US mom looking to write a book

After reading the story about her adopted Chinese son (Looking for answers) in the Oct 29 edition of China Daily, the mother Julia Norris from Maryland says she is relieved to note that overseas adoptees are attracting attention in their Motherland.

Whither the gutsy woman?

Liu Daoyan (left) meets Yang Mei again at the mountainous village of Huangqiao in Quizhou province.

Regrets of a lost youth

Soon after Pang Youxiong arrived in Shifeng, the tiny village where he would spend the next three years of his life learning how to plant rice and vegetables and chop wood, he fell ill and had to leave.

Account of an era

Zhang Xianyong offers some money to villagers in Miaotian, Guizhou province, to repay them for their help 40 years ago when he was sent to the countryside during the "cultural revolution". It was, he says, the toughest time of his life.

'Life is the same everywhere'

Forty years ago Wu Peihua left Shanghai with about 100 other youths to work in a Guizhou province village and never returned because she married a farmer.

On the Monkey's trail

"Every conversation I had with people about China, about literature and about what I knew of China would always at some point hit the Journey to the West and always hit the monkey," he says.

Like mom, like sons

Jamie and Bobby Deen have followed in the footsteps of their mother, American television cooking personality Paula Deen, and launched their third cookbook.

Harbingers of hope

Zhang Yong with Sudan boys. The 52-year-old was the only Chinese high-ranking commander to join overseas peacekeeping missions."Safety was my priority, for we were in charge of most of the transportation and maintenance assignments in the UN's mission in Sudan," Zhang says.