Something in the air

Tōutīng dítái! 偷听敌台！ The gruff voice barked over the concrete trough. I was in the washroom of our dorm building at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, having arrived from Australia only a few days earlier. He was a worker-peasant-soldier study officer 工农兵学员 (Maoist Chinese for ‘student’) wearing, even at that darkling hour in the morning, a high-collared blue Mao jacket. Steely-faced, his tone was one of warning and accusation. I had no idea what he’d just said. ‘You’re secretly listening to enemy broadcasts!’ It was October 1974, and I was a naive and eager exchange student who had just finished