TOKYO -- When Chinese President Xi Jinping was 31, he led a five-man delegation to the U.S. state of Iowa to study agriculture. It was 1985, and he was the young Communist Party secretary for Zhengding County, a region in Hebei Province known mainly for producing wheat and corn.
The Iowans who arranged the visit had no budget for the group to stay in a hotel, and therefore arranged for them to stay in private homes. Xi spent two nights in the children's room of a middle-class local family, surrounded by Star Trek figures.
