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Rewi Alley, a quiet bloke from Canterbury, a dabbler in poetry, a farmer, fireman and soldier went "to go and have a look at China" and ended up becoming the architect of one of the world's greatest labour movements. In her book A Communist in the Family: Searching for Rewi Alley, Rewi's cousin Elspeth Sandys presents a layered biography of the Kiwi who became a Chinese hero and "the great friend of the people of China". New Zealand has Special Nation Status in China entirely because of Rewi Alley and his work. In conversation with New Zealand Herald investigative reporter Matt Nippert, Sandys recounts her 2017 visit to China to trace her cousin’s life there. On that visit, she was told there were more statues of Rewi than Mao Zedong. While she thought it an exaggeration, it certainly seemed possible in China’s North West. Intrigued by what he had read about China, Alley left New Zealand in December 1926 to see the Chinese revolution up close. He would stay for 60 years, becoming one of China's best-known