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Rememberance |
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Rememberance of the 1989 Chinese student democracy movement. |
In 1989, I was 27 and had taught English in Xi'an for two years. The student democracy movement was not limited to Beijing. Between April 22nd and June 4th students boycotted class and marched on the streets of Xi'an and other cities. They published a list of Seven Demands. They had broad support from faculty, administrators, workers, and shopkeepers. Students travelled freely by rail and brought tape recordings of speeches from Tienanmen Square back to campus where they broadcasted them on the university loudspeakers.
In the week after Hu Yaoban's death on April 15th I was passing through the city center and stopped to watch a large crowd at the square in front of the municipal govenrment building. I knew that Hu Yaoban was a liberal reformer and former Party Secretary. I had heard stories about the silent protests and political symbolism of memorials for Zhoe Enlai. But, I didn't really know what it meant.
I had barely gotten off my bike when I was approached by a some men asking me what I thought about what was happening, and what Liberty was like in the West, and did I think democracy was good for China. Being swarmed by strangers wanting to practice their English and idlers curious see a foreigner up close was a familiar experience. But, I had lived in China long enough to learn two things. First, China's politics was none of my business. To paraphrase the Party line, it was the internal affairs of the Chinese people. And second, paranoia is not dellusional if it's true. Lao wai, or "foreign devils", and "spiritual polution" are convenient redherrings for ideas that Party Leaders want to sweep away. As a six foot tall redhead, I was clearly lao wai; I felt that my presence in the square diminished the voices of the hundreds of people gathering, so I left.
On April 22, students from all over Xi'an marched to the center of Xi'an. Publically, they marched to mourn Hu Yaobang, the former Party Secretary. But privately, they marched in support his liberal intellectual and economic reforms. A few people took advantage of the mass crowd. Some trucks were burnt and some stores were looted. This later became known as the "Xi'an Incident." A student gave me a few photos from the day. I have published them here.
Throughout May, students boycotted class, marched to the city center, and engaged in civil disobediance. I continued to hold my classes for anyone who showed up, and partially to make sure I was not "an evil foreign influence". For the few who showed up, we used the time to practice writing and conversational English. My students shared the news of the day and provided analysis of events. I learned that some of my students' parents had made them promise not to participate in the demonstrations out of fear for their safety and futures.
It was Spring. There was hope, and unease. The students' Seven Demands seemed to take root. The press was more open. News was inquiring and ranging. Reporters were annimated and engaging. Memorial walls grew. Students took over the campus broadcasting station. National railway workers let student travel for free. Students went on hunger strike. A planned state visit by the Soviet Leader, Grobachev, became a footnote. Student leaders repeated the Seven Demands in a meeting with the Chinese Premier, Li Peng, at the Great Hall of the People and broadcast on national TV! The extraordinary happened every day. The facts and timeline are well-documented. But, in the back of everyone's mind was an unease. How was it going to end without loss of face, reprisals, or worse?
On May 19, Martial Law was declared. Everyone expected the army to roll in and clear the square. No one expected the people of Beijing to come out and protect the students and the soldiers. Two weeks passed as we heard daily stories of heroics, forebearing, and compassion. While the students stayed in the square, debated leaving, and continued the strike.
On June 4th the army cleared the square. News reached Xi'an in the middle of the night and sucked the air out of the campus. I was awaken before sunrise by an unnatural quiet. I went across campus and snuck into the graduate student dormatory where, in tears, a friend expained the news to me. We lingered in the shock of shattered dreams.
On Tuesday June 6, a few students showed up for classes. There my students were quiet and visibly upset. I gave them a short writing assignment, "Where were you and how did you feel when you heard the news from Tienanmen?" This is the source of the nineteen stories published here.
Over the next few days, classes were cancelled and students went home for the Summer. A few students said they were staying to fight. There had been rumors of break-ins at local arms factories and of troops massing on the outskirts of town; but, fortunately there was no more fighting. I heard whispers of my parents voices in my head, telling me to "leave, I was free, it wasn't my fight, this is what credit cards are for." A couple weeks later I caught a flight to Hong Kong.
To continue their studies and lives, my friends would need to doublethink, a skill that required collective amnesia without second thought. Like Winston Smith in 1984, simply holding the idea that the Truth is false was thoughtcrime. But I was free. Free to come and go and free to remember and honor the dreams and hopes of those who had stood up for Liberty and Equality. As I made the rounds seeing off and saying goodbye to my friends, they told me, "Never Forget!"
I continued teaching in the Fall after the tragic ending of the protests in Tienanmen Square. The mood was somber. Incoming Freshmen had a couple weeks of early morning marching and drill work. This probably was good for physical health and bonding, but the physcological impact of military-style drills breaking the silence of early morning felt oppressive.
On CCTV, I watched as newscasters expressionlessly walked back the the number of casualties in Tienanmen Square on until the Government spokesman, Yuan Mu, ultimately declared that "no one died" in Tienanmen Square: hundreds, tens... none. Meanwhile foreign news was reporting that thousands had died accompanied by bloody pictures.
University administrators and teachers worked to protect students. All students were required to write self-criticisms - sort of a ritual where you write that events were wrong in a physical document that became part of your file. According my students, only people who refused to write a self-criticism or refused to say that the demonstrations where wrong, faced further action. I only heard of one student who took this path. They were seen in paraded around in a open truck with others accused of disorder.
A fellow English teacher, who had been sick in June and stayed in Xi'an to recouperate, was invited to a dinner for foreign experts at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Li Peng was there. He told me that the foreign experts at his table wondered why they had been invited and decided. They came from different backgrounds and industries and decided that the only thing they had in common was that none of them had left China following the June 4th crackdown.
At the 1989, unable to perform the doublethink that "no one died" and feeling a threat to my friends and students, I left China.
Never forget.