Red China Blues

Jan Wong, a Canadian of Chinese descent, went to China as a starry-eyed Maoist in 1972 at the height of the Cultural Revolution. A true believer - and one of only two Westerners permitted to enroll at Beijing University - she renounced rock and roll, hauled pig manure in the paddy fields, and turned in a fellow student who sought her help in getting to the United States. Red China Blues is Wong's startling - and ironic - memoir of her rocky six-year romance with Maoism (which crumbled as she became aware of the harsh realities of Chinese communism), her dramatic firsthand account of the devastating Tiananmen Square uprising, and her engaging portrait of the individuals and events she covered as a correspondent in China during the tumultuous era of capitalist reform under Deng Xiaoping. In a frank, captivating, deeply personal narrative, she relates the horrors that led to her disillusionment with the "worker's paradise."