Comrade Lost and Found: A Beijing Story

by Jan Wong

Book Overview

In the early 1970s, 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. One day a fellow student, Yin Luoyi, asked for help getting to the United States. Wong, then a starry-eyed Maoist from Montreal, immediately reported her to the authorities, and shortly thereafter Yin disappeared. Thirty-three years later, hoping to make amends, Wong revisits the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0547247893
• ISBN13: 9780547247892
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Puzzling, But Enjoyable Reading -

Jan Wong was a third-generation Canadian of Chinese descent at Beijing University studying Mandarin and Chinese history during the early 1970s. In the midst of the Cultural Revolution she was one of only two westerners there at the time, and considered herself an enthusiastic Maoist. A fellow student (Yin Luoyi) asked Wong for help getting to the U.S. Wong, who would later marry an American living in Beijing while evading Vietnam-era draft boards, promptly turned Yin in to the department's Chinese Communist Party (CCP) representative, and Yin disappeared. Wong mostly forget about the incident for some 33-years while working in Beijing and Canada as correspondent for the Toronto-based 'Globe and Mail,' and purportedly losing her initial infatuation with Communism - along with most of China. In 2006 she returned to Beijing for month, along with her husband and two teenage sons. Her mission - find Yin Luoyi, learn what had happened, and apologize. Jan claims that when she snitched on Yin, she didn't realize that there were labor camps for dissidents, and had assumed Yin would merely get a tongue-lashing. On the other hand, it seems incredible that she was not aware of the enormous turmoil enveloping the nation during the Cultural Revolution. Further, the disruptions had actually begun at Beijing University, education there largely ceased from 1966-1970, and even Deng Xiaoping's (very high ranking leader who later led China's economic revolution) son had been reportedly thrown out a fourth-floor campus window in 1968, causing permanent paralysis. Nationwide, an estimated 100 million were killed, imprisoned, and/or sent to labor. Undoubtedly this was well-known within the global Chinese community at the time. And both Jan and her American husband had participated in state-sponsored labor projects during the Cultural Revolution. Regardless, finding Yin was not going to be easy. Beijing's population had risen to 16 million, there were then 400 million cellphone users (now 710 million) - all unlisted, about 40% of the population shares ten surnames, and Beijing residents had moved an average of three times during the past ten years. (In Mao's time most people remained in the same work unit for life - moving required permission, enforced by the issuance of food-stamp coupons.) Other possibilities included Yin Luoyi having died, moved somewhere else within China (1.3 billion total population), left the country entirely, and/or changed her name - either because of marriage or personal preference. Still another possibility - Jan had misspelled Yin Luoyi's name. Inexplicably, Jan did no preparatory work prior to arriving in Beijing - making the task even more daunting. Early search forays included contacting the local journalists' group, and inquiries at Beijing University - both for Yin, and Jan's former classmates. Several former classmates were found, and ultimately they led Jan to Yin. During the interregnum, Jan and her family toured the rapidly c

Decent Follow-Up to RED CHINA BLUES

In this memorable book Jan Wong describes returning to Beijing in search of a classmate she betrayed during the Cultural Revolution. A starry-eyed young Maoist in 1972, Jan had left her native Canada to join the supposed workers' paradise in her ancestral land (see RED CHINA BLUES). As one of only two foreign students at Beijing University, she was approached by a classmate who dared asked about visiting the United States - a dangerous violation during the Cultural Revolution. Jan promptly informed on the classmate and she soon vanished. Now over three decades later, Wong returns with her husband and sons to search for the betrayed student she vaguely remembers as Yin. Was Yin exiled for her crime? Imprisoned? Killed? Searching for old colleagues and classmates, Wong finds several in Beijing. She notes how they have (and haven't) changed, and does the same with China. Maoism has been replaced by consumerism, rising prosperity, and a desire to emulate the West. Bicycles have given way to motor vehicles, traffic and pollution are nightmares, and the capital keeps expanding with rural migrants plus foreign students and business people. For better or worse China is increasingly a capitalist nation of shopping malls, McDonald's, Ikea, etc. Yet the Communist Party retains control, and the madness of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and Tiananmen Square Massacre (1989) remain taboo. Readers get an excellent view of modern China, its culture, and ongoing transformation, plus an added look at the older and wiser author. This book makes a nice follow-up to RED CHINA BLUES, Wong's superb memoir about her years in China as a Maoist student/worker (1972-78) and later a foreign correspondent (1988-1994) for the Toronto Globe & Mail. But don't expect this later edition to match its predecessor, which I found so memorably on-target after visiting China in 1996 that I wrote the author. Note: This book has a Canadian version (BEIJING CONFIDENTIAL) and a U.S. version (A COMRADE LOST AND FOUND).

More than a Story

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.

For anyone interested in how Beijing is changing

This book is a memoir covering the author's experiences in China when she was college-aged up until just before the Beijing Olympics. The frame story is about her month-long trip to Beijing to find and apologize to a woman she betrayed when she was much younger. As the author tells about her present-day trip, she segues into relevant information about what China is like now and what it used to be like. It's China like you probably never imagined it. The descriptions of city life are vivid and made me feel as if I was experiencing the trip with her. From the party held in her honor by her old teachers to roaming the streets and looking into bars and massage parlors, the trip is a fascinating one. The author has the ability to laugh at herself and all but the most serious parts are told with a touch of loving humor. Overall, the book was well-written and very interesting. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in what China (or, at least, Beijing) is like now and how it's changed in the last forty years. A Different Time, Different Place Book Reviews http://differenttimedifferentplace.blogspot.com/ Note: For those who feel buying this book would be exploiting the victim, you should know that the woman who Jan Wong betrayed was found and DOES NOT blame Jan Wong for it. [spoiler] The betrayed woman explains exactly what happened and, while what Mrs. Wong did was wrong, the lady explains that Jan Wong was at the end of a long list of people who turned her in. She would have suffered exactly the same if Jan Wong hadn't turned her in. If anything, I was left feeling that Jan Wong wrote this book as penance for what she did.[end spoiler]

Absolutely terrific!

What an engaging memoir of Beijing Ms Wong has written! "Beijing Confidential" is Jan Wong's highly readable account of her return to Beijing in 2006 on a burning mission to right a wrong she did to a fellow student back in 1972, when Ms Wong was one of the first foreign students accepted to study at Beijing University. Fast forward 34 years, and Beijing is now a capitalist's dream and the city is undergoing a major facelift in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games. I really enjoyed Ms Wong's reminiscences about what Beijing was like in 1972, in the closing years of the Cultural Revolution, and how it has evolved into a sophisticated, wealthy city, although China itself remains a totalitarian police state. The back story of how Ms Wong tracked down the friend who she informed on is surprisingly suspenseful and full of twists and turns before reaching its conclusion. The description of Beijing now compared to 1972 is highly engaging and downright fascinating. After finishing the book, I feel like planning to go there for my next annual vacation! Five stars for this one- the best memoir I've read in quite some time.