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A review by banana_hutch
Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now by Jan Wong
dark
emotional
funny
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.25
I love reading memoirs from Mao's China. And I found this one especially fascinating because it wasn't the typical perspective I've come to expect from them. Jan is Chinese-Canadian and was one of just two Overseas Chinese to be allowed to study at Beijing University during the Cultural Revolution. This is the story of her slow disillusionment with Mao. But because of her heritage she is often able to blend as a native-born Chinese and it grants her access to things most overseas people would not have seen.
This memoir covers the final years of Mao's life and of the Cultural Revolution, as well as when Jan returns to China as a journalist - in the late 80s, as the Chinese test the waters of capitalism and the Tiananmen Square massacre occurs.
There is SO much in this book.
This memoir covers the final years of Mao's life and of the Cultural Revolution, as well as when Jan returns to China as a journalist - in the late 80s, as the Chinese test the waters of capitalism and the Tiananmen Square massacre occurs.
There is SO much in this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Police brutality
Moderate: Ableism, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Minor: Xenophobia, Trafficking
This book came out in 1996 - there is a chapter where she visits China's poorest province which had just enacted a eugenics law and the "R word" is used many times in this chapter.