Karyl Condit and daughter Andrea, visiting Fujian province, hold a photo with J. Bruce and Isabelle Eyestone, Condit's grandparents, who lived in China in the early 1900s. Hu Meidong/China Daily

Xi called on the two countries to strengthen people-to-people exchanges and build stronger public support for mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the US.

"I am sure there are many such touching stories between our two peoples," he added.

Xi still attaches great importance to people-to-people exchanges in the promotion of international relations.

At the conclusion of the BRICS summit in Xiamen, Fujian, this month, people-to-people exchanges were highlighted, along with economic and political cooperation among the five members: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Mark Becker has good understanding of the friendship between the people of China and the US. His great-grandfather killed 30 to 40 tigers to protect local residents from harm.

"There was a Chinese man whose nickname was 'Dada', who was a very good friend of my great-grandfather and hunted tigers with him. They were best friends. He became a sort of uncle to my great-grandfather and his brothers," he said.

He added that his relatives lost contact with Dada when they left China: "That's one of the things my family has always wondered about - if there would be a way to get in touch with his family."

Undying affection

Elyn Gregg Cheney MacInnis, daughter-in-law of Donald MacInnis who came to China in the 1940s and fought the Japanese as a member of the Flying Tigers air squadron, said her father-in-law had fallen in love with China.

"When my husband's father passed away in 2005, he sat there still, with Christmas cards from his Chinese friends held tightly in his hands," she said. "He loved China throughout his entire life."

In the last year of his life, Donald MacInnis visited China and taught English and journalism at a university in Nanping, Fujian.

He contracted meningitis during his trip and died several months later after returning to the US, she said.