Duan Guixiu had a promise and held on to it throughout her life.
When Wang Jinchang joined the Red Army in 1932, shortly after marrying her, he asked her to wait for him. “Wait for me, I’ll come back. Listen to Mom”, he reportedly told her, according to Duan’s own recollection. He never returned. She stayed in Jiangxi province, China, caring for her mother-in-law and her husband’s younger siblings, through years so difficult that her family could barely get enough food.
In 1953, a local official came to her home with a certificate: Wang had died and was listed as a martyr. Duan refused to believe it and kept waiting. She died in August 2026, at 108, without ever seeing him again.
Today, her story is circulating again as the 90th anniversary of the Long March approaches. A character in the grand show in Yudu, where that journey began, is inspired by her. Would you wait a lifetime for someone without knowing whether they would return?
