Following Edgar Snow's footsteps and witnessing China in the new era

When Adam Foster climbed into the driver's seat of a tractor at YTO Group Corporation in Luoyang, Henan province, on March 24, he wasn't just testing farm equipment. He was imagining a promise fulfilled decades from now.

"When I'm about 80 years old, my goal is to drive a YTO tractor down the streets of Luoyang," Foster, chairman of the Helen Foster Snow Foundation, said with a smile.

The factory he visited that day, founded during China's first Five-Year Plan, stands as a living testament to the country's industrial evolution. For Foster, it was also a chance to literally step into the machinery of modern China, a country his great-uncle and great-aunt first introduced to the world nearly a century ago.

Foster is the grandnephew of Edgar Snow and Helen Foster Snow. Edgar, a pioneering American journalist, traveled to China in the 1930s and wrote Red Star Over China, the landmark account that revealed the Chinese Communist revolution to the outside world. His wife Helen later ventured to Yan'an as well, documenting her own observations in Inside Red China.

Decades later, Adam Foster has taken up their legacy — not as a journalist, but as a bridge-builder. Ahead of the 2026 China Internet Media Forum, he traveled to Zhengzhou and Luoyang in Henan province, retracing the path Edgar Snow once walked to experience firsthand the region's profound cultural heritage and rapid development.

"I want to understand the journey that Edgar Snow went on to understand the Chinese people," Foster said. "And I want to understand how he came to understand himself because of that journey. When you step outside your front door and you reach out to another culture and other people, you really come to understand yourself better."

His journey through Henan traced scenes first depicted in Edgar Snow's The Other Side of the River, a book that chronicles China's revolution and early development, capturing the social transformations and daily life of a bygone era. Today, Foster found a landscape transformed, yet still deeply rooted in the civilization his ancestors sought to understand.

As the cradle of Chinese civilization, Henan has served as the capital for more than 20 dynasties, preserving a rich and continuous cultural legacy. That depth was not lost on Foster as he explored the province.

"I've gained a bigger appreciation for the history of China," he said. "It's just wonderful to see all those different philosophers, how they've shaped people's thinking even today, and how they've passed that down from generation to generation."

From historical landmarks to gleaming infrastructure, Foster witnessed China's rapid modernization across Zhengzhou and Luoyang. His trip began at Zhengzhou East Railway Station, one of the country's main high-speed rail hubs. There, he toured ticket gates, service counters, and medical support areas, experiencing firsthand the speed and efficiency that define China's transportation network.

"I'm interested to see how things have changed in technology, in the landscape and the economy," Foster said. "It's impressive to see the change China has made in the last few years."

For Foster, the contrasts between past and present are not contradictions but continuities. The country his ancestors documented in revolution and early reconstruction is now a global leader in technology and infrastructure. Yet the people, he observed, remain rooted in traditions that stretch back millennia.

That continuity is what he hopes will inspire more people-to-people exchange.

"We need people-to-people exchange," Foster emphasized. "People who have misconceptions and are hesitant to visit places should be more open-minded to set out the first step. After all, we are not that different."

His words echo the very spirit that drove Edgar and Helen Snow to journey across the world and into unknown territories. They went to see, to understand, and to tell. Adam Foster has come to do the same — not as a reporter, but as a steward of a legacy that, generations later, is still building bridges.

As he walked through Henan's ancient capitals and rode its modern railways, Foster carried forward a family tradition of looking beyond preconceptions. And in doing so, he found what his ancestors found before him: that the act of reaching out across cultures is not just about understanding others — it is, in the end, a way of understanding oneself.

From the Yellow River to the high-speed rail network, from ancient philosophers to modern factories, the journey continues. And as Foster suggests, it is a journey open to anyone willing to take the first step.