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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More than a Story, July 7, 2009
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. Another genre like the now classic, Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China puts 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 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 pshchology 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 it 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 formerly life and death issues of "left' and "right". Wanting to leave China is not a crime and the youth probably don't know that once it 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.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Bit Muddled, September 17, 2009
In 1972 Jan Wong, born in Canada to Chinese parents, was among the first foreigners allowed to enter China to study after the Communist takeover. A fervent Maoist, during her time at Peking University Wong dedicated herself to learning Mandarin, digging ditches, and generally "making revolution."
At the school, Wong had a brief encounter with a young woman named Yin, who told Wong of her dream of going to America--a dream the Communist Party certainly did not endorse. In her revolutionary fervor, Wong informed her teachers of Yin's desire. Shortly thereafter, Yin disappeared.
Wong later left China, became a reporter, and let the past lie. Eventually, however, she found herself unable to ignore her feelings of guilt for ratting out the idealistic young woman decades before--and hence the trip recounted in "A Comrade Lost and Found," in which Wong and her family go to Beijing in hopes of finding Yin. Adrift in a country of a billion people with almost no leads, calling it a daunting task would be an understatement.
Wong's continual theme is the drastic reinvention Beijing has undergone since her days as a student there, from hotels built over the sites of former factories to the rate at which Beijingers change their addresses and phone numbers. Her method of developing this theme, though, is to dive into tangential, almost stream-of-consciousness reminiscences whenever she sees something or meets someone, which can make the narrative hard to follow as it is interrupted by Wong's reflections for pages at a time. She seems compelled to make these observations about everything she encounters on her trip, and while some of this background is interesting, some of it could probably have been cut to streamline the story.
Wong also likes to ruminate on China's relationship to its past, especially the terrible years of the Cultural Revolution. She learns that many of her former classmates and teachers are unwilling to talk about their roles in the persecution of "counterrevolutionaries," and she is further confused by her own part in it all. She sometimes asks--almost rhetorically, it seems--how she let herself get swept up in the excesses of the era, and how culpable she is or isn't for what happened to Yin. But her minimal reflections on the subject come off as superficial. Perhaps the Chinese are not the only ones who are reluctant to genuinely confront the past.
The whole book is a bit too scattershot to be a good travel memoir, and not probing enough to be a compelling moral exploration of life under Communism. Readers for whom this is a first introduction to China may be intrigued, but the book lacks staying power.
~
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Moving Tale, March 19, 2009
I found this book hard to put down. One reason is that the premise for Jan Wong's story is deeply inviting: a trip back to Beijing to search for the woman that Wong knew briefly, and betrayed, back when Wong was a radical leftist student in China the 1970s. Another is that she writes with a lively, likable voice, sprinkled with good humor. A third is that Wong's descriptions of contemporary Beijing are vivid and clear. She brings a journalist's eye to everyday observations, and she takes advantage of a network of old friends to show what life is really like in China's capital. Wong was a correspondent in China for the Toronto Globe and Mail and it shows.
Wong is honest and brave about what brought her to this point. She neither exaggerates nor belittles her youthful mistake. Yet it nags at her conscience. It is eye-opening to see the reaction from Chinese acquaintances who learn about her quest, and who themselves do not seem capable of self-exploration or an honest reckoning about past wrongs. Perhaps their crimes were so numerous, or so extreme, that complete denial is necessary for survival.
Wong dragged her husband and two sons along with her for this trip, they often provide comic relief. Wong is a comfortable, unassuming narrator. She grasps at her own anxiety, in a way that made me feel for her. I thought several times as I read: This is a book about middle age. About people who are looking back in time and can't quite fathom how much life has changed, while knowing that there is more change to come.
The real payoff comes when Wong finds her old comrade. I expected some catharsis. I did not expect a sensitive rendering of subtle emotions that criss-cross this territory: misery, relief, longing, wonder, patience, acceptance. Recognition of the familiar. Recognition of the different. It's very rich. I felt grateful to Wong, for letting it all seep out and mingle, for not pushing it. It's a deeply affecting book.
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