Li Lu

Li Lu was one of the leaders of the Chinese student democracy movement which culminated in the Tiananmen Square Massacre. His parents were victims of the Cultural Revolution: when he was a baby they were sent to labor camps and he was fostered by a succession of families for a few years, until he wound up in a state orphanage. He was then adopted, but in 1976 his adoptive family was wiped out in an earthquake and he was homeless for a year.

During the democracy demonstrations he was married in Tiananmen Square. After the massacre he escaped first to France and then to the USA where he was a student at Columbia University, receiving his bachelor's, master's and doctor's degrees all on the same day.

A film, Moving the Mountain, based on his autobiography, has been made about his life.

References

Lu Li. Moving the Mountain: My Life in China from the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square. (London: Macmillan, 1990)
"Drama of Li Lu's Life Recounted in Documentary Film," Columbia University Record, 20(26) (28 April 1995). Also available at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/record2026.17.html