One hot day in August 2005, Wu Huan, an artist and calligrapher, received an unexpected and unusual phone call - an invitation to dinner at the home of former president Jiang Zemin .
On the appointed Saturday evening, he drove with his uncle to Zhongnanhai, the compound in central Beijing where the party leaders live, and enjoyed a happy evening, with a boisterous Mr Jiang playing the piano and singing, and Wu responding with a piece of Peking Opera.
The dinner was not simply a happy gathering of friends but a gesture by the man who led the Communist Party for 13 years to express its apology for the historic wrongs done to Wu's parents and the class of intellectuals that they represented.
'I was a symbol of the intellectual class. This dinner had a great impact among the intellectuals of China,' said Wu, 55.
Wu comes from one of China's most distinguished literary and artistic families. His father was Wu Zuguang, a noted playwright and advocate of reform and democracy; his mother was Xin Fengxia, a beauty and one of the top actresses with the Peking Opera.
Wu Zuguang was twice purged, sent to work on a farm in northeast China for four years, and expelled from the party. Xin was beaten so badly during the Cultural Revolution that she had to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. She died in April 1998; her husband died almost exactly five years later.
'Jiang Zemin is comfortable with intellectuals,' said Wu. 'He has been the leader most favourable to our family for 100 years.'
