of Heidelberg, as he was disgusted with Americans launching the Viet Nam War, and "admired China's support of Viet Nam."
In 1972, Kraeuter participated in a demonstration against Robert McNamara, the former United States' secretary of defense and the man held responsible for the Viet Nam War.
At the time, Kraeuter was working on his PhD in sociology. The demonstration put him in the midst of a judicial trial.
Kraeuter said he would have had to go to jail for an eight-month sentence in June 1975, together with his four comrades.
However, he got a job offer from Foreign Languages Press (FLP) in Beijing at the beginning of 1974.
Upon finishing their contracts with the FLP as German language experts, two Swiss friends recommended him as their successor.
"Those days China was further away than the moon to us," Kraeuter recalled. "I was a little afraid, but still decided to go for the adventure."
Because of the pending trial, however, it took about six months for the Chinese Embassy to finally agree to give him the visa. Before boarding the flight, he sent a letter to the local judicial organ and said that he would "return after two years."
On July 19, 1974, he arrived in Beijing and settled in the Friendship Hotel, a hotel almost exclusively for foreigners in those days.
But the young German couldn't have imagined that he would work with FLP for 10 years and make his first trip back home only after more than six years in the country, he said.
Kraeuter still remembers the first few years when he was in China, which was still caught up in the tumult of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).
Dressed in a gray and blue "Mao Jacket" and huge trousers made by tailors in the neighboring market, and riding a bicycle, the mustached German threw himself into the "revolution."
He worked on the German versions of the Documents of the First Plenary Session of the Fourth National People's Congress and the Constitution of the People's Republic of China in 1975, Mao Zedong's 39 poems in 1976 and the Documents of the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1977.
In 1974, he participated in the Reception in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of National Day (October 1), where he heard the last public speech given by the late Premier Zhou Enlai.
On April 5, 1976, he experienced the Tiananmen Square Incident and witnessed over 100,000 Beijing people gather in Tiananmen Square to express their grief over the death of Zhou Enlai.
Soon after the death of late Chairman Mao Zedong on September 9, 1976, the "cultural revolution" was over.
Cream of Chinese culture
The following years were especially rewarding for Kraeuter. In his work as a German expert, he had many chances to meet and get to know writers and artists -- the cream of Chinese literary and art circles -- to do interviews for newspapers and magazines, and for books published in Germany, Hong Kong and elsewhere. Many of those he interviewed became lifelong friends.
He said he witnessed the country's renaissance in literature and arts after the "cultural revolution."
"Here you observe new developments and get to know interesting new people almost every day," he said.
On his list are legendary stars and outstanding personalities such as thespians Zhao Dan, Sun Daolin, Zhang Ruifang, Huang Zongying, film directors Ling Zifeng, Zhang Junxiang and Xie Tian, dramatist Cao Yu, writer Huang Zongjiang, painter Huang Yongyu, traditional Chinese opera singer Xin Fengxia, and actor-director and Vice-Minister of Culture Ying Ruocheng...
"All of them had been terribly persecuted and suppressed in the 'cultural revolution'," Kraeuter said. "They became active again after it was over. I was amazed and even shocked by the high level of their art.
"Some of them, like Zhao Dan, Cao Yu and Ying Ruocheng, have already passed away," he added while sitting in the living room of his home in Beijing, with his blue eyes dimming.
"I remember so many moving stories we experienced together."
Bridging two cultures
In 1978, he became interested in the Beijing People's Art Theater, the best theater troupe in the country, and together with a Chinese translator friend, translated Teahouse by Lao She (1899-1966).
The three-part drama by the famous Chinese modern writer, which premiered in the theater in 1958 and was banned during the "cultural revolution," is one of the most revered works in the theatre's repertory.
He watched the first performance of Teahouse on February 3, 1979, when it was staged by the theater. "That was really something," he recalled. "The story is wonderful, so human, and the acting was perfect, nothing overdone. I was fascinated."
After that he attended more than 40 performances of the play, and got to know all the actors and actresses in it.
He got in contact with the Mannheim National Theater in Germany concerning a possible invitational tour of Teahouse in Germany. His book with a German translation of Teahouse and an introduction to the writer and the theater was published in Germany in 1980.
In September of the same year, he was informed by the German Embassy in Beijing that his prison sentence had been annulled on April 18 of that year.
On September 24, he left Beijing for Germany together with the Teahouse cast. The play, performed in 14 German cities and afterward in France and Switzerland, was a triumphant success in Europe.
It was the first time a Chinese modern drama had been performed abroad.
"In Germany as well as in Switzerland, I was the simultaneous translator for all the over 60 roles of the play," said the steady German with pride.
"Though my Mandarin was still far from being good, I knew the play and the lines for all roles."
In exchange for Teahouse, Kraeuter began to discuss with the Mannheim National Theater sending its successful drama The Butcher, by Ulrich Becher, to China. The theater performed in Beijing and Shanghai in 1982. The Butcher was the most successful foreign play performed in the country to that time. In cooperation with the Mannheim International Film Week, Kraeuter arranged for Germany's first Chinese Film Retrospective in October of that year.
The exchange program was not restricted to theater and the cinema.
On the wall of Kraeuter's living room hangs a portrait by the famous painter Huang Yongyu, in which Kraeuter has the features of an owl, with a blond moustache and one eye closed in a wink.
In 1981, Kraeuter helped the renowned Chinese painter hold a one-man exhibition in Oberhausen, Germany.
It was the first time that a Chinese painter had a solo show in Germany.
By the early 80s, Kraeuter said Beijing felt like his own home town, but he had traveled not only to Shanghai, Guangzhou and Guilin but also to such places as Mount Jinggangshan in East China's Jiangxi Province, one of the holy places of the Chinese revolution, and to Dazhai in North China's Shanxi Province, the most famous village in China during the "cultural revolution."
At Dazhai, he had an interview with Guo Fenglian, the famous model worker and "Iron Girl."
Settling down
Being so close to China after his earlier years there, Kraeuter felt he was at a cross roads. He started thinking it was time he returned to Germany. That was in 1983.
"I shouldn't stay more than 10 years, I thought," he recalled. "Otherwise I'll never go back home."
It was then, on December 15, that he got to know Shen Danping, the popular Chinese movie actress. The meeting changed both their lives.
Their love was passionate and unstoppable, he said. Though the dating often had to go secretly and Shen, just over 20, faced heavy pressure from her work unit and family. But they got married anyway on July 21, 1984.
The marriage caused a great sensation for they were both well-known in media and arts circles and inter-cultural marriages were rare in the newly-opened country.
The couple had to go through a hard period.
Kraeuter's contract with FLP ended in March, 1985. With the sudden loss of a stable income, he found that he could no longer afford to live in the Friendship Hotel.
But an unforgettable project came out of that time. With the sympathy and help of all his friends he was able to make a dream come true -- making his first long film, My Beijing Artist Friends.
Their elder daughter was born on December 6, 1985. At the beginning of 1986, the family moved into a tiny apartment that belonged to the Beijing Film Studio, where Shen worked.
From May to August of 1986, the couple traveled in Europe.
"At the beginning, many people said Shen Danping married me to get a chance to go abroad," he said. "They didn't know how much she loves China and her work and friends here in Beijing. She was actually a major reason for me deciding to stay on in China."
Another reason was that "the trip home made me realize that China for me had become my second homeland."
He did get an offer to take on the directorship of one of Germany's longstanding film festivals. He declined, fearing to become "too much dependent and involved in the local politics in that position."
Another job offer was to take charge of developing and equipping museums and exhibition halls in a German city. He went to meet the man he would replace.
"The man looked so sad and old," he said. "I was worried I would look like him after some time."
Instead, he decided to cooperate with German TV stations and film companies to produce films and related projects.
"I often told German friends about my experiences in China," he said. "Sometimes it could go on for a whole night. But I found that they understood very little of what I talked about. So I thought making films might work better."
Back in China, Shen Danping continued her busy acting career and won the Best Actress Award of the Hundred Flowers Awards of Chinese film in 1995.
Kraeuter has been regularly producing TV movies and semi-documentaries with such exotic titles as Princess of Another World, Children of the Desert, and In the Land of the Taoists.
He has founded his own company and is the representative of German TV stations in China and a film and TV program distributor.
He got Germany's internationally renowned crime series Derrick aired on China's TV.
On September 11, 1996, their second daughter was born. In the following year, the family bought their present home near the Summer Palace. It is a spacious and cozy apartment where the couple's many friends frequently come for visits and dinner and lively conversation.
"Our lives have eased into a steady track and we feel we are settling down," said Kraeuter.
Life as a Beijinger
He is certainly enjoying all of it: his marriage, his family life, his work and the country he is living in.
The marriage has changed habits, customs and the personalities of both the wife and the husband.
Coming from a small town, Shen Danping said she hated Western food, especially cheese. She once ordered "a pizza without cheese" in a restaurant in southern France.
But today, she can cook quite a few Western dishes and can't get through a morning without toast, butter, cheese, salami and juice.
Once a shy and sensitive young woman, Shen can turn herself into a cheerful hostess at parties at their home and can, she says, be "as inflexible as a German," if required.
"I mean like Wu Wei and his straight forward German pals," said Shen with a grin.
"After all these years, I have become straightforward too and I manage it quite well."
She looks very young, which she admits she owes to her tender husband. As for the husband, he has become a fan of Chinese food and sometimes treats his friends from Germany to Chinese hotpot.
He has got a "bad" Chinese habit, too, Shen said. That is to pick up the tab whenever we go out to dine with friends.
"At first, it was m
ainly for our Chinese friends," Shen joked. "Later even some of his German friends got used to it."
Maybe because of the habit or maybe not, but Kraeuter has many friends in the country, from artists to common people. "I enjoy friendship with all of them," he says.
Another source of joy is his daughters. The elder one is attending a local Chinese school. She speaks English and German as well as Mandarin with her father at home, a bit of a step-up on her mother.
"With her European roots, I think she will learn French and Spanish too," said Kraeuter. "It doesn't matter where she studies. We do have confidence in Chinese schools."
Kraueter said he feels literally much closer to Germany now than he did in his first 10 years in China, driving a superb German car, working on German time (because of business connections), having many German friends in Beijing and making several business trips per year to his home country.
"The world is getting smaller. Beijing has become one of its centers," Kraeuter said.
"I am very much impressed by the international atmosphere in Beijing and feel very privileged living here and being a part of it."
(China Daily April 14, 2004)
