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Beijing Confidential
Jan Wong first arrived in China at the height of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s as a fervent young Maoist.Determined to change the world, instead she found her own world turned upside down. The result was a groundbreaking memoir, Red China Blues.
In Beijing Confidential Wong returns to witness one of history's most extreme makeovers as the city feverishly prepares for its moment on the world stage for the 2008 Olympics. But she has a much more compelling personal reason to revisit her past. Haunted by her guilty conscience, Wong is convinced she ruined the life of a former fellow student, Yin Luoyi, all those years ago. When Yin asked for help to get to America, Wong promptly reported her comrade. More than three decades later she needs to make peace with the woman she betrayed - and herself.
But finding absolution proves difficult in a country where cultural amnesia has become a way of life. As Wong searches for answers in a city where the past is being bulldozed daily, she is confronted with the breathless pace of change that's transformed Mao's once xenophobic country into the Great Mall of China, former comrades into capitalists, and much more.
Beijing Confidential is a fascinating journey into China's past and present as two extraordinary women's journeys come full circle against the backdrop of a city in the midst of yet another transformation.
In Beijing Confidential Wong returns to witness one of history's most extreme makeovers as the city feverishly prepares for its moment on the world stage for the 2008 Olympics. But she has a much more compelling personal reason to revisit her past. Haunted by her guilty conscience, Wong is convinced she ruined the life of a former fellow student, Yin Luoyi, all those years ago. When Yin asked for help to get to America, Wong promptly reported her comrade. More than three decades later she needs to make peace with the woman she betrayed - and herself.
But finding absolution proves difficult in a country where cultural amnesia has become a way of life. As Wong searches for answers in a city where the past is being bulldozed daily, she is confronted with the breathless pace of change that's transformed Mao's once xenophobic country into the Great Mall of China, former comrades into capitalists, and much more.
Beijing Confidential is a fascinating journey into China's past and present as two extraordinary women's journeys come full circle against the backdrop of a city in the midst of yet another transformation.
323 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
13 people are currently reading
625 people want to read
About the author
Jan Wong
12 books69 followersJan Wong was the much-acclaimed Beijing correspondent for The Globe and Mail from 1988 to 1994. She is a graduate of McGill University, Beijing University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is the recipient of a (US) George Polk Award, the New England Women’s Press Association Newswoman of the Year Award, the (Canadian) National Newspaper Award and a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Silver Medal, among other honours for her reporting. Wong has also written for The New York Times, The Gazette in Montreal, The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal.
Her first book, Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now, was named one of Time magazine’s top ten books of 1996 and remains banned in China. It has been translated into Swedish, Finnish, Dutch and Japanese, and optioned for a feature film.
Jan Wong is a third-generation Canadian, born and raised in Montreal. She first went to China in 1972 at the height of the Cultural Revolution as one of only two Westerners permitted to enrol at Beijing University. There, she renounced rock music, wielded a pneumatic drill at a factory and hauled pig manure in the paddy fields. She also met and married the only American draft dodger from the Vietnam War in China. During those six years in China, she learned fluent Mandarin and earned a degree in Chinese history.
From 1988 to 1994, Jan Wong returned as China correspondent for The Globe and Mail. In reporting on the tumultuous new era of capitalist reforms under Deng Xiaoping, she reacquainted herself with old friends and enemies from her radical past. In 1989, she dodged bullets in Tiananmen Square, fought off a kidnapping attempt and caught the Chinese police red-handed driving her stolen Toyota as a squad car. (They gave it back.)
She returned to China in 1999 to make a documentary and to research her second book, Jan Wong’s China: Reports from a Not-So-Foreign Correspondent. It tells the story of China’s headlong rush to capitalism and offers fresh insight into a country that is forever changing.
Jan Wong lives with her husband and two sons in Toronto where she is a reporter at The Globe and Mail. The best of her weekly celebrity-interview columns, “Lunch With,” which ran for five years, have been published in a book of the same name.
[From Random House's Jan Wong Author Spotlight]
Her first book, Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now, was named one of Time magazine’s top ten books of 1996 and remains banned in China. It has been translated into Swedish, Finnish, Dutch and Japanese, and optioned for a feature film.
Jan Wong is a third-generation Canadian, born and raised in Montreal. She first went to China in 1972 at the height of the Cultural Revolution as one of only two Westerners permitted to enrol at Beijing University. There, she renounced rock music, wielded a pneumatic drill at a factory and hauled pig manure in the paddy fields. She also met and married the only American draft dodger from the Vietnam War in China. During those six years in China, she learned fluent Mandarin and earned a degree in Chinese history.
From 1988 to 1994, Jan Wong returned as China correspondent for The Globe and Mail. In reporting on the tumultuous new era of capitalist reforms under Deng Xiaoping, she reacquainted herself with old friends and enemies from her radical past. In 1989, she dodged bullets in Tiananmen Square, fought off a kidnapping attempt and caught the Chinese police red-handed driving her stolen Toyota as a squad car. (They gave it back.)
She returned to China in 1999 to make a documentary and to research her second book, Jan Wong’s China: Reports from a Not-So-Foreign Correspondent. It tells the story of China’s headlong rush to capitalism and offers fresh insight into a country that is forever changing.
Jan Wong lives with her husband and two sons in Toronto where she is a reporter at The Globe and Mail. The best of her weekly celebrity-interview columns, “Lunch With,” which ran for five years, have been published in a book of the same name.
[From Random House's Jan Wong Author Spotlight]
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May 7, 2011
I'm here in Beijing with Jan Wong and confidentially, it's not going well. I wanted to find out what life was like in China today and thought she would be a good guide. Jan's Canadian but studied here in the early '70's. She was a dutiful right-thinking communist back then. Of course, she's become a more mature and reflective journalist since that time, and now she's back in Beijing again.
She uses this first-person present style and staccato sentences - a good journalism technique for keeping the suspense level up. But the only suspense is because she's trying to reconnect with a woman over a past unresolved issue and can't get in touch. And she's making me uneasy. Everything is about Jan, she's so self-absorbed. I'm afraid any minute she's going to yell "Tiananmen Square murderers!" and get us all arrested.
Her husband is here too. She calls him "Fat Paycheck" which is supposed to be clever because his name sounds something like "big money" in Chinese. But it's not funny, and he hates the name. Who wouldn't? So why does she call him that throughout the book? It's embarrassing that she's so publicly contemptuous of him. I'm just glad my name doesn't sound like "Stupid Reader".
Now she's using today's phone book to track down someone who might still live in the same apartment over 30 years later? Why? Why didn't she do some legwork before she left Canada? But miraculously, the phone call eventually leads to someone who can in fact get in touch with the woman. You'd think she'd be overwhelmed with gratitude, but no, it's all part of Jan's investigative style. There is a reunion, it all works out fine, but I sense a level of reserve in everyone she introduces me to, as if they would really have preferred not to meet her again.
Finally I realize that perhaps she did try to make contact before she left Canada. She probably got nowhere because of her abrasive manner. The woman is a walking ball of self-absorbed hostility, and she doesn't even seem to know it! I think I'd rather travel with that other Jan - you know, Jan Morris.
She uses this first-person present style and staccato sentences - a good journalism technique for keeping the suspense level up. But the only suspense is because she's trying to reconnect with a woman over a past unresolved issue and can't get in touch. And she's making me uneasy. Everything is about Jan, she's so self-absorbed. I'm afraid any minute she's going to yell "Tiananmen Square murderers!" and get us all arrested.
Her husband is here too. She calls him "Fat Paycheck" which is supposed to be clever because his name sounds something like "big money" in Chinese. But it's not funny, and he hates the name. Who wouldn't? So why does she call him that throughout the book? It's embarrassing that she's so publicly contemptuous of him. I'm just glad my name doesn't sound like "Stupid Reader".
Now she's using today's phone book to track down someone who might still live in the same apartment over 30 years later? Why? Why didn't she do some legwork before she left Canada? But miraculously, the phone call eventually leads to someone who can in fact get in touch with the woman. You'd think she'd be overwhelmed with gratitude, but no, it's all part of Jan's investigative style. There is a reunion, it all works out fine, but I sense a level of reserve in everyone she introduces me to, as if they would really have preferred not to meet her again.
Finally I realize that perhaps she did try to make contact before she left Canada. She probably got nowhere because of her abrasive manner. The woman is a walking ball of self-absorbed hostility, and she doesn't even seem to know it! I think I'd rather travel with that other Jan - you know, Jan Morris.
March 23, 2016
A sequel of sorts to her maddening, fascinating, invaluable memoir Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now, this book chronicles Wong’s return to Beijing in 2008 to find the woman whom she denounced as a traitor at the height of the Cultural Revolution. This betrayal has gnawed at her over the decades, and she makes the trip despite her fears that she will either find out nothing in the face of intractable Communist bureaucracy, or that the woman was imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Bringing her family with her for support, she tracks down a lot of old friends and foes who seem happy enough to see her but aren’t exactly thrilled to talk about the bad old days, suffers through a banquet under the watchful eye of a humorless cadre, and marvels at the changes in Beijing since her college days. (This last despite the fact that Wong lived there as a reporter off and on into the 1990s and made a few visits even in the early 2000s – this shows the tremendous rate of growth the city has undergone.) Little by little, and despite some obfuscations and lies from her sources, she gets a few hints about the woman’s fate – but then it’s time to come face to face and hear her story.
In my review of Red China Blues, I called Wong “deluded,” “naïve,” “blind,” “dangerously stupid,” and “an unrepentant spoiled fool,” which seems a bit harsh now that I write it all out like that. Nevertheless, that book did seem like a personal apologia for her actions, while this one is, as she says, “tantamount to a Maoist self-criticism.” This is a much more palatable book in terms of the narration – Wong shows a little more perspective about truth and consequences here – and equally fascinating in terms of the human stories it tells from China’s tragic 1960s and 70s. Wong’s own story is heartfelt and suspenseful, but what interested me the most was the historical whitewashing she encounters. No country likes to talk about its black marks – America still celebrates Columbus and the Pilgrims as heroes, the Japanese don’t mention war crimes or the Rape of Nanking, Germany outlaws swastikas but would rather not talk about the extent of Nazism’s prevalence – but the ability of the Chinese to switch gears so drastically and with such equanimity is intriguing. As Wong writes, “It makes me wonder why, in a nation as vast as China, so few people try to come to terms with their past.” Yes, it’s painful to revisit oppression, and no one wants to admit he was the oppressor, but the apparent wholehearted enthusiasm with which the Chinese have thrown their lot in with rampant capitalism and materialism is unsettling. It’s as if the moral compass isn’t fixed; the Cultural Revolution was correct because it happened that way, and now laissez-faire capitalism is correct because it’s what’s happening. It’s troubling to think in terms of such a collectivist mindset, but it’s hard to escape it as well.
In my review of Red China Blues, I called Wong “deluded,” “naïve,” “blind,” “dangerously stupid,” and “an unrepentant spoiled fool,” which seems a bit harsh now that I write it all out like that. Nevertheless, that book did seem like a personal apologia for her actions, while this one is, as she says, “tantamount to a Maoist self-criticism.” This is a much more palatable book in terms of the narration – Wong shows a little more perspective about truth and consequences here – and equally fascinating in terms of the human stories it tells from China’s tragic 1960s and 70s. Wong’s own story is heartfelt and suspenseful, but what interested me the most was the historical whitewashing she encounters. No country likes to talk about its black marks – America still celebrates Columbus and the Pilgrims as heroes, the Japanese don’t mention war crimes or the Rape of Nanking, Germany outlaws swastikas but would rather not talk about the extent of Nazism’s prevalence – but the ability of the Chinese to switch gears so drastically and with such equanimity is intriguing. As Wong writes, “It makes me wonder why, in a nation as vast as China, so few people try to come to terms with their past.” Yes, it’s painful to revisit oppression, and no one wants to admit he was the oppressor, but the apparent wholehearted enthusiasm with which the Chinese have thrown their lot in with rampant capitalism and materialism is unsettling. It’s as if the moral compass isn’t fixed; the Cultural Revolution was correct because it happened that way, and now laissez-faire capitalism is correct because it’s what’s happening. It’s troubling to think in terms of such a collectivist mindset, but it’s hard to escape it as well.
October 13, 2020
Wong's reporting adventures hit almost every spot. She's incredulously honest, funny, and full of oddball insights. This hunt to track down a friend betrayed is a long-shot chase through an unrecognizably transformed mega-city, muddling through to a wonderful encounter. Pulling together her network of friends and foes from decades back, Wong achieves a vista on the city and a whole generation. The mix of absurdity, tragedy, and inspiration is close to the maximal Beijing journey.
July 16, 2020
This book has been sitting around in my mom's collection for a while and I finally decided to pick it up! I read the synopsis but didn't know what I would be getting into since I'm not too familiar with Jan Wong's work as a journalist.
I was truly pleasantly surprised by this. Some of her jokes genuinely made me laugh. Some fell flat. But I thought she did a wonderful job of interweaving her mission with her history, China's history, and what has become of so many Chinese people who lived through the Cultural Revolution.
I am normally not intrigued by non-fiction (I largely stick to fiction 99% of the time-- and page-turners at that since I have a difficult attention span), but I found myself coming back to this every day until I found out what happens with Jan's mission to Beijing.
As a Chinese Canadian I thought it was a really insightful, interesting look into Chinese history that I've never been exposed to before. Like Jan explains, a lot of Chinese immigrants are hesitant to talk about what they endured so I truly had no idea what it must have been like for my grandparents who immigrated here in the early 50s, or what it COULD have been like for my own mother who was born in 1950 and moved to Canada in 1955. Our lives could have been very, very different and this book really looks at how China's history has shaped the Chinese and the world.
I was truly pleasantly surprised by this. Some of her jokes genuinely made me laugh. Some fell flat. But I thought she did a wonderful job of interweaving her mission with her history, China's history, and what has become of so many Chinese people who lived through the Cultural Revolution.
I am normally not intrigued by non-fiction (I largely stick to fiction 99% of the time-- and page-turners at that since I have a difficult attention span), but I found myself coming back to this every day until I found out what happens with Jan's mission to Beijing.
As a Chinese Canadian I thought it was a really insightful, interesting look into Chinese history that I've never been exposed to before. Like Jan explains, a lot of Chinese immigrants are hesitant to talk about what they endured so I truly had no idea what it must have been like for my grandparents who immigrated here in the early 50s, or what it COULD have been like for my own mother who was born in 1950 and moved to Canada in 1955. Our lives could have been very, very different and this book really looks at how China's history has shaped the Chinese and the world.
July 22, 2019
Beijing Confidential: A Tale of Comrades Lost and Found by Jan Wong is the sixth book I have read by Jan Wong (although it is not the sixth book that she wrote). This book is an incarnation of an international guilt trip. Wong was a student at Peking University in 1972 during the Cultural Revolution. As a dedicated Maoist, she informed the authorities when another student, a native-born Chinese woman, told her of her desires to visit the United States. This student, Yin Luoyi, was expelled from the university for her counterrevolutionary behaviour. Thirty years passed and Wong had forgotten about Yin. Yet a reread of her university diaries brought these memories back. Wong didn't merely wonder what had happened to Yin; she was desperate to know her fate. Was Yin exiled? Was she condemned to a life of poverty or imprisonment? Or worse: was she executed? Wong was driven to find out what happened and if Yin was still alive, to locate her and apologize. No easy task--this was needle-in-a-haystack, Chinese-style.
Wong, her husband and two sons set off for an investigative holiday in Peking. She had exactly four weeks to learn what had happened to Yin, and then to try and find her. The book's back cover and inside flaps never gave away the outcome, and of course Wong didn't spoil it for the reader. I followed along anxiously with each new discovery, whether it be a new cellphone number or a new contact name. In between the hunt for Yin, Wong dedicated chapters to Chinese history and Peking history in particular. These were informative and necessary to the narrative. With Wong providing the history lesson it was guaranteed entertaining. I love her writing. She inserts personal asides, jibes and puns, as seen below in a reminiscence of her time in PR China in the summer of 1973, when she was both learning the Chinese language and working at the Number One Machine Tool Factory:
"For fifty days we operated lathes and pneumatic drills, counted screws and lived in dingy workers' dorms. Erica and I loved it. Well, we didn't like getting up at 6 a.m., and we hated counting the number of screws in a box, but we enjoyed substituting pneumatic drills for tonal ones."
Traffic jams, the smog-obliterating sky, and buildings that are marked for demolition come up in every chapter. No one arrives on time for any appointment owing to the abhorrent traffic conditions. Everyone always has a ready excuse for tardiness. This seems like a running gag throughout Beijing Confidential. As Wong gets closer to finding out what had happened to Yin, plans risk being thwarted by dinner guests stuck in traffic.
Likewise, the sky is obscured by smog and Wong doesn't see it again until her departing flight for home. I experienced the same smogginess when I was in Peking in 2011, except that I did get to see the blue sky after my Great Wall tour driver had driven hours beyond Peking city limits where I was delighted to see--and breathe in--fresh blueness. During Wong's visit to Peking to find Yin, just prior to the summer Olympics in 2008, the city was blitzing to revitalize and reinvent itself. Not only buildings but entire neighbourhoods were slated for demolition. Wong states with sadness how much of the city she remembers from the early seventies has disappeared.
The Wong humour that I love is throughout this story even through times of intense pain. She and her husband decide to get a massage:
"I suggest a classic Chinese foot massage, which I've had before. You soak your feet in a tub of scalding water scented with herbs and rose petals; after a while someone comes and pummels your feet, gouges your arches and nearly yanks your toes out of their sockets. It lasts about forty minutes and is incredibly relaxing--once the pain stops."
The bigger pain though is felt when Wong finally finds Yin and learns her full story. While Wong did inform the authorities about Yin's confession about wanting to visit the US, Wong was not solely responsible for her expulsion from university nor for what had happened to her afterward. Wong's was merely one of thirty such charges against Yin, whose counterrevolutionary thoughts and writings were already known to the authorities. Wong could not have known this, and bore the guilt of responsibility for Yin's fate (expulsion? exile? execution?) for many years. We get to go deep inside Wong's mind to travel the path towards healing and the easing of her guilt. Her candour is riveting. Each time she sees Yin, she must apologize to her, and Yin must go through the protocol of not letting Wong lose face. In doing this Wong was seeking exoneration from Yin, which she realizes was overbearing for Yin to endure all the time.
And so the search for Yin ended on a happy note. Yin did eventually get to visit the US, New York City in particular. She bore no ill will towards Wong, and Wong no longer seems haunted by her actions from decades ago.
Wong, her husband and two sons set off for an investigative holiday in Peking. She had exactly four weeks to learn what had happened to Yin, and then to try and find her. The book's back cover and inside flaps never gave away the outcome, and of course Wong didn't spoil it for the reader. I followed along anxiously with each new discovery, whether it be a new cellphone number or a new contact name. In between the hunt for Yin, Wong dedicated chapters to Chinese history and Peking history in particular. These were informative and necessary to the narrative. With Wong providing the history lesson it was guaranteed entertaining. I love her writing. She inserts personal asides, jibes and puns, as seen below in a reminiscence of her time in PR China in the summer of 1973, when she was both learning the Chinese language and working at the Number One Machine Tool Factory:
"For fifty days we operated lathes and pneumatic drills, counted screws and lived in dingy workers' dorms. Erica and I loved it. Well, we didn't like getting up at 6 a.m., and we hated counting the number of screws in a box, but we enjoyed substituting pneumatic drills for tonal ones."
Traffic jams, the smog-obliterating sky, and buildings that are marked for demolition come up in every chapter. No one arrives on time for any appointment owing to the abhorrent traffic conditions. Everyone always has a ready excuse for tardiness. This seems like a running gag throughout Beijing Confidential. As Wong gets closer to finding out what had happened to Yin, plans risk being thwarted by dinner guests stuck in traffic.
Likewise, the sky is obscured by smog and Wong doesn't see it again until her departing flight for home. I experienced the same smogginess when I was in Peking in 2011, except that I did get to see the blue sky after my Great Wall tour driver had driven hours beyond Peking city limits where I was delighted to see--and breathe in--fresh blueness. During Wong's visit to Peking to find Yin, just prior to the summer Olympics in 2008, the city was blitzing to revitalize and reinvent itself. Not only buildings but entire neighbourhoods were slated for demolition. Wong states with sadness how much of the city she remembers from the early seventies has disappeared.
The Wong humour that I love is throughout this story even through times of intense pain. She and her husband decide to get a massage:
"I suggest a classic Chinese foot massage, which I've had before. You soak your feet in a tub of scalding water scented with herbs and rose petals; after a while someone comes and pummels your feet, gouges your arches and nearly yanks your toes out of their sockets. It lasts about forty minutes and is incredibly relaxing--once the pain stops."
The bigger pain though is felt when Wong finally finds Yin and learns her full story. While Wong did inform the authorities about Yin's confession about wanting to visit the US, Wong was not solely responsible for her expulsion from university nor for what had happened to her afterward. Wong's was merely one of thirty such charges against Yin, whose counterrevolutionary thoughts and writings were already known to the authorities. Wong could not have known this, and bore the guilt of responsibility for Yin's fate (expulsion? exile? execution?) for many years. We get to go deep inside Wong's mind to travel the path towards healing and the easing of her guilt. Her candour is riveting. Each time she sees Yin, she must apologize to her, and Yin must go through the protocol of not letting Wong lose face. In doing this Wong was seeking exoneration from Yin, which she realizes was overbearing for Yin to endure all the time.
And so the search for Yin ended on a happy note. Yin did eventually get to visit the US, New York City in particular. She bore no ill will towards Wong, and Wong no longer seems haunted by her actions from decades ago.
June 20, 2018
This was a very unique memoir (which I started reading months ago while in Beijing) about a former exchange student who attended Beijing University at the height of the Cultural Revolution. She was a naive Maoist who denounced a fellow student for wanting to escape to America. She returns to Beijing 20 odd years later seeking forgiveness. Along this path to redemption she finds a very different China - more capitalist than communist and rapidly ridding itself of aspects of its past (or outright denying and ignoring it). I love a memoir which tells a compelling story and where you also learn a lot about a place and its history long the way.
May 15, 2024
I enjoyed the book. It kept me going and hoping she would find who she was looking for but at the same time I couldn’t help but wonder how selfish the act was. I’m glad it all worked out but had the person not turned out to be in such a great place, it would really suck for that person. I asked my friends if they were the one kicked out, if they would want this person to find them to apologize or just move on with their lives and not revisit again.
The most annoying part is the English translation used for each person’s name. I cringed every time it said “Fat Paycheck”. I felt like it was a bit disrespectful.
The most annoying part is the English translation used for each person’s name. I cringed every time it said “Fat Paycheck”. I felt like it was a bit disrespectful.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 24, 2018
Preparing for a trip to Beijing, I found this book very interesting. The storyline is ok, but more interesting since it is non fiction.
However, what I really appreciated about this book is the authors descriptions of pre and post Cultural Revolution Beijing. She seems to have a hard time reconciling the 2005 Beijing to 1972 Beijing.
Getting an insiders view of how the city prepared for the 2008 Olympics was incredible.
I would very much like to read a similar book but from a lower class perspective. The author definitely has some high flying friends.
However, what I really appreciated about this book is the authors descriptions of pre and post Cultural Revolution Beijing. She seems to have a hard time reconciling the 2005 Beijing to 1972 Beijing.
Getting an insiders view of how the city prepared for the 2008 Olympics was incredible.
I would very much like to read a similar book but from a lower class perspective. The author definitely has some high flying friends.
February 24, 2025
The concept of this book is interesting -- a journalist returns to China to find a woman she turned over to authorities during the Cultural Revolutions -- but it ended up not being much of a story at all. It was slow and even a bit tedious at times as Wong rehashes over and over again how much she wants to find Yin and all the people standing in the way for her to achieve this goal. What I most enjoyed about this book was learning about Beijing -- its quirkiness, frustrations, and cultural and historical notes of significance.
February 21, 2021
I really liked this sort-of memoir about a journalist who, during the Maoist regime, turned in a friend who wanted to move to the USA. Haunted since she realized what she had done was wrong, she returns to China in hopes of finding her and apologizing. Tons of interesting history and tidbits. Some humor and a really engaging writing style.
2021 reading challenge-a book by a new-to-you BIPOC author
2021 reading challenge-a book by a new-to-you BIPOC author
November 4, 2022
I had traveled to China prior to 1989 and found it to be very interesting. Reading the book I was able to see many of the places that I had toured so many years ago and to see the many changes. To learn more of the history in such a personal way was eye opening. Beyond all of that was the personal quest of the author to find a single person. I have giggled and teared up at the challenges faced, the encounters that happened, and the fate that was meant to be.
June 7, 2019
I highly recommend this book for any expats living or who have lived in Beijing. The experiences, sights, and sounds are relatable, all recounted with Wong's hilarious narrative of the absurdities in China. The story is both entertaining and educational, and digs deep into China's elusive past and explosive modernization.
December 29, 2018
Picked up right after reading Red China Blues and liked it, because it gave me more info about her classmates and China itself after she left Beijing University.
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July 18, 2025je kunt over journalisten zeggen wat je wil maar ze schrijven wel heerlijk leesbaar
August 30, 2019
The book is really fabulous.
March 27, 2013
There are many biographical narratives about life in the Cultural Revolution. There is a whole genre for survivors who find a way out of the country like the now classic Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China that put the Cultural Revolution in a generational context. Yet another genre represented by Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China gives a then and now report. There is also fiction for each of the categories. I believe this book is unique because it is written by a former true believer, that is, a former persecutor who now admits guilt.
The writer arrived in China in 1970, one of the first foreigners to study after/during the Cultural Revolution and participated in the denunciation of a classmate. While her act was small in comparison to what others had done, being on the persecution side, she is able to give clues as to the psychology and temper of the times. As one survivor in "Chinese Lessons" observes, everyone claims to be a victim, but "do the math".
The breezy narrative ("Cult Rev") and the travelogue belie the serious content. This is the first volume I've read that compares this history to other mass hysteria movements like the Holocaust, where citizens were proud to inform, to destroy and to generally participate. This is also the first volume I've read that even mentions the psychological fallout, such as the compartmentalization of the persecutors and the damaged self of the persecuted.
Also important is that this is the first story I know of that reports on an every day (not a Deng Xiouping, etc,) fully persecuted survivor who is still in China. We learn about the many years she suffered, like an abandoned child, or a victim of child abuse and/or poverty, and of her careful steps in her own rehabilitation - it did not "just happen".
The author speaks to her own psychology of joining the movement. She wanted to fit in, to prove herself to the group. With the benefit of distance, life in Canada, knowledge of history and psychology she had the tools to understand what happened. China is collectively wiping this out today. In this book, many young people don't know much about the former life and death issues of "left" and "right". Wanting to leave China is not a crime today and the youth probably don't know that it once was. Since so much of the literature of this time is created by the persecuted survivors who have escaped to the west, it may be that the whole sad generation of "Cult Rev" persecutors takes their stories to their graves.
The writer arrived in China in 1970, one of the first foreigners to study after/during the Cultural Revolution and participated in the denunciation of a classmate. While her act was small in comparison to what others had done, being on the persecution side, she is able to give clues as to the psychology and temper of the times. As one survivor in "Chinese Lessons" observes, everyone claims to be a victim, but "do the math".
The breezy narrative ("Cult Rev") and the travelogue belie the serious content. This is the first volume I've read that compares this history to other mass hysteria movements like the Holocaust, where citizens were proud to inform, to destroy and to generally participate. This is also the first volume I've read that even mentions the psychological fallout, such as the compartmentalization of the persecutors and the damaged self of the persecuted.
Also important is that this is the first story I know of that reports on an every day (not a Deng Xiouping, etc,) fully persecuted survivor who is still in China. We learn about the many years she suffered, like an abandoned child, or a victim of child abuse and/or poverty, and of her careful steps in her own rehabilitation - it did not "just happen".
The author speaks to her own psychology of joining the movement. She wanted to fit in, to prove herself to the group. With the benefit of distance, life in Canada, knowledge of history and psychology she had the tools to understand what happened. China is collectively wiping this out today. In this book, many young people don't know much about the former life and death issues of "left" and "right". Wanting to leave China is not a crime today and the youth probably don't know that it once was. Since so much of the literature of this time is created by the persecuted survivors who have escaped to the west, it may be that the whole sad generation of "Cult Rev" persecutors takes their stories to their graves.
February 24, 2017
More personal and emotional than Red China Blue and Jan Wong's China, but still an interesting insight into modern China.
May 30, 2011
This latest work of Jan Wong really captured the "feel" of Beijing -- the new, modern, constantly-under-construction, traffic-choked but fascinating city! I visited Beijing for the first time in January and Jan's book filled in a lot of gaps for me regarding historical and political developments in the last few decades. I remember reading about the horrors of the Cultural Revolution where even the slightest whisper could bring about imprisonment or even death and the demise of books and artifacts seen as an affront to the "new enlightenment". Friends visited probably twenty years ago and found the country fascinating but lacking in infrastructure and red tape made any kind of spontaneous visiting impossible. The new Beijing is striving to overcome that and experiencing growing pains of a different sort - the vast differential of incomes which means some are consumed with buying the latest designer items while others, possibly living nearby,lack the basic conveniences. Political freedom seems to have improved to some degree, but there is still a high degree of scrutiny and control. Her search to find the fellow student that she had "outed" to the authorities back in her student days as a young student with Maoist leanings, has become a personal quest. Through her eyes, we see the changes and realities of the new Beijing. I especially enjoyed the parallels she draws with other movements of the twentieth century, where human rights were trampled in devotion to a "cause" and her use of the term "comradeship" to describe what could be termed the "crowd mentality" where fear of reprisal or peer rejection lead to acts an individual would not normally do. Set in the context of a family visit to Beijing, it is an interesting and poignant read.
August 9, 2011
Jan Wong very skilfully weaves historical vignettes and discursions into contemporary Beijing architecture into a very engaging story of her attempt to redeem herself by finding out whatever haoppend to a girl she had 'denounced' back in the 1970's when she was one of China's first foreign students after the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution.
She writes with great honesty and a self-deprecating sense of humour which makes this a really good read, and as a journalist she has a great ability to get to the pith of a story, creating a very clear picture in the reader's mind's eye, especially with her description of the events surrounding the Tiannamen Square massacres. I found myself eager for her to succeed, and relished her stories of the characters form her past at Beijing University, especially "Fu the Enforcer".
Wong is a very humane person, sympathetic even to those with whom she disgrees sharply, and to the Chinese people generally. However, she also clearly shows how important the disturbing collective amnesia about the Cultural Revolution has been in maintaining social cohesion in China since the 1970's, and leaves you wondering whether this can be maintained if the benefits accruing to some parts of the population from China's huge ecomonic growth start to peter out.
She writes with great honesty and a self-deprecating sense of humour which makes this a really good read, and as a journalist she has a great ability to get to the pith of a story, creating a very clear picture in the reader's mind's eye, especially with her description of the events surrounding the Tiannamen Square massacres. I found myself eager for her to succeed, and relished her stories of the characters form her past at Beijing University, especially "Fu the Enforcer".
Wong is a very humane person, sympathetic even to those with whom she disgrees sharply, and to the Chinese people generally. However, she also clearly shows how important the disturbing collective amnesia about the Cultural Revolution has been in maintaining social cohesion in China since the 1970's, and leaves you wondering whether this can be maintained if the benefits accruing to some parts of the population from China's huge ecomonic growth start to peter out.
August 15, 2012
As a starry-eyed Western Maoist, Canadian Jan Wong recounted her time spent in China as one of the first western students allowed to study at Beijing University in "Red China Blues."
In her latest book, "Beijing Confidential," Wong returns to China years later to meet the people she knew in those turbulent years and, specifically, to seek out Yin Luoyi, a woman whose life she is sure she ruined by reporting her to the Red Guard authorities in a moment of zeal when Lin asked help in leaving China.
More than just a telling of friends old and new, "Beijing Confidential" is a peek into the new China, its rampant growth, its crass materialism, its substandard workmanship, and its self assurance that it is set to become the world's predominate economic power.
Jan Wong is one of Canada's leading journalists and has reported for some of the world's leading newspapers but she writes in an easy-to-read, fast paced style that is a pleasure to read. "Emotionally powerful and rich with detail, Beijing Confidential weaves together three distinct stories–Wong’s journey from remorse to redemption, Yin’s journey from disgrace to respectability, and Beijing’s stunning journey from communism to capitalism." (Amazon)
In her latest book, "Beijing Confidential," Wong returns to China years later to meet the people she knew in those turbulent years and, specifically, to seek out Yin Luoyi, a woman whose life she is sure she ruined by reporting her to the Red Guard authorities in a moment of zeal when Lin asked help in leaving China.
More than just a telling of friends old and new, "Beijing Confidential" is a peek into the new China, its rampant growth, its crass materialism, its substandard workmanship, and its self assurance that it is set to become the world's predominate economic power.
Jan Wong is one of Canada's leading journalists and has reported for some of the world's leading newspapers but she writes in an easy-to-read, fast paced style that is a pleasure to read. "Emotionally powerful and rich with detail, Beijing Confidential weaves together three distinct stories–Wong’s journey from remorse to redemption, Yin’s journey from disgrace to respectability, and Beijing’s stunning journey from communism to capitalism." (Amazon)
May 7, 2013
This was a story of A Chinese-Canadian news reporter Jan Wong who surprisingly was one of few exchange students from the west who came to Maoist China in the 70's to study (along with a few other expat Chinese & one Anglo-Canadian), but got caught up in the craziness of the Cultural Revolution during which she in her attempt to fit in with her Chinese Comrades ratted out on on Yin Luoyi because she had showed an interest in visiting America after being asked about it (illegal during the Maoist era).
Nearly 40 years later she comes back to China trying to make amends & the China of today is very different from that of the 70's is now a free market society even though it proclaims it is still Communist, however in this new China which is trying to bury it's past she is trying to reconnect with old classmates, friends & associates in her seemly vain effort to find the comrade she had betrayed not knowing if she dead or still alive in order to make amends for her misguided deed nearly 40 years ago.
This book give you an insight of what contemporary China is like and it rapid modernization drive to become on the world's major global power's which could rival the US, Russia, the EU, & Japan.
Nearly 40 years later she comes back to China trying to make amends & the China of today is very different from that of the 70's is now a free market society even though it proclaims it is still Communist, however in this new China which is trying to bury it's past she is trying to reconnect with old classmates, friends & associates in her seemly vain effort to find the comrade she had betrayed not knowing if she dead or still alive in order to make amends for her misguided deed nearly 40 years ago.
This book give you an insight of what contemporary China is like and it rapid modernization drive to become on the world's major global power's which could rival the US, Russia, the EU, & Japan.
February 28, 2008
i cannot put this book down! Jan Wong, a chinese-canadian journalist, returns to China to seek a woman she turne in to the communist party during the cultural revolution. It simply fascinating, how a montreal-born chinese-canadian became a Maoist, and accidently turned in a fellow student, and came to realise her terrible role and went back to try to make ammends.
I'm not finished yet, but I wanted to give my impressions BEFORE I get to the ending, because ultimately, it doens't matter how it ends. The way she describes modern China and compares it to her various stays there (in the 70', 90's and early 00's).... absolute must read for anyone with children from China or with an interest in modern China.
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I'm done. As suspected, the ending didn't really matter, though it was very very satisfying and not exactely what I had expected.
What I take away from this book is the great explanations of the changes in China from a Westerner who had had lived there at various times and was able to compare and contrast. The fact that she is ethnically Chinese and thus had more access makes it even more compelling.
As I said, it is a must read.
I'm not finished yet, but I wanted to give my impressions BEFORE I get to the ending, because ultimately, it doens't matter how it ends. The way she describes modern China and compares it to her various stays there (in the 70', 90's and early 00's).... absolute must read for anyone with children from China or with an interest in modern China.
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I'm done. As suspected, the ending didn't really matter, though it was very very satisfying and not exactely what I had expected.
What I take away from this book is the great explanations of the changes in China from a Westerner who had had lived there at various times and was able to compare and contrast. The fact that she is ethnically Chinese and thus had more access makes it even more compelling.
As I said, it is a must read.
Want to read
June 6, 2009Book Jacket:
At the height of the Cultural Revolution, Jan Wong
traveled from Canada to become one of only two Westerners
permitted to study at Beijing University in the early
1970s. One day a fellow student, Yin Luoyi, asked for help
getting to the United States. Wong, then a starry-eyed
Maoist, immediately reported her to the authorities.
Thirty-three years later, Jan Wong revisits the Chinese
capital with her husband and teenage sons in tow to search
for the person who has haunted her conscience. At the very
least, she wants to discover whether Yin has survived; at
most, she wants to make amends. But Wong finds the city
bewildering--ancient landmarks have made way for luxury
condominiums. In the new Beijing, phone numbers,
addresses, and even names change with startling frequency.
In a society determined to bury the past, Yin Luoyi will
be hard to find.
As she traces her way from one former comrade to the next,
Wong unearths not only the fate of the woman she betrayed
but a web of fates that mirrors the strange and dramatic
journey of contemporary China and rekindles all of her
love for--and disillusionment with--her ancestral land.
At the height of the Cultural Revolution, Jan Wong
traveled from Canada to become one of only two Westerners
permitted to study at Beijing University in the early
1970s. One day a fellow student, Yin Luoyi, asked for help
getting to the United States. Wong, then a starry-eyed
Maoist, immediately reported her to the authorities.
Thirty-three years later, Jan Wong revisits the Chinese
capital with her husband and teenage sons in tow to search
for the person who has haunted her conscience. At the very
least, she wants to discover whether Yin has survived; at
most, she wants to make amends. But Wong finds the city
bewildering--ancient landmarks have made way for luxury
condominiums. In the new Beijing, phone numbers,
addresses, and even names change with startling frequency.
In a society determined to bury the past, Yin Luoyi will
be hard to find.
As she traces her way from one former comrade to the next,
Wong unearths not only the fate of the woman she betrayed
but a web of fates that mirrors the strange and dramatic
journey of contemporary China and rekindles all of her
love for--and disillusionment with--her ancestral land.
March 21, 2011
Jan Wong has an interesting life. Her first book was about her experience as a third generation Chinese Canadian (and fledging Maoist) being one of the first students allowed in Communist China in the late 1960s. Right before the Olympic games she goes back to Beijing to find an old classmate that she denounced for trying to go to America. I actually did not find the story of finding her and repenting to be so compelling but the descriptions of Beijing and how much it has changed were fascinating. She describes the city as one big construction site with insane traffic congestion and smog so bad you don't see the sun for days and weeks at a time. At the same time she marvels at the ambition and creativity of the population still living under cloud of the cultural revolution. She also gives a fascinating view of current issues such as the relocation of working people and demolition of historic neighborhoods, the illegal migrant population (from other parts of the country), and the new social norms that are shaping society.
November 11, 2013
Journalist Jan Wong wants to show her two sons the old Beijing before it's gone. The old Beijing is changing because of the Olympic Games 2008. But she also wants to search for a woman, who she betrayed during the Culture Revolution. Wong was one of the first foreign student on Beijing University during that time. Yu Li, a young woman, told her that she wanted to go to America, in Mao's time an absolute crime. Wong denounced Yu Li who was removed from the University. Now Wong wants to find her to give her her apologies for what she has done. But can you find one person in a city as Beijing?
A wonderful and moving book about a womans search for forgiveness. Wong shows how fast Beijing is changing because of the Olympic Games. How old building, hutongs and culture are disappearing and destroyed. As a historian I'm very sad about that, but on the other hand, it's the new time. China is in progress and what they are doing to their culture now, Holland did 40 years ago: throwing away 'old trash' so there's room for progress. But in some cases progress is stagnation
A wonderful and moving book about a womans search for forgiveness. Wong shows how fast Beijing is changing because of the Olympic Games. How old building, hutongs and culture are disappearing and destroyed. As a historian I'm very sad about that, but on the other hand, it's the new time. China is in progress and what they are doing to their culture now, Holland did 40 years ago: throwing away 'old trash' so there's room for progress. But in some cases progress is stagnation
March 27, 2014
None of my book club members loved this book, but it made for a good discussion. It was the true story of the author, a Canadian reporter who visited China with her family just prior to the Beijing Olympics. I thought it was going to be a travelogue, but it turns out the author wanted to repent for turning a friend over to the Communist Party when they both lived in China during the Cultural Revolution. For over 30 years, the author worried about whether her friend’s life had been ruined or even if she had been executed. As a reporter, she had the resources to track down the real story. At the same time, the author did spend a lot of time on the geography of the city and how China’s culture changed when capitalism kicked in. I think some of the drama of the “friend betrayal story” was lost because of the detailed side story of taking her teenagers to a big international city. I didn't know much about Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) so I found it interesting.
November 15, 2009
Wong, a Canadian journalist is an excellent writer & revisits her past as an exchange student to Beijing University during the Cultural Revolution in the memoir A Comrade Lost and Found. As an idealistic student she became a devoted Maoist & actually turned in a classmate who asked her about America. The classmate subsequently vanished. Wong went back to Toronto, married, had kids & a successful career & forgot her revolutionary youth. However, just before the Beijing Olympics she was seized with the desire to find the woman she had wronged so many years ago and apologize. No easy task in today's Beijing. Her commentary on Maoist China vs today's China was fascinating. I learned a lot of Chinese history & her observations about how/why people inform on each other (including in E Germany) were illuminating. You will have to read the book to find out how her quest ended...
January 28, 2013
I like Jan Wong's style of writing with humor sprinkled in. But I can see she is still very much in the mind of her Communist past. I get the feeling she wants to portray China in a better light than it is and is constantly comparing to the west (especially the U.S.) and putting it down. Get's a bit old after a while. Very boastful of China. Tries too hard.
It's a quick read, but I feel her communist view is still very much with her. China is better is just about on every other page. Oh well. Her first book was wonderful. She seems angry writing this one.
To get a good idea of China from the 1900's to now, read:
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, which starts with her grandmother with bound feet, her mother joining the communist party and all it's horrific effects, and then Jung growing up in that time and now living in England.
It's a quick read, but I feel her communist view is still very much with her. China is better is just about on every other page. Oh well. Her first book was wonderful. She seems angry writing this one.
To get a good idea of China from the 1900's to now, read:
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, which starts with her grandmother with bound feet, her mother joining the communist party and all it's horrific effects, and then Jung growing up in that time and now living in England.
August 4, 2012
Jan Wong writes like a journalist. The book is quite humorous and She has returned to Bejing after many years to right a wrong that bothers her. She feels responsible for the harsh treatment of another Chinese student some years ago in the 1970's. So, she is on a mission to find her..travelling with with husband and two teenage sons from Canada, where she is a citizen. Her descriptions of how China is becoming westernized are superb...The books was written before the Olympics there, so does not take changes since then into account. A real page turner, with parts you will want to read aloud to anyone who is around.
July 15, 2009
My version is just titled "A Comrade Lost and Found". I enjoyed reading about modern-day Beijing. Wong's need to apologize for a past wrong is understandable and, although the book contains more details than I personally needed, I kept reading because I did want to find out what happened to the comrade she ratted out years ago. The fact that her two teenage sons accompanied her on this trip made for some interesting commentary about lack of drinking age, night clubs, etc. - a nice balance to the history of the cultural revolution.
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