Chinese Whispers

A Journey Into Betrayal

During the Cultural Revolution Jan Wong studied in Beijing and reported a fellow student to the authorities. Over thirty years later, she returned to China to find out what happened to the woman she betrayed. Chinese Whispers tells her remarkable story.

'Wong points the way for the future of travel writing.' Book of the Week, The Times

In 1972, Jan Wong became one of only two Westerners admitted to Beijing University at the height of the Cultural Revolution. One day, a student, Yin Luoyi, sought Jan's assistance in going to the United States. Wong, then a starry-eyed Maoist, reported Yin to the authorities. Yin promptly disappeared.

Now, thirty-three years later, Wong returns to Beijing to search for the woman who has haunted her conscience. She hopes to apologise, perhaps somehow to try to make amends. At the very least, she wants to find out whether Yin has survived. Preoccupied by the past, fascinated by China's present and future, Jan Wong searches out old friends, foes and comrades in this half-familiar city, finally uncovering the truth about the woman she wronged. Chinese Whispers tells a unique and unforgettable story of communism and capitalism, of guilt and atonement, of remembering and forgetting.