The Globe and Mail - Jan Wong Columns

Daddy don't know jack

Thu, 3 May 2007 00:00 EDT

To preserve the last shreds of his dignity, let's call him ''the Dad.'' Last Saturday, his son was having a birthday party - something that involved driving considerable distances to pay money to walk across wires strung between trees. The Dad was carpooling three 11-year-old girls, none his own.

The Big Smoke? Hardly Sean Penn's puffing made an issue of Ontario's no-smoking rule, but are Torontonians ready to shut the door on smokers? As JAN WONG learns, we may think it's a filthy habit -- but some of us aren't ready to say so

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:00 EDT

So I'm not Sean Penn. This week, I lit a cigarette in the lobby of the Sutton Place Hotel. I had taken one long drag when a concierge behind me shrieked, in a decidedly unconcierge-like tone, ''Excuse me! There's no smoking in here! You need to go outside!''

'Get under the desk' Last Wednesday was just like any other at Montreal's Dawson College. Then all hell broke loose. Kimveer Gill was walking the hallways, spraying students with gunfire. JAN WONG reconstructs the bloody siege.

Sat, 16 Sep 2006 00:00 EDT

At 12:35 p.m. on Wednesday, Pina Salvaggio got herself a cup of coffee, took out her bag lunch and sat down in her Dawson College office to correct some homework. ''All of a sudden, I heard: bang, bang, bang. I immediately thought gunshots.''

Herbert Whittaker, 95

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 01:57 EDT

Drama critic for The Globe and Mail for 26 years created Theatre Museum Canada

Man drowns in Lake Ontario

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:00 EDT

A 55-year-old man drowned yesterday morning in Lake Ontario near Port Credit when the fishing boat he was in took on water and sank. Police identified him as Albert Richards of Georgetown, Ont. The man's son and the son's girlfriend were also in the 16-foot boat, but survived.

Mao and then After more than 30 years, students from Canada's pioneering exchange program with China have a reunion. Little did they know how their encounter with the country anticipated the global future. JAN WONG was one of them -- as she recalls, the one who almost scuttled the whole program before it started

Sat, 3 Jun 2006 00:00 EDT

There we were, a bunch of erstwhile Canadian Mao-ists, at our first-ever reunion, all survivors of the official Canada-China student exchange. Well, maybe Ted Lipman had never been a Maoist. But he did have a disconcerting habit of bursting into song, in Chinese, in praise of Chairman Mao.

'This is China's tragedy' EXCLUSIVE Dissident reveals what drove him to deface portrait of Mao

Fri, 2 Jun 2006 00:00 EDT

He wasa truck mechanic who wanted to change China.In the heat of the 1989 protests at Tiananmen Square, Lu Decheng and two friends lobbed paint-filled eggshells at Mao's portrait in Tiananmen Square. Turned in by student protesters, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for ''counter-revolutionary destruction.'' One got life in prison, the other got 20 years.

Conrad Black's day to remember JAN WONG pieces together the Friday a year ago that security cameras caught his lordship in the act of schlepping 12 boxes out of Hollinger's headquarters

Sat, 20 May 2006 00:00 EDT

When the Conrad Black Box Caper happened one year ago today, it was as mystifying as it was delicious. Why would the beleaguered Lord Black of Crossharbour, with his vast army of servants, secretaries and hangers-on, personally schlep 12 boxes of stuff out the back door of 10 Toronto St.? In contravention of a court order. In full view of security cameras.

'This love is beyond words' Elsie Lo suffered massive strokes in 2004. Since then, for the Lo family, every day has been Mother's Day

Sat, 13 May 2006 00:00 EDT

Tomorrow, some people will send flowers or spare an hour to take their moms to lunch. But for Melody Lo, every day is Mother's Day. ''Mother's Night, too,'' says her father, Francis.