Customer Reviews

Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I should start with why I like and recommend this book. Jane Wong tells a fascinating story, and I found this book to be extremely hard to put down. Her descriptions of life in China during the latter part of the cultural revolution, the gradual reopening of the country following Mao's death, and the crackdown at Tiananmen are first rate, emotionally powerful, and give you a sense of what it would have felt like to "be there" during those momentous events in recent Chinese history. I almost didn't read this book because I have read so many other books on China over the past years (in addition to a brief visit and many conversations with Chinese friends) that I didn't think this one would have much to offer. I couldn't have been more wrong. I would rate this book in the top two, along with Steven Mosher's "Broken Earth; The Rural Chinese".

My disappointment with the book is due to the remarkable lack of depth in Jane's own spiritual journey. I was surprised to learn that she never really breaks with Mao. In the final scene of the book she is at a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Mao's birth, wearing a Mao button and nostalgically singing the Internationale (she explainst that the communist anthem is still one of her favorite songs). While vacuously deceptive, the book's subtitle "My Long March from Mao to Now" is technically accurate; time did pass, Mao died, and she, like China, has changed. However, "My Long March from Mao to... a Little Less Mao" would be more descriptive.

Perhaps because she hasn't rejected Mao, she approaches the many forms of oppression in today's China not as vestiges of the Maoist system, but as creations of the new one. It is as if the opening of the curtains had created the stage, instead of revealing it. In response to the horror of the Tiananmen crackdown, she remarks that "Mao never had to send tanks into Beijing". It apparently doesn't occur to her that Mao would have imprisoned and/or executed these people long before tanks were needed, even though she personally witnessed Mao's crushing of the much more subdued "Democracy Wall" movement years earlier. Likewise, while recounting China's continuing widespread use of the death penalty and slave labor camps for political criminals, she doesn't seem to make the connection that this was the system she had declared morally superior and dedicated herself to. If she felt a tinge of personal responsibility while recounting these horrors, she certainly kept it to herself.

She tells us early in the book that she originally hoped to go to China with the goal of becoming the Chinese equivalent to "Hanoi Jane", serving as Mao's mouthpiece to the west. She further explains that she was fully prepared to lie in her effort to promote the cause, and that she felt that in this case lying wouldn't be wrong because it would be in defense of a "perfect" system. This is a fascinating admission, because it demonstrates that even then she knew she was being lied to. Why expect to have to lie when promoting "Utopia" to those who haven't seen it, especially before you've seen it yourself?

For me the most disturbing thing is that she seems to think that her admission that she shouldn't have turned the people in who begged her for help during the cultural revolution constitutes the completion of, and not the first step towards, a personal moral (or if you prefer Karmic) accounting. She stops at "this was wrong", without asking the hard questions of why she did this in the first place. Her self assurances that "we all did this during the cultural revolution", and "I was naive" fall far short of the mark. True, most (if not all) ordinary Chinese did find themselves forced to inform on others as a means of survival during the Cultural Revolution. However, unlike them she had the opportunity to leave whenever she wanted (she had to plead to stay). She informed out of ideology, not self-preservation. She believed that those who committed "thought crimes" deserved whatever punishment Maoist China reserved for them. This is where the argument "I was naive" would come to play (at least partially), except in her case it is equally false. Unlike ordinary Chinese, she knew what the free world she was rejecting was like, and to the extent that she was lied to, it was a deliberate choice on her part to accept the lies. Lastly, she doesn't make much of an effort to find out what happened to the "thought criminals" she informed on. Were they sent to the gulag? executed? or just exiled to the countryside for hard labor, extreme deprivation, and "thought reform"? When were they released? Did they survive? We are never told.

To be fair to the author, neither group she considers herself a part of would prod her to undertake a more thorough moral and philosophical accounting of her life's choices. Her nostalgia for Mao doesn't place her out of line with current mainstream or even dissident Chinese thought. As she recounts, the Tiananmen democracy activists didn't hesitate to turn over those in their ranks who vandalized the giant picture of Mao on the square. Likewise, there is no movement within the 60s radical community to reconsider it's profound moral support of communist regimes. Those who reverently carried (and quoted from) a copy of Mao's "Little Red Book" and publicly chanted "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Mihn!" 30 years ago, limit themselves today to gushing about how much less repressive these systems are now than when they wholeheartedly supported them. The most troubling thought is if someone with Jane's profound personal experiences isn't inspired to consider these issues while writing a book about her own life's journey, who will?

What a fascinating book! I loved it. It is a wonderful piece of writing and it's easy to see why Jan Wong is such an acclaimed journalist.

I have been to China and have many friends from there. From everything they have shared with me regarding their own experiences, Red China Blues fits exactly with their descriptions of life in those times. Having been born in 1948 and lived under far different circumstances, I find the history of China during the Mao years fascinating. Red China Blues rings true and it is written with wicked humour as well as much sympathy/empathy. Jan Wong has heart and her account of the Tienanmen Square massacre is the most moving I have ever read. I believe it is a totally accurate account and I found myself weeping as I read it. I was profoundly moved and gained a much deeper insight of the events that took place at that time. In fact, I learned many things about China through this marvellous book and was hungry for more. I couldn't put it down and can't wait to read her latest, Jan Wong's China which I have just purchased.

Jan Wong, Chinese-Canadian journalist, has written a sterling book full of compassion, hard choices, and a great deal of soul-searching. Wong's romance with Mao's virgin communism leads her from an already exceptional life in Canada to China, to Beijing University, through the anguish of the Great Cultural Revolution, and safely out the other side. Much more enjoyable a read than "Born Red", yet not as pungent as Anchee Min's "Red Azalea", "Red China Blues" (great title!) definitely stands out among the dozens of books of reminiscences by those who survived Mao's disastrous final years. It's indeed interesting in reading these various accounts of life in Mao's China, especially through the Cultural Revolution, that we are being given so many irreplaceable glances into that woeful time, each new book providing some important new angle of understanding. Wong is clearly a first-rate journalist, the prose is succinct, heartfelt, and balanced. Lots of informative and thoughtful snapshots are included as well- Wong, her friends, some of the people who figure prominently during her sojourn in her ancestral land. A beautifully finished chronicle of a hair-raising adventure by a woman of tremendous courage, humor, and talent. I enjoyed every bit of it!

Nothing is at it seems. Jan Wong, a teenager during the Vietnam era, was dissatisfied with capitalistic Canada and radically sought change. For Wong the truth was to be found in Mao's 'little Red Book' and her reading room was to be China.

Looking back twenty-five years and with 20/20 hindsight, Jan Wong takes us into the dragon's lair revealing both her youth's ideology and Mao's China gone by. For many who remember the 60's and early 70's you will understand how she could turn her back on the comfort and freedoms of her home in Canada, renouncing all, and go to live in Mao's China. For fourteen years, with a religious, fanatical devotion, Jan Wong dedicated her life to become a missionary of Mao.

Her red world crashed around her in 1976, the year when the cultural Revolution and Chairman Mao died.. All of her sacrifice, all of the suffering she went through as a worker-peasant were for naught, as China drastically discarded Mao's ideology and moved towards a hybrid capitalistic communism. She felt betrayed, suckered and stupid, "I vowed I would never again suspend my disbelief. I promised myself I would question everything. I became a skeptic."

Her opportunity to question everything came when the New York Times hired her as a Journalist in its Beijing office.

Jan Wong's on site coverage of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 2600 Chinese citizen's in 1989 stands out as one of the best on site reports I have read on the subject. Even Mao, in his 40 years of rule, did not turn tanks on his own people, but Deng Xiaping slaughtered his own people to keep his grip on Communist power. She writes, "The guns at Tiananmen Square killed my last illusions about China."

This book is a must read for anyone traveling to China today. It does more to help you understand the current history than a dozen guide books will.

If you are interested in Chinese history and culture, Red China Blues is a wonderful starting point to delve into China.

Red China Blues chatty, gripping narrative is the perfect place for a Westerner to begin reading about the fascinating subject of China during the Cultural Revolution. Since it is written from a Westerner's point of view, it explains much that would otherwise be puzzling about Eastern customs.

Ms. Wong's opinions are frank and freely given, and she makes few apologies for her younger, idealistic self's "long journey".

Red China Blues was the first of a dozen memoirs I have read centering around China's Cultural Revolution, and it ranks up there as one of the most enjoyable.

Wong's memoir of her parent's native land during the latter days of the Cultural Revolution ranks with "Wild Swans" and "In Search of History" as the best personal narratives about China. Readers follow Wong's transition from naïve Canadian, to disillusioned realist, to returned journalist in Beijing in 1989. I read this book shortly after returning from China, and found Wong's analysis and readable prose completely on target.

I've both lived in and studied China for a few years now, and have read a few really excellent books on it, but this is by far the most enjoyable book I've found yet on China. It seems most memoir books are either too dry or too one-sided, but Jan Wong's "Red China Blues" is full of rich detail and stories, is never long winded nor boring, and continuously reminds the reader that some of this is her own opinion based on her long experience in China. I loved this book. This is one of those books that makes me disappointed after I finish it because I know I won't find another book this great for a long time. I also recommend "China Wakes" by Kristoff and WuDunn. That book has a bit more of an academic journalistic tone, but is still informative and highly readable nonetheless.

Red China Blues is an absorbing and fascinating book that details Jan Wong's life from her brash and idealistic youth to her final realization that the government does not work for the good of the people. Jan's take on the events in China from the end of the Cultural Revolution to the early 90's is a unique expression of not only the facts, but also her reaction to the events. Her unique situation as the second Westerner to attend Beijing University, and later as a Western journalist who not only speaks Chinese, but also sounds Chinese, looks Chinese, and acts Chinese gives her an interesting point of view. Her willing experiences with Maoist `thought reform' and propaganda give her a view of China that no other Westerners can to duplicate.

Wong's `Long March' parallels the evolution of Chinese Communism. As time goes on and Mao and his successors twist and dilute Mao's ideology, so is Jan's belief in Chinese Communism broken and mangled. As she comes to realize the true extent of the corruption and violation of human rights, her diehard faith in Maoism is at first shaken, and then finally destroyed.

The most memorable part of the book for me was the gripping and horrifying blow-by-blow description of the Massacre at Tiananmen Square. The style is subtly different, more emotionally charged than any other section of the book; her normally light humor takes a darker turn and the words seem to rush into one another. From her vantage point on a hotel balcony facing the Square, she could see, hear, and feel everything. Not only does she make the reader feel that they are there, she also puts us into her mind, we feel her panic, her revulsion, and her sickness when the last of her illusions about China come crashing down about her.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about China and its more recent history.

Excellent book! Very entertaining, amusing and enlightening. Jan gives readers a marvelous look at her own changes and China's changes over the last 3 decades. Can't say how much I loved this book.

I bought the book with reservation even though it was critically acclaimed by the Time magazine as there are so many books out there nowadays written by Chinese authors banking on their unfortunate past. I really hate whinging book because it leads the readers nowhere. The essence of reading a book is to broaden our knowledge, enabling us to reflect upon our past so that we could build a better foundation for our younger generation. I believe Jan has done just that. Ashamed that I couldn't meet her in person when she gave a talk regarding the book in Christchurch 2 years ago. Believe me, her sequel, Jan Wong's China is just as good or even better than her first masterpiece. Keep up the good work.