Zephyrhills couple to reunite with Chinese leader

Thomas and Eleanor Dvorchak are sitting in front of their brick rancher on a dead-end street just behind the Winn-Dixie supermarket along Route 54 planning a reunion that started 27 years ago.

Back then, in a different time and a different place, they were civic minded, middle-class homeowners in Muscatine, Iowa, when they got a phone call. Could the Dvorchaks provide a room for a member of a Chinese agricultural delegation that was coming to town? they were asked.

Of course, and Eleanor knew just the room — her off-to-college son's room, replete with "Star Trek" posters and other memorabilia. Just the place.

So their visitor came, speaking no English, and, according to Eleanor, he was, "very mild-mannered, laid back, congenial, focused and very appreciative of our hospitality." He spent two nights and three days and left as a house gift a bottle of very strong Chinese spirits.

The Dvorchaks never forgot their visitor and he, apparently, never forgot them. The only difference is that the Dvorchaks are now in Florida and their visitor is the vice president, soon to be president, of China. He's Xi Jinping and next week he's coming to America with all the trappings of a high state official.

On the schedule are the usual: visits with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, but with one switch — he wants to stop by to see his old friends in Muscatine, and that's why the Dvorchaks are planning a trip.

On Tuesday, Valentine's Day, Xi will be meeting with the president, and the Dvorchaks will be flying to Iowa. The next day, the Chinese dignitary will head west from Washington on his way to California, but with a stop in Muscatine. Officially, the Chinese will be stopping in Muscatine for tea. Dvorchak terms it, "purely a social gathering."

Looking at her own trip: Tampa to Chicago to Moline then three hours by car to Muscatine she admits, "It's a lot of traveling for a two-hour visit, but think how far he had to travel."

Asked what he would say to the Chinese vice president, Thomas thought a minute then said: "I'll ask him if the knowledge he took back was helpful to the farmers in his province." At the time, Xi was a midlevel bureaucrat in Hebei province, and was visiting Iowa corn and sweet potato farms looking for better ways to feed the pigs in his home province.

Apparently the 1985 visit to the Midwestern town had a lasting effect on the Chinese leader. According to Chinese Consul General of Chicago Yang Guoqiang, quoted in The China Daily newspaper: "The reason (Xi decided to revisit Iowa) is because of the friendship. The hospitality of Iowa and the Midwest is quite well-known among Chinese people because of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit last year and the story of Xi."

In the world of international relations the visit has precedent. In the year before he became China's president, Hu Jintao made a similar visit to the U.S., but he didn't stop in Muscatine.