Two years ago, US attorney Eddie Mears found a photo of his late grandmother when he and his father were going through her belongings in the state of Michigan. It showed three Western ladies and an Asian man, with the inscription "To Veronica. With love. Ben."
On the back of the photo, his grandmother wrote the name Benjamin King and indicated the photo was taken at a farewell party for him in May 1933.
The discovery led Mears on a personal odyssey to peel back the years and reveal who the mystery man was.
Courtesy of Eddie Mears
The picture Mears found in his grandmother's old photobook led to his search for a mystery man. Veronica Mears is the woman on the right.
Courtesy of Eddie Mears
On the back of the picture, Veronica wrote the names and date for the photo, indicating that it was taken at a farewell party for Benjamin King in May 1933.
"My grandmother, Veronica Estelle Mears, died in 1992 when I was 6 years old, so I don't have many memories of her," Mears, an attorney now based in Japan, told Shanghai Daily on a long-distance call. "But there were years when we interacted quite frequently because she lived not too far away. She was very warm and spent a lot of time reading books to me and my sister. I remember she once broke an arm, so we started referring to her as 'grandma with the broken arm.'"
Mears' sleuthing took him to the University of Michigan campus where his grandmother studied in the 1930s. He said she had always been an adventurous woman, traveling solo to places like Europe, Mexico and Canada, which was unusual for women at that time. In that era, it was also unusual for American students to befriend Asian foreign-exchange students.
"I read a book entitled 'The Cultural Experiences of Chinese Students who Studied in the United States during the 1930s-40s,'" said Mears. "Many struggled with their coursework, with some being placed in classes not suited to their linguistic abilities. As a result, these exchange students tended to stick together and rarely made friends with American classmates, who likewise were reluctant to make friends with them. That was what made the apparent friendship between my grandmother and Benjamin so intriguing."
Courtesy of Eddie Mears
Another picture from Benjamin's farewell party. Veronica Mears stands to his left.
The intrigue led Mears to the University of Michigan campus to search through the archives, where he found several articles referring to Benjamin King. A profile of the student gradually emerged. He was very likely from China, a political activist who often attended rallies and gave several talks to student organizations and church groups about China and its ongoing tensions with Japan.
Mears also found a campus World Politics Commission led by Benjamin King, with Veronica as the group's secretary. There was the link he was searching for.
He then did research at the Bentley Historical Library on the campus and found out Benjamin's Chinese name was Gin Bo-min, who hailed from Hangzhou and graduated in 1930 from the then University of Shanghai, which is now the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology.
Courtesy of Eddie Mears
Mears at the old gate of the University of Shanghai (沪江大学), which is now the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology.
Mears' next step was to find the Chinese characters for Gin's name. With some digging, he managed to find a 1949 membership roster for the Rotary Club of Shanghai, which included a picture that gave him his first close look at Gin.
However, the Chinese characters were so blurry that Mears had to turn to some Chinese friends and then to artificial intelligence tools to recognize them. He finally got a result: Gin was 金伯铭.
"There were several references to his studies in America in the 1930s and his subsequent profession as a banker with the National Commercial Bank," Mears said. "I was confident that I now had enough information to delve deeper."
He added, "I utilized ChatGPT's translation function, which was terrific in translating Chinese-language sources," he said. "It was even quite good at translating classical Chinese and scans that were blurry or degraded. Without this technology, I would have had a very hard time finding information on my own."
Gradually, the life of the "mystery man" in the picture unfolded.
In Hangzhou, Gin's father ran an antique bookstore that included tomes collected by an ancestor who was once a high-ranking official in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). He also discovered that Gin published a book in 1940, entitled "Banking Practices," and that Gin had divorced a wife who appeared to have been the daughter of a former president of Tsinghua University. Gin died in 1990; his three children emigrated to North America.
Several months ago, Mears visited Shanghai and Hangzhou to follow in Gin's footsteps. In Hangzhou, he found that Gin's former street address ceased to exist.
Courtesy of Eddie Mears
Mears at 15 Mashi Street in Hangzhou, the currently closest address to 11 Mashi Street, Gin's home address. His home no longer appears to exist.
Courtesy of Eddie Mears
The building on Beijing Road E. that once housed the National Commercial Bank, where Gin Bo-min worked in Shanghai.
One significant stop was the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, where the campus library yielded a big surprise.
"The library was built soon after or during Benjamin's time there," Mears said. "Benjamin or his family had donated money or books to the library when it opened. And there's a little QR code on the outside of the library that you can scan for its history. So I scanned it, and I was shocked to see an article that mentioned Benjamin's name. I thought, 'Oh my God, here he is! He is a real being.'"
Courtesy of Eddie Mears
Mears in front of the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology library, where Gin or his family once donated books when it opened in the 1930s.
Last week, Zhan Qingyun, a Chinese friend of Mears, posted the story of his search for his grandmother's friend on the social media platform Weibo. The post went viral.
Soon Mears' WeChat account was flooded with "friend" requests, and among hundreds of messages of "good luck with the search," some netizens actually provided more information about Gin. He had two sisters who went on to become accomplished artists named Jin Qijing (金启静) and Jin Naixian (金耐先).
Looking back on the past two years, Mears said he is amazed at how an old photo blossomed into such a heartfelt story.
"It's just amazing what we can do when humans pool our collective skills and talents," Mears said. "It's been overwhelming. Just think about it. This is all just came from one picture in my grandmother's photo book."
His search left Mears, who went to live in Japan in 2016, with a much deeper understanding of China.
"I had visited China a few times before, but I really knew nothing about this era of history in China," he said. "It was really cool to learn more about Shanghai and Hangzhou, and what circumstances were like back then. I've developed a new respect for Chinese history and feel motivated to learn more."
Mears said that the chances of finding a surviving family member of Gin's who knows anything about his grandmother are probably pretty slim, but he would love to make connections with any descendants.
"Just so I could get a deeper sense of who Benjamin King is," he explained. "I have this image of Benjamin in my mind based on my research, but I'm sure there are sides of him that I don't know."
He added, "I didn't get to know my grandmother all that well until I started looking for the origins of the photo. I think learning more about Benjamin, perhaps from any surviving relatives, might shed more light on my grandmother, too."
