Obama Reunites with Half Brother in Beijing

He is the half brother of the president of the United States. They are sons of the same father, and they have seen each other twice after Obama’s inauguration in Washington.

President Barack Obama briefly reunited yesterday with his half brother, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, during his stay in Beijing as he sat for an interview, before embarking to Seoul to complete his tour of Asia.

The relationship among both brothers was publicly acknowledged when Ndesandjo published his book “From Nairobi to Shenzhen”, a novel of love in the Orient that relates to his own personal history, which he has come to describe as a “semi-autobiography.”

Their father, a Muslim also named Barack (Hussein) Obama, was born in Kenya. In 1964, after divorcing his second wife and mother of the future North American president, Stanley Ann Dunham, he married the mother of Ndesandjo, Ruth Nidesand, a white Jewish woman.

In the novel, Obama’s half brother tells the story of the protagonist, named David, a very violent man with alcohol problems who beat his wife and son. “My father hit me and he hit my mother,” he recalled during the presentation of his work.

While Obama’s political career was escalating towards the White House, relations with Ndesandjo disappeared completely. Mark went to live in China, where he married.

The last time the two saw each other was in Washington, when he received a family invitation to attend the inauguration of his half brother on January 20.

Yesterday, in remarks made to the U.S. channel CNN, Obama affirmed that he had indeed seen his half brother, a resident of the Chinese city of Shenzhen, for a brief visit of no more than 5 minutes during his stay in Beijing. “I don’t know him well. I saw him for the first time a couple of years ago,” Obama admitted, also stating that he had not read the book “From Nairobi to Shenzhen.”

As the president explained, “it is not a secret that my father was a person with problems…he had a problem with alcoholism and he did not treat his distinct families well. It is a sad part of my history, but it is not something that I can’t stop thinking about,” added Obama.

Until now, the White House had not confirmed if the president would see his half brother during his visit to the People’s Republic.

In statements made to the British newspaper “The Times,” Obama’s half brother confirmed that they had seen each other during his formal visit to Beijing.

Mark Ndesandjo was born in the USA, yet grew up in Kenya. He studied in various North American prestigious universities and earned his degree in physics before moving to Shenzhen seven years ago. He is an English professor and also teaches piano classes to orphans, in addition to helping a friend start his barbecue restaurant chain. His wife, a Chinese woman from the Henan province, was very delighted to learn the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and the most powerful person in the world, whom she admires very much, is actually her brother-in-law.

From his side, Ndesandjo shows his respect: “To me, we are not half brothers, we are brothers and I am very proud of my brother Barack.”