Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now

This is a very readable book about the author's experience of and in China. She first went to China as a young woman who firmly believed in Mao's theories and in socialism. As the book's subtitle, "My Long March from Mao to Now" implies, her views change over time as she experiences life in China. The book traces her experiences at Beijing University, at a collective farm, and as a reporter at Tiannamen Square in 1989.

Ms. Wong's experiences in China are diverse and probably unmatched by many North Americans. This gives her book a fascinating and unique perspective that is well worth reading.

Jan Wong writes interesting and undoubtfully quite accurate about the situation in China during the Mao period. Nevertheless, she somehow still is a bit naive in her writing and because the book is non-fictional the storyline is not always really clear (sometimes it is just pages of summaries of what's wrong in China and this makes the book lose its pace).

Overall a very interesting piece of writing but not ground-breaking.

Amazing book. Jan Wong writes about the social and political unrest in modern China as Iris Chang did in her work "The Rape of Nanking". This book is an easy and at the same time a compelling read to familiarize a beginner with the major political figures in contemporary Chinese politics as well as major political upheavals that took place in China over the past 50 years. Jan's wry and satirical sense of humour, coupled with her keen sense of observation and interpretation of the unfolding events get you panting and gasping through the book, from the beginning till the end, and still hungry for more.

There's certainly an interesting story here, but it's bogged down by the author's clumsy, insensitive and pathetic attempts at humor. Although her personal story is integral, many of her anecdotes seem poorly woven in or completely irrelevant. It's worth reading for the information and unique perspective, but also a relief to be finished with because this journalist's style is much more grating than gritty.

not a quick read because of the scope it covers but that's okay because it gives you so much to think about. it follows wong all the way through her fixation on maoist china from life as a pretty chinese canadian co-ed with radical ideas to intigrating herself into the heart of the maoist movement in beijing to visiting beijing again later in life and buying a mao lighter at a gift shop. totally fasenating and honest.

Kept my interest for quite a while. However, the brutality depicted in the last few chapters made me skip quite a few pages to the end. I had never thought much about China and the Revolution before, but the detail in this helps me understand the China in current politics.

China through the eyes of the first western student allowed in as an exchange students. Wong is caught up in the fervor of revolutionary China but comes to learn that where there is idolatry there is disappointment.