After graduating from Carleton College in Northfield, MN in 1939, John Hlavacek sailed to China to the Carleton-in-China Middle School in Fenchow, Shansi Province. As John describes it, many Midwesterners had little knowledge of China, other than famine, disease, and war. After weeks of training in Chinese in Peking, John traveled to the compound in what was then Japanese-occupied China.