Madelyn Ross at the Great Wall in 1979.[Photo provided to China Daily]

On Allee's 28th birthday, Feb 22, he, having been told to "stay away from arguments about political systems and represent the United States proudly", left Seattle for Tokyo. (There were still no direct flights between China and the US.) There he spent the night at the airport and met seven other students, including Hawke, who had flown in from various other US cities. Together they completed the last leg of their journey to Beijing on February 23. While the rest of the students were part of the CSCPRC program, Frank came as the result of a separate arrangement between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Stanford University.

The students were eventually sent to one of three destinations-Peking University in Beijing, Nanjing University in the historic city of Nanjing in Jiangsu province, and Fudan University in Shanghai.

Thomas Gold, a sociology student from Harvard, went to Fudan, only to discover that there were just two courses of study open to foreign students: Chinese literature and history.

While dedicating himself to studying modern Chinese literature, Gold found himself unknowingly stepping into his familiar territory of social studies when he started to talk to people who congregated in People's Square, not far from the city's famous Bund.