Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 2012. x, 295 pp. (Illus., B&W photos.) C$34.95, paper. ISBN 978-0-88864-600-2.
Writers sometimes have to ignore the advice of their publisher’s editorial boards. Brian Evans, a gregarious, erudite professor of Chinese history at the University of Alberta, was advised by his publishers to edit a memoir, written while he recovered from cancer, to say less about his tough childhood in Taber, Alberta, and more about his adult career, much of it involved with Canada-China relations. He resisted the suggestion—and has produced a moving and insightful memoir. It starts with his hard-scrabble life in rural Alberta in the 1930s, goes on to his years as a graduate student in London and, later, to Canada-China relations. There are connections between the two stories. When he visited Mao Zedong’s birthplace in Hunan, Evans was struck by the fact that Mao had been born in to much more prosperous circumstances than he himself had. And the story of his move out of poverty and in to the professorial ranks is one which chimes well with one of China’s most cherished beliefs, that education is the route to success, through which poor young men can rise to the heights.
Evans’ descriptions of his life in the academic world are nostalgic, looking back to a time not long past, when university administrations were quite lean, when administrators and faculty members lived in the same world, and when private fundraising was less dominant. There is another regret, the cancellation of a program that took Evans and many other Canadian academics to Beijing, to be the resident sinologist in the Canadian Embassy there. Those of us fortunate enough to have held this position have deeply regretted its demise.
As a memoirist, Evans has two great strengths. The first is his sense of humour, which brings us several wonderful anecdotes. One is the story of one of the most bizarre episodes in Canada-China relations, the gift by Prime Minister Trudeau of four beavers to a startled Chinese government. Evans was the liaison officer in charge of cultural exchanges at the time. He was serving then as the resident sinologist in the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. He also tells, with great good humour, the story of his misadventure with a Chinese airplane seat, which had been doused with cleaning fluid. Evans’ discomfort grew as he flew north to Beijing and led to him lying on his front in a Beijing hospital for three weeks. The hilarious account of the painful experience ends with his efforts to sue the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which tells us more about the status of the law in China than many learned treatises do.
Evans’ second strength is his unflinching honesty. On a personal level he tells the story of his marriage with a candour and affection so clear that the improbable elements disappear. Margo Burwash was fifteen years older than him, and his high school teacher. They fell in love and eventually married, a marriage that lasted until her death thirty-five years later. On the political side he does not prevaricate about his feelings of intense loyalty and love for China, which have led him at times to take unpopular positions. In 1989, he voiced his criticism of the students occupying Tiananmen Square in Beijing in a letter to the Globe and Mail, published by awful coincidence on June 4th, just after the killing of students started. Many writers would have been tempted to leave this out of a memoir, but Evans has left it in. Many of his colleagues did not share his view, but we did respect him.
The main title of this book is Pursuing China. It is a fitting title. It sums up for so many of us who have had the good fortune to be in this field how fascinating and endlessly tantalizing the study of China is. China is immensely important to Canada, and for a while Canada was very important to China (see Evans’ acute observations on the “many uses of Bethune”). Even though those days have passed, the great importance of China to all Canadians has only grown.
Diana Lary
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
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