Modern technology makes the world a smaller place

Anchor: Communication is all important between family members, especially when some of them are away from home. Modern technology makes it easy for people to communicate even when they are in different parts of the world. Today we'll meet a family and learn how China's advances in communication have affected their life over the last two decades. Liao Jibo has more.

70-year-old Li Zhenming and his wife live in Jiaxing city, Zhejiang Province in eastern China.

This is the Double Ninth Festival which falls on the ninth day of the ninth month in Chinese lunar calendar. It is a holiday for the elderly and people sent greetings to their parents, elder relatives and friends.

Li Zhenming and his wife have just received greetings on their mobile phone from their daughter who lives in Shanghai. He is now chatting on video with his son who lives in Demark.

Li Zhemnming: "Your sister just sent us a message wishing us a happy holiday. We are so happy."

Li Zhenming's son Li Xing is a professor at Aalborg University in Denmark. In 1985, after graduating from the Guangzhou Foreign Languages Institute, Li Xing became an interpreter for the Beijing Telecommunications Company.

Three years later, he and his wife went to study in Denmark as self-financed students. He was 26 years old then and it was his first time away from home. His homesickness drove him to write many letters back to China which was the only way for most people in the 1980s to communicate from abroad.

All his letters in the past 20 years have been preserved by his father. Li Zhenming recalls the first time he received a letter from his son.

Li Zhemnming: "I was so excited the first time I received his letter, I didn't even know how to open it. I was worried about him ever since he left home. He wrote to us saying he was fine and told us not to worry about him. I read his letter over and over again."

Li Xing and his wife were lonely and homesick for the first few years in Denmark. Sometimes, they could not help crying when they wrote letters back home. It usually took seven to 10 days for a mail to arrive in Jiaxing. Li Xing says he later recorded his voice on cassette tapes and mailed them home.

Li Xing: "We were so lonely there. The population is sparse in Denmark. There were very few people on the streets and even less so on weekends. We could only listen to music and watch TV. There were many TV channels but there was nothing about China."

Li Xing and his wife always invited Chinese students home for parties. For most students who went abroad alone, this was their only chance to speak in their mother tongue.

During the Spring Festival, the most important Chinese holiday in 1989, Li Zhenming received another cassette tape from his son. In the 20-minute recording, Li Xing extended holiday greetings to his parents and relatives and talked a lot about his life in Denmark.

The old couple very much enjoyed listening to the tape and after the holiday, they mailed their son some of his favorite music and cross talk skits.

Two years later in 1991, when landlines became popular in China, Li Zhenming installed a telephone in their home. This made it more convenient for the couple to get in touch with their son. However, back then, IDD calls were beyond most people's budgets in China. So most of the time, it was Li Xing who called home to save his parents money. Li Zhenming says he received calls from his son on all major holidays and important occasions.

Li Zhemnming: "It was usually at night that we received his call from Denmark because of the seven-hour time difference. When the phone rang, we sprang up from bed, picked up the phone and talked one after another. We were so happy."

But the conversations were short, two to three minutes at a time because the costs were still high for a student. They exchanged greetings and told each other to be careful and then said goodbye. They talked like this almost once every month.

Li Zhenming says his son wrote a total of 116 letters in 21 years when he was abroad. Among them, 110 were written in the first 13 years and only six were written in the last 8 years because they could avail of video chatting on the internet. Li Xing says once video chatting was possible, he immediately asked his parents to buy a computer.

Soon, Li Zhenming bought a computer and managed to set up a webcam. He was so excited the moment he saw his grandson and granddaughter on the computer screen and waved to say hello.

Li Zhemnming: "Seeing them via the webcam assured me they were doing fine. Now, I don't worry anymore."

After years of study in Aalborg University, Li Xing received a doctoral degree and was hired as a professor at its social sciences institute. Li Xing says he is impressed with the way communication has developed and changed in the world.

Li Xing "Communication technology was undeveloped when I first went abroad 21 years ago. But it has seen rapid development in the last two decades. China ranks high in the world in the development of telecommunication infrastructure and technology. Nowadays, people always talk about the China model. Our university is going to teach Chinese language next year. China is playing a more and more important role in world politics and economics."

Li Xing is dedicated to cultural exchange between Denmark and Jiaxing. He came back to the city in October accompanying a government delegation. Some of the educational exchange programs of the group were arranged with the help of his father. Li Xing says he is able to accomplish a lot thanks to modern communication systems.