Francis Fremont Smith is Executive Director at the United Foundation for China’ Health.

Her China story goes back many years, to the time US President Nixon made his historic visit in 1972. Inspired by the future relationship she could see between both countries Fran decided to study Chinese. Starting first at the Connecticut College on Chinese and Asian Studies she moved to Hong Kong in 1978 on a Yale China Program to study at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

She came to China, walking across the border at Lo Wu – there were no through trains and also no Shenzhen like we know today! Her travels took her up to Hangzhou, Beijing and on to Changchun where she taught English. After two years Fran moved down to Beijing, where she worked at the Academy for Agricultural Mechanization Sciences. She also worked part time at a branch college of then Foreign Languages Institute. It was then that life for Fran really changed – she met her husband there! A Chinese national, he was teaching English at the school.

Their relationship – one of the earliest Chinese-foreign marriages of that period. As this was a time when there were very few westerners living and working in China, there were problems and challenges on both sides, which they successfully overcame.

Their marriage was documented by the National Geographic in one of their TV series called ‘Four Americans in China’. Fran’s programme was a love story, ‘The Teacher who falls in Love’! She had found two loves – her husband and China!

Track one

I really wanted to work with younger kids

I was able to get a job teaching at a high school to college

Out at Baidaizi

I was teaching extra-curricular activities at that school

That’s the link – your husband was a teacher

He is from Harbin – at that point he was a teacher at the same school

We were both in the English Department together

I am looking at the photograph of the two of you

Was that a wedding photograph – that is our wedding photograph?

January 1982

Dressed in our ‘Mao jackets’ with our red roses

So different to the wedding photographs you see now all around Beijing

Definitely simpler times

I do not think our wedding cost us all that much money

We had to wrap up candy to give to friends and family

We had more of a civil ceremony in those days

It was quite an operation to get permission to get married in those days

Was it difficult having a relationship – going out together?

As foreigner with Chinese

Technically that answer is Yes

Needless to say we would draw a lot of attention

One of our first dates was out to the Summer Palace

People would see us together and obviously follow us and wonder what was going on

I had a mutual colleague who was gay

He also needed some cover so everybody thought he and I were boyfriend and girlfriend

So he was going off with his friends and I was getting to know my husband, my fiancé, a little better

Questions

1. What was Fran doing in her early days in Beijing?

2. Which department was her future husband in?

3. When did they marry?

4. What did they give as wedding gifts to friends?

5. What was difficult at first in the relationship?

Track two

How did his parents react to you marrying him, a Chinese?

He was brought up with his aunt and grandparents and his older sister

His parents and older siblings were still in Harbin

His parents did not have any issue but his aunt was a little bit hard

She was very traditional and he would marry a Chinese wife who would take care of her

When I was living in Guangzhou - people said it was very difficult for a foreigner to marry a Chinese girl

The ancestors – continuing the family line – which would be broken of it were a Chinese and foreigner

We never really had any issue of that discussion

Considering this was new for his family they pretty much welcomed me with open arms

The interesting thing about the process was that the Chinese insisted I had never been married before

I had to do that – to get a certificate through the British Embassy to say I had never been married

Those days none of the embassies had that much experience with this

There was no form to fill out at the embassy

So my family in America had to go through the State Department in the State of Massachusetts

To prove I had never been married in the State of Massachusetts

Get the red stamp from the official government staff

Then we had to have all of this translated and notarised and approved by the Chinese government

Before they would allow us to get officially married

Questions

1. Why was her husband’s aunt a bit hard about the marriage?

2. What would people in southern China think?

3. What about his family in Harbin?

4. What did Fran have to prove?

5. Where did she get the certificate from?