How an American family’s wartime bond with China is bringing the countries together

When Elyn MacInnis first moved to Nanjing in the late 1980s, she was greeted by a wholly unexpected connection.
Local elderly residents would look at the American newcomer, pause and tell her she resembled Minnie Vautrin: a middle-aged woman with round glasses and centre-parted hair often pinned up.
MacInnis, who goes by the Chinese name Mu Yanling, knew the name only vaguely then.
Vautrin was an American missionary who led Jinling Women’s College during the Nanking massacre, in the city now…