In times of calamity or economic distress, there is a small percentage of people (about two percent) who are willing to leave family, home, and their country of origin to set up businesses in exotic or foreign lands. The two-percenters and undocumented immigrants whose stories appear in The Gathering Place made the arduous trek across Asia to gather in the exotic city of Old Shanghai, where they joined a social club in the city s Old International Settlement. Their travels coincide with war, economic depression, revolution, banditry and military occupation during the most turbulent period in modern history a period that covers what some call the Modern Dark Age the first half of the twentieth century. The personal histories in The Gathering Place offer a fresh take on the immigrant experience during a time of momentous change in Asia from the end of World War I to the exodus o