Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now by Jan Wong

Red China Blues : My Long March from Mao to Now
Jan Wong
(Doubleday Canada, Toronto: 1998)

READ: December 2007

For those of you who, like me, always thought Jan Wong was just a writer of fluffy, though amusing, columns in the Globe & Mail (lunch with Jan Wong, anyone?), this will set you straight.

I stumbled across this book in a second-hand shop in Ottawa, when I'd walked in intending to get something nice and light-hearted to read over lunch one day. Remembering how fascinated and curious I'd been to learn more after reading Ian Johnson's Wild Grass, I decided to pick this up. And - WOW! It's an amazing book. It's eye-opening, elucidating, and entertaining. Or to put it more bluntly, it will knock your socks off.

I don't think I can hook you any better than by posting here the publisher's blurb (from the Chapters website):

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 -- her education included wielding a pneumatic drill at the Number One Machine Tool Factory. In the name of the Revolution, 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. She also met and married the only American draft dodger from the Vietnam War to seek asylum in China.

Red China Blues begins as Wong's startling -- and ironic -- memoir of her rocky six-year romance with Maoism that began to sour as she became aware of the harsh realities of Chinese communism and led to her eventual repatriation to the West. Returning to China in the late eighties as a journalist, she covered both the brutal Tiananmen Square crackdown and the tumultuous era of capitalist reforms under Deng Xiaoping. In a wry, absorbing, and often surreal narrative, she relates the horrors that led to her disillusionment with the "worker's paradise." And through the stories of the people -- an unhappy young woman who was sold into marriage, China's most famous dissident, a doctor who lengthens penises -- Wong creates an extraordinary portrait of the world's most populous nation. In setting out to show readers in the Western world what life is like in China, and why we should care, Wong reacquaints herself with the old friends -- and enemies -- of her radical past, and comes to terms with the legacies of her ancestral homeland.

Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Go to your nearest bookstore or library and read this book. You won't be sorry.

JPod by Douglas Coupland

JPod
Douglas Coupland
(Bloomsbury, New York: 2006)

Distributed by Holtzbrinck Publishers.

READ: September - October 2007

Six video game designer co-workers, whose last names all start with the letter "J" (hence the title), doomed to work forever on the same video game that will never be released.

It sounded vaguely like the premise of Microserfs, but I am pleased to say that the only thing the two books have in common is that the protagonist works in the high-tech world. JPod is so different from Microserfs. It is a book about a surreal, strange world, where morals are constantly shifting and things are never quite what they seem. It just kept getting weirder and weirder and weirder, until finally, partway through, I started wondering where the book was derailing to. Randal, who was also reading it at the same time but was further ahead than me, told me, "Just keep reading. You'll see." It got right back on track and the weirdness somehow all made sense in the end.

CBC Television has made a television series out of JPod, and I'm curious to see how it will work in this format.* I don't know how they will make episodes out of the book, or whether it will just be a spin-off, so to speak, loosely related to the events in the book.

Anyway, I was hooked start to finish. A great read.

* Unfortunately, I don't have cable, so lacking any good bunny-ears, I'm going to just have to wait for it to come out on DVD or something. It starts January 8, 2008 (tomorrow, incidentally).

The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II by Donovan Webster

The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II
Donovan Webster
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 2003)

READ: August 2007

I'd read Webster's shorter article on the Burma Road in National Geographic some time back and it had tweaked my interest. Having been over in that part of the world (Kanchanaburi and the River Kwai in 2004) also helped.

Overall, it was a good read, but not the one I'd expected. The back of the book was a bit misleading - it made it sound like the River Kwai events would play a much larger part in the book than the one chapter that they were actually given. This in itself is a little odd since the whole fight for control of the River Kwai was not, at least as far as I know, part of the fight for the Burma Road at all (though, I guess, you could argue that control fo the River Kwai was at least partially necessary in order to further the fight to clear the Japanese out of Burma and, eventually, Thailand).

Webster did his research and develops the leading players quite well. I'd say it's more a book for the military history buffs out there than for li'l ol' me, however. It did have some interesting background on China and Chiang Kai-Shek, which is an area of history I'd like to learn more about.

Wild Grass: China's Revolution from Below by Ian Johnson

Wild Grass: China's Revolution from Below
Ian Johnson
(Penguin Group, London: 2004)

Some of the material previously appeared in a slightly different form in the Wall Street Journal .

READ: March 2007

Here's an excellent example of how a well-respected journalist should write a book based on his columns and expertise in a particular area.

Ian Johnson is a roving correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, and lived in Beijing for seven years. In his book, Wild Grass, he tells the stories of three people in China, three stories of people who tried in little ways to resist the corruption and oppression of the Communist Party. The first is a paralegal who is jailed for having helped peasants mount a legal battle against illegal taxes. Second is an architect fighting to save Beijing's historic buildings, which are being destroyed at an alarming rate. The last is a daughter who has been jailed and running into difficulties with authorities because she tried to find out answers about her mother's death in prison (where she was jailed as a Falun Gong practitioner).

I know shamefully little about China and its politics, and understand even less. I was depressed for at least two days straight after finishing this book. That being said, it was an excellent read and I strongly encourage anyone with any interest in the outside world (esp politics) to read it. Johnson knows his subject, he knows how to make a story interesting, and he knows how to make things resonate on a personal level. There were a few "of course Communism is bad and of course it is failing" moments, but overall, he does a good job of exposing the Chinese government's current weaknesses in policy and strategy without devolving too far into the land of democracy-and-market-freedom-is-great. It is well-written, and the endnotes put Thomas Friedman to shame.*

* Not that that is very hard to do.

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
Thomas L. Friedman
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 2006)

Expanded and revised version, 2006; original edition, 2005.

READ: January 2007 (unfinished)

All you need to know about this book is summarized thus: Ugh.

For those of you who feel that isn't an adequate review, read on:

I was looking forward to reading this book. It had been recommended to me by a few people, and I kept seeing it at bookstores - even those bookstores that only sell a handful of English-language books. But the fact it was alongside Danielle Steele and Da Vinci's Code* should have tipped me off.

I made it through 300-some pages, so 2/3 of the way through, before I decided enough was enough, that I had much more worthy books on my shelf, and I wasn't going to read it anymore. The problem was, I didn't like the book from about page 5! I was giving Friedman the benefit of the doubt. I thought he might change! Alas, I can be too patient of a reader sometimes.

Friedman is a columnist at the New York Times and I guess his The Lexus and the Olive Tree is considered (by some, at least) to be the definitive work on the Middle East. Well, all I can say is that I hope it is better-researched and more critical than The World is Flat. This book reads like a long, lengthy, never-ending magazine article. And, with all due respect to magazine writers, here we have an incredibly BAD magazine article. He has lengthy quotes from various players in the global market, but they are all CEOs and other people who have already bought into the "flat world" way of thinking. In other words, Friedman seems to have only spoken to people who already agree with his thesis. That just doesn't "do it" for me.

I need to start reading with sticky-tabs handy. There were many sentences and paragraphs that made me snort derisively, and I wish I could find one now to share with you. The amount of times Friedman pointed something out that was either blatantly obvious or blatantly one-sided just made me cringe. What? He's going to spend another 550 pages telling me businesses need to go global, that they can't do it all themselves and remain economically efficient? Tell me something I don't know. Or at least, tell me in a way that could possibly garner some debate. Maybe - here's a radical idea - maybe tell me what an anti-globalization activist thinks of his "flat world" inevitability. How about those countries who have yet been unable to jump onto the globalization bandwagon (for ex., swathes of Africa)? Oh, the world exists only of the United States, India, China and Bangladesh. I see. Am I really supposed to swallow the line that outsourcing American accounting to Indian accountants is good for everyone because now Indian accountants can stay in India and be employed (the fact that the Indian wage is a fraction of the American wage is discussed no further by Friedman other than as a statement of fact) while the American accountant can exercise his true talents of more complicated accounting (ie., rather than just straightening out Friedman's taxes once a year, he can sit down with Friedman and figure out how to best shelter Friedman's income from taxes). How about paying a bit of lip service to the other side of the coin? Isn't that what journalism should be about??? No, Friedman has already written off anyone who doesn't see globalization as the future. And that's just lazy writing, as far as I'm concerned.

If anyone knows a good book on globalization, please let me know. But this sure ain't it. Keep your $17 (what I wasted on it).

* OK, I'm sure Da Vinci's Code is a good book and shouldn't be tossed in with Danielle Steele. But it's just disgustingly everywhere!!!

The World's Greatest Art: Asian Art by Michael Kerrigan

The World's Greatest Art: Asian Art
Michael Kerrigan
(Konecky & Konecky: 2005)

READ: May-July 2006 (intermittent)

Another great "throne" book. This small but thick volume has a few hundred pictures of some of the greatest Asian art with descriptions and some history. Much of the art (includes paintings, sculptures, pottery, etc.) is from China and Japan, but there is also a decent selection from other Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and so on. It's a nice overview of some of the most beautiful art there is.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Dai Sijie
translated from the French by Ina Rilke
(Knopf, New York City: 2002)

First published 2001

READ: January 2006

A delightful tale. I read this book in about two days flat. It compelled me to keep going, just a little further, just a little more. The ending is a bit abrupt and unsatisfying - I think that's partially it's style - not everything can always be wrapped up into a nice, tidy package at the end.

The story is set in 1970s Communist China. It tells of two city boys who are exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China's Cultural Revolution. While the work is hard and the hopes of returning to their families are slim, they become friends with the daughter of the local tailor. They also discover a hidden stash of Western literature - philosophy, novels, etc. - in Chinese translation. The book explores how this discovery changes their lives in small but important ways.