This essay first appeared as part of the
In my third year at McGill University in Montreal, a much older, married classmate suggested the two of us go to China during our summer vacation. I was 19; she was probably all of 25. When we applied for visas, she, a white Australian, was turned down and I was approved. It was my first lesson in Chinese apartheid.
As a third-generation Canadian, I didn’t speak Chinese and dreaded going alone. But the lure was too great. In 1972, China was radical-chic, at least to an idealistic university student in Montreal. Against a backdrop of protests against US involvement in the Vietnam War, Beijing was a beacon of hope.