In 2004 he sailed on a plane for the first time in his life. Fifteen years later, he met the same flight attendant again. But this time he was wearing a uniform.
Xu Yanfeng was five years old when he made his first flight trip with the family, from Shanghai to Sanya.
For a child who had never flown, it was a completely new experience.
During the trip he met a flight attendant, Fang Xuan.
His mother decided to take a photograph that portrayed them together.
It looked like one of those memories intended to simply stay in an old family album.
Then fifteen years passed.
In 2019 Xu was 20 years old, studying at the Civil Aviation Flight University of China and began an internship as a flight attendant at China Eastern Airlines.
The same company Fang was still working for.
When the story of the old photograph came to the attention of the airline, China Eastern organized a new meeting between the two.
Fifteen years earlier, Xu was the child on his first flight and Fang the flight attendant he had met on board.
Now they worked for the same company: she as an expert flight attendant, he as a young trainee.
Fang later joined Xu during his training course.
The two took a new photograph together.
Put one next to the other, the two images told better than many words what had happened in the meantime.
On the one hand a child in front of a completely new world.
On the other hand, the same adult child has become part of that world.
We don't know how much that first trip influenced his later professional choices.
But we know that, fifteen years later, a photograph preserved by his family allowed him to find one of his first memories of flight.
Some meetings last a few minutes.
Then fifteen years go by and find out the story was not over yet.