In 1968, Joyce Chen took her then-16-year-old son Stephen, and 20-year-old daughter Helen on a trip around the world on Pan Am Flight 001. Joyce, Stephen, and Helen Chen also traveled to China in 1972, the same year that President Nixon first visited China. By this time, Stephen was an undergraduate at Boston University, and took a one-day "crash course" in cinematography at WGBH. He would return from the family trip with plenty of footage, which was used in the majority of the documentary, co-produced with Ruth Lockwood and aired nationally on PBS as "Joyce Chen's China" in May 1973. A few months later, the Chen family were the victims of a home invasion by five intruders who had seen the film, according to her son Stephen.