June Memories, June Questions

This evening has been balmy, almost cool. I strolled home through the alleyways in the heart of Beijing after dinner at a fashionable new French restaurant that has opened down a trendy sidestreet. In my alley, neighbours sat at low tables eating late-night snacks of Muslim-style kebabs while others played Chinese chess by the dim rays of a street light. A cyclist whirred past. The evening could hardly have been more peaceful.

And yet, 17 years ago on this weekend, I remember a night of sultry heat, burning buses and the bodies of young men with their brains spilling out on the ground.

Today is June 4. It’s the anniversary of the day in 1989 when soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, backed by tanks and armoured personnel carriers, poured into the capital to recapture the city from the student demonstrators who had occupied central Tiananmen Square for nearly two months.

As a journalist, I lived a night of terror, of exhilaration and of exhaustion. For hundreds of Chinese citizens it was a night of death. And of defiance.

How sheltered had been my life – and the lives of all those young men and women who poured onto Beijing streets late in the evening of June 3, aware, fearful and yet curious that the moment had come for the government to act to stop the student protests.

These Chinese citizens could not believe, at least at first, that the soldiers were opening fire on fellow Chinese. I was fortunate, or foolish, to find myself at the spot where the advancing soldiers first opened fire. Rubber bullets, I remember thinking to myself, as a sound like buzzing bees whizzed by me on a side street off Beijing’s main Avenue of Eternal Peace.

These were not bees but bullets. I saw bemused crowds watch as flat-bed tricycles, usually carrying water melons or old newspapers, pedalled by loaded with bleeding young men. These days, rickshawmen ply for trade in historic alleys to take tourists around the ancient courtyards of old Beijing. That night they raced furiously away from Tiananmen Square to the nearest hospitals. Crumpled in piles on the seats were young men, their shirts bloodied and the bodies limp. I wondered if they would survive.

Then I noticed that some were missing half their heads and their brains had spilled over the red plastic rickshaw seats. I walked, I watched and I wept. I could not stop myself. And I was ashamed that a journalist could become so emotional.

I still took notes all night. It was my job. On my bicycle I raced around the square, following the sounds of shots, the echo of explosions.

All this was hardly a surprise. The army had been waiting in the suburbs for days. Every time a student demonstrator asked me if I thought the soldiers would enter the square, I had replied that yes, of course, a glance at history showed that the leadership would not brook such loss of face, and of control, for very long.

The violence was on both sides. I saw a soldier disembowelled, his body set on fire and hung from a pedestrian overpass. The difference was that the soldiers carried guns. And they were firing on unarmed civilians. This is one of the clearer accounts.

And so Beijing was very quiet this weekend. That is how it has been on every June 4 since 1989. Everyone goes about his normal business. It’s just another early summer day. There are more plainclothes police on Tiananmen Square, for sure. There is an odd air of tension – or so if feels to me. People may not talk about it much but they still remember the shooting that turned their quiet city into a war zone 17 years ago. Many (not all of course) await a reckoning.

The Communist Party is the most aware of all. Newspapers on this day are filled with good news: World Cup previews; promises to improve coal mine safety; commitments to more economic reform.

I wonder how many people still care about an event nearly two decades ago? The students in 1989 wanted better jobs, a higher standard of living and more freedoms. Has China changed in the ways they wanted? Sophisticates can sip French wines and watch DVDs of avant-garde movies, urbanites have access to all night dining, convenience stores and Dan Brown's latest novel and country mice can afford fridges, fresh meat and even an education. What is the answer?

 

Comments

[Peter Brennan]

Ni hao Jane, Reading your blogg is interesting, but would just like to comment on your family history and its diplomatic links with China. Sweden's first ever ambassador to the imperial court of China in the 18th century was a Scott, too. He was a Campbell and sailed as supercargo in the first ever Swedish Easindieman to reach China. This July a replica of one of these Swedish Eastindieman will arrive in Shangai. She set sail from the Port of Gothenburg in the autumn of 2005 and is hoping to promote current trading and cultural links with this great and ancient civilisation and one of its present major ports. The city of Gothenburg, and Sweden in general, has many connections, trade-wise and otherwise with olde Caledonia. Keep Smiling And Writing Your Blogg! Peter B. an expat Britt in Ultima Thule=Sweden.

[William Hanbury-Tenison]

I too remember the events of June 4th as if they happened yesterday. In Beijing on business these last few days I could not help but think of the tent city and waving banners of 17 years ago. On June 4th in Hong Kong a large crowd turned out as usual for the candle-lit memorial ceremony in Victoria Park, but in China few are allowed to remember these things. I have asked many Chinese parents why they do not tell their children about the Tiananmen Square Incidents of 1975 and 1989 or indeed about the Cultural Revolution and they all say that these things are shameful to recall and should be forgotten. Those who care for and love China would do well to re-read Bill Jenner's excellent meditation on Tiananmen: "The Tyranny of History" to see why Chinese history so often falls into the trap of repeating itself.

[Chinabounder]

I discuss this from time to time with my students. For most it is 'old news' in which they are simply not interested (a standard they do not apply to their feelings about Japan.) For those that do have an opinion, most say the government was in the right and that the student protestors wanted to destroy the country. The propaganda which fills daily life is crude -- but seems to be sadly effective.