Weijian Shan with Zhang Zhiqiu (Er Gou), right, at Fanshengedan by Lake Wuliangsu, with the crumbling barracks used during reed-cutting seasons in the background, on July 10, 2005.

The Gobi in 2005. To protect the sparse vegetation, only camels, considered to be endangered, are still allowed to graze the land.

Family in Grand Teton Park in 1995.

Berlin, March 17, 1990. Weijian Shan (hand up in a victory sign) and Wharton colleague Isik Inselbag.

Weijian Shan, in his office at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, 1990.

The family finally together in San Francisco in summer 1985.

Weijian Shan (far left) chatting with Dianne Feinstein, then mayor of San Francisco, in 1980.

Weijian Shan with future wife, Bin Shi, at the Great Wall, summer 1978.

Tiananmen Square on April 4 1976. The author took the pictures of the mass protest against the radicals led by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, in the name of mourning Premier Zhou Enlai, who died on January 8 of the same year. The crackdown on the next day marked the event as “April 5th Movement” of 1976 in Chinese history.

Gobi friends on home leave in Beijing, 1974.

Left to right, front row: Cui Xianchao, Yang Yulong, Li Changsheng, Wang Dacheng. Back row: Ding Desheng (“Dasheng” or “Great Saint”), Yang Shengchen, Liu Xiaotong, Li Rongtian, Qin Zhiqiang, Huang Shurong, Weijian Shan, Li Zhuangzhong, Wang Zutong.