Chinese students Karl Li (second from right), from Jiangsu, and Wisdom Xiewei (right), from Chongqing, are joined by their host family following a Vietnamese dinner in Temecula, California. AFP

Recalling what he saw then, he tells China Daily in a telephone interview: "The parents struggled and hesitated, apart from enduring the long separations from the only child in the family."

The emotional trauma he witnessed is woven into his novel A Love for Separation.

The work struck a chord. Within weeks of the publication of the 120,000-character tale in early 2013, at least six film studios called Lu for the rights.

His work has come into the spotlight again with a namesake television series, starring Huang Lei and Hai Qing.

The series, which ran from mid-August to early September this year, is a hit.

It topped TV ratings in a 35-city survey, dominates the hot-topic list on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo, and has been watched nearly 4.7 billion times on video-streaming sites.