"In 1969, in response to Mao Zedong's 'May 7th Instructions', China ordered intellectuals from state organizations and institutions of higher learning to go to the countryside; there, they were to participate in labor aimed at 'self-reformation'. All faculty, staff, and their family members at Peking University, where my father worked, were sent to participate in labor. They were assigned to Liyuzhou's May 7th Cadre School, near Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, on the shore of Poyang Lake. In May of 1970, when I was only one year old, my sister and I also came to the Liyuzhou Peking University Cadre School with my mother. On the way to Jiangxi is when I learned how to walk. The first steps in my life's journey were walking on the so-called 'May 7th Road'. One could say I participated in this vigorous and 'soul-touching' political movement; one could also say I was one of the youngest victims of the Cultural Revolution." — "The Memoirs of Wang Dan — From June 4th to Exile"

After the Cultural Revolution, 7-year-old Wang Dan returned to Beijing to usher in the golden age of Reform and Opening Up. At that time, young Wang Dan witnessed the April 5 Tian'anmen Incident in 1976 with his own eyes. This was his earliest deep memory of the Square. In 1987, Wang Dan was admitted to Peking University, where he hosted the Democracy Salon and engaged in the campus democracy movement. In 1989, Wang Dan became one of the student leaders of the 1989 student movement. After the June 4th crackdown, he was placed at the top of the 21 Most-Wanted List by the Beijing Public Security Bureau; he was subsequently sentenced to four years in prison for counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement.

"At that time [1976], no one would have imagined that only thirteen years later, a crowd of protesters would reappear in the Square, and that I would no longer be a bystander, but one of the protagonists… In any case, I think that it is fate that brought me, Tian'anmen Square, and the protest culture contained in the Square together. Even I cannot be certain whether the image of those protest scenes imprinted in my seven-year-old mind subtly influenced my future actions to join the student movement." — "The Memoirs of Wang Dan — From June 4th to Exile"

Reference: "The Memoirs of Wang Dan — From June 4th to Exile"