A Beijing correspondent from 1988-1994, Jan Wong first traveled to China in 1972 at the height of the cultural revolution, a wide-eyed 19-year-old rebel from Canada in love with the ideas of Mao. The first half of this eye-opening, laugh-out-loud memoir tells of her experiences in the "hermetically sealed bubble of Maoism" as one of two westerners to attend Beijing University. The second half of the book is a first-hand account of the recent era of reform in China. Told with finely honed irony, it gives us what the "New York Times" review called "front row seats at Mao's Theater of the Absurd."  (CHN37, $15.95)