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Jan Wong - Beijing Confidential: A Tale of Comrades Lost and Found

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    Beijing Confidential: A Tale of Comrades Lost and Found
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Beijing Confidential: A Tale of Comrades Lost and Found: summary, description and annotation

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Jan Wong has returned to Beijing. Her quest: to find someone she encountered briefly in 1973, and whose life she was certain she had ruined forever.
In the early 70s, Jan Wong travelled from Canada to become one of only two Westerners permitted to study at Beijing University. One day a young stranger, Yin Luoyi, asked for help in getting to the United States. Wong, then a starry-eyed Maoist, immediately reported Yin to the authorities. Thirty-three years on, and more than a decade after the publication of her bestselling Red China Blues, Jan Wong revisits the Chinese capital to begin her search for the person who has haunted her conscience. She wants to apologize, to somehow make amends. At the very least, she wants to discover whether Yin survived.
As Jan Wong hunts through the city, she finds herself travelling back through the decades, back to her experiences in the Cultural Revolution, to places that were once of huge importance to her. She has changed, of course, but not as much as Beijing. One of the worlds most ancient cities is now one of its most modern. The neon signs no longer say Long Live Chairman Mao but instead tout Mary Kay cosmetics and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Places she once knew have vanished, bulldozed into oblivion and replaced by avant-garde architecture, trendy bars, and sleek condos. The people she once knew have changed, too, for better or for worse. Memories are everywhere. By searching out old friends and acquaintances, Jan Wong uncovers tantalizing clues about the woman she wronged. She realizes her deepest fears and regrets were justified. But Yin herself remains elusiveuntil the day she phones Jan Wong.
Emotionally powerful and rich with detail, Beijing Confidential weaves together three distinct storiesWongs journey from remorse to redemption, Yins journey from disgrace to respectability, and Beijings stunning journey from communism to capitalism.

Jan Wong: author's other books


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Praise for Beijing Confidential National Bestseller Wongs descriptions of the - photo 1
Praise for Beijing Confidential
National Bestseller

Wongs descriptions of the extraordinary changes in Beijing and Chinese society wrought by the push towards economic development are fascinating.

The Chronicle Herald (Halifax)

A shrewd appraisal of Beijing as a city in the throes of transition. Written in lean, spunky prose [and] peppered with irreverent observations. Wongs latest book will appeal to a wide audience.

Winnipeg Free Press

Wong has the ability to make readers feel as though they are alongside her on the journey. As an ethnic Chinese and fluent Mandarin speaker, she can immerse herself in China as few foreigners are able. As a Canadian, she brings an admirably critical eye to the country. As a one-time true believer, she has a unique empathy for the concessions and compromises people are compelled to make for survival. All of these qualities come together in this emotionally satisfying and intriguing tour.

The Gazette (Montreal)

Wongs clear prose flows like water With Beijing Confidential she is writing a thriller about pursuit, explaining three tides of historythe Mongols of Kublai Khan, the Ming dynasty and the 2008 Olympicsthat flattened and rebuilt Beijing. She is drawing on the astounding arcs of Yin Luoyis life after exile from Beijing The book is a classic.

Heather Mallick, cbc.ca

ALSO BY J AN W ONG

Red China Blues:
My Long March from Mao to Now

Jan Wongs China:
Reports from a Not-So-Foreign Correspondent

Lunch With Jan Wong:
Sweet and Sour Celebrity Interviews

For Colleen Contents 28 China Map by Ben Shulman City of Beijing - photo 2

For Colleen

Contents

28

China

Map by Ben Shulman City of Beijing Map by Ben Shulman Mission Impossible - photo 3

Map by Ben Shulman

City of Beijing

Map by Ben Shulman Mission Impossible O n the tarmac at Newark International - photo 4

Map by Ben Shulman


Mission Impossible

O n the tarmac at Newark International Airport, a heat wave makes the August air dance. Inside our Boeing 777, a black flight attendant sings out the standard Chinese greeting. Ni hao, she chimes, mangling the tones. Nevertheless the passengers, mostly mainland Chinese, seem pleased. When even this American female is trying to speak their language, it reinforces their view that the Middle Kingdom is, once again, the center of the world.

My husband, Norman, and I lived in Beijing for years during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. On this trip back, we are bringing two reluctant fellow travelers, our teenaged sons, Ben, sixteen, and Sam, thirteen. As usual these days on flights to Beijing, every seat is taken. The Chinese passengers in their knock-off Burberry outfits are more self-assured than the handful who left the mainland during Chairman Maos Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In the 1970s, the Chinese who traveled abroad were members of official delegations, kept on short leashes, tight schedules and tiny cash allowances.

Foreigners heading to China faced obstacles, too. Beijing rarely issued visas to Americans, but Norman was deemed to be friendly. His father, Jack Shulman, had been an aide to William Z. Foster, longtime head of the Communist Party USA. In 1965, Jack had gone to Beijing to polish English-language propaganda at Xinhua, the state-run New China News Agency. To the Chinese, it was natural for a son to join his father. Filial piety, however, wasnt Normans motivating factor. The Vietnam War was. At twenty-two, he was looking for an interesting place to dodge the draft.

In 1966, his journey from New York City to Beijing would take days. The United States had no diplomatic relations with China. To obtain a visa, Norman had to fly to London. From there, the only air route to mainland China was a twice-monthly Pakistan International Airlines flight to Canton, now known as Guangzhou. PIA normally refueled twice en route, in Karachi and Dhaka. At the time, India was at war with Pakistan, so Normans flight was rerouted through Colombo, Sri Lanka. When his flight finally landed in Canton, he was a jet-lagged wreck. But the arrival of a foreigner was a rare chance to feast at government expense. Hungry local officials insisted on feeding him a ten-course banquet, after which they bundled him aboard a three-hour flight to Beijing.

Forty years later, Continental Airlines flight 89 takes thirteen hours. With the Cold War over, it zips across the Arctic Circle and the former Soviet Union. Our tickets are a bargain, too, 80 percent less expensive in real terms than when I first went to China in 1972 The Middle Kingdom is still on the other side of the world, but its no longer far away.

Ben and Sam spent their earliest years in Beijing. They were born during my six-year posting as China correspondent for the Toronto Globe and Mail. Sam was one when we moved back to Canada in 1994. He remembers nothing. Ben, who was four, has fragmented memories. He recalls making little cakes from Play-Doh with Nanny Ma. He remembers wandering into the kitchen to sit on Cook Mus lap.

In 2003, the year severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, broke out in Beijing (and Toronto), Norman and I figured the Great Wall might not be too crowded. After the all-clear, we took the boys back for the grand tour. Along with the Wall, we visited the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the terra cotta warriors in Xian, the Shanghai Bund and the Yangtze River. We picked grapes in Kashgar and sledded down sand dunes in the Gobi Desert.

Now, when I propose a holiday in Beijing, my sons both groan. Ben would rather hang out in Toronto with his girlfriend, Tash, and go mountain biking with friends. Sam prefers to play road hockey and chat on MSN. The boys grow markedly un-enthusiastic when I mention I also plan to hire a Chinese tutor in Beijing so they can start each day with private Mandarin lessons.

Um, do I have to go? Sam asks politely, hoping good manners will get him off the hook.

Yes, I say.

Why do I have to go? Ben asks belligerently, hoping attitude will get him off the hook.

Because, I reply enigmatically, I need you.

I promise the boys we wont go sightseeing. I promise I wont make them visit a single museum. I swear we will not re-climb the Great Wall. I bill the trip as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live, briefly, in a crazy, amped-up city. Indeed, thats why Ive persuaded myself to come back. I already know the city well, or at least I think I do. But the ancient capital I knew is disappearing fast. If I blink, it might vanish. So on this trip back I want to write about the city I loved and about the new, modern, shiny one that is obliterating the old. I figure its now or never.

We have exactly twenty-eight days in Beijing. August is brutally hot, but earlier in the summer the boys were busy with hockey camp, invitations to friends cottages and mountain biking at Whistler in British Columbia. In September they have to go back to schooland I have to go back to work.

Now, as we settle into our seats on the plane, Ben asks, grumpily, for the umpteenth time, Why do I have to go?

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