Why China? You can thank the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their clever travel propaganda for stimulating our interest. The Pandas at the San Diego Zoo were a frequent subject for Mary as she became a more serious photographer. One of the Pandas was shipped back to the Research Center in Chengdu so that was a pretty good reason to go there, right? In the 1970s a traveling exhibit of the Terra Cotta Warriors from Xian stimulated our interest in the remote outpost of Xian. We saw that exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago while we were living in Waukegan. Tibet, what’s not to like about a mysterious country where the Deli Lama came from. Plus, everything I knew about that “autonomous region” was from the movie Seven Years in Tibet. Beijing was ready to host the Olympics and had Tiananmen Square, the Forbedden City and Mao’s tomb plus the Great Wall, all must-sees. Shanghai, that’s where the frequent flyer tickets took us. We had guides in all the locations, and most were fluent and unforgiving in telling the truth about live under the Chinese Communist Party.