Famous Taiwan writer and cultural figure Li Ao came to the Palace Museum and his alma mater in Beijing Tuesday, more than 50 years after his last visit.

 Li spent three hours in the Palace Museum. "I remember when I last visited here as a boy, there was still long grass growing out from the spaces between bricks in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony," said an emotional 70-year-old Li, who had spent many childhood years in Beijing.

"He is an expert on cultural relics with profound knowledge," said Jin Yunchang with the museum guiding for Li.

In the Xinxian Hutong primary school, Li's alma mater, he found the classroom he studied nearly half century ago and wrote an ancient maxims on the blackboard to encourage the children to study hard.

The pupils handed drawings, paper-cut they made to Li as presents, and Li gave one of his book to the school.

And then, Li called on his teacher, Lu Rongshen. "How do you do, Mr. Lu? I'm Li Ao." Suffering parkinsonism, Lu cannot speak, without face expressions but watching his once student.

Getting a photograph of young Mr. Lu from Lu's children, Li said she was such a young and beautiful teacher at that time.
 Li arrived in Beijing Monday evening for a 10-day "Chinese culture trip", his first trip back to the Chinese mainland after he left for Taiwan at age 14. 

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