Reminiscences-June 4, 1989

On the occasion of the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen incidence.

It is hard to believe that it has been 36 years since Tiananmen Square happened.

36 years on, my memories are still vivid, my emotions are still raw, and my faith in my fellow humans are still diminished as a reflection of what people are capable of doing to other people; indeed my faith has been steadily diminished over the intervening 36 years, but it started on June 4.

I was in graduate school in Atlanta and I was following the coverage of the protests in Tiananmen Square closely, even though I grew up in Taiwan, my loyalties had always been with anyone who claims to be Chinese, whether they are from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, or anywhere the Chinese diaspora had managed to spread.

The Tiananmen protests started serendipitously on April 15 as the Chinese students, people my age, met in Tiananmen Square to eulogize the passing of Hu Yaobang, a pro-reform general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As with most spontaneous eruptions of idealism, the protests were disorganized and seemingly directionless. The Central government’s response was equally disorganized and directionless.

My attention was glued to CNN as the protests grew and gained momentum. For a month and a half, we alternated between fear of what we knew the CCP was capable of unleashing and joy as we optimistically thought that this portended to be flowering of the western style democracy in China. Even though I was many degrees of separation from those students, a certain loyalty pervaded in my consciousness. As my father had always reminded me, we are all off springs of the Yellow Emperor, so we are all one family, I felt a kinship with those protesting. As the crowds in Tiananmen swelled, my emotions and my pride swelled. It felt like a drama unfurling in front of us through the lenses of the television cameras, the more the protests were sustained the more our emotions rose to a crescendo. Nothing seemed impossible, even democracy in China, amongst a people that had been forever subservient to whomever was in power at the moment for thousands of years. My spirits soared as the authorities dawdled and as the number of protesters grew at Tiananmen.

Until the morning of June 4.

I remember that a group of Chinese graduate students were going to dim sum at Hong Kong Harbor, a Chinese student mainstay on Cheshire Bridge Road in Buckhead. As we were feeding our hunger for the tastes of home, someone came in to say that the CCP had stopped dawdling and had decisively made their move. All of a sudden we weren’t all that hungry anymore. I vaguely remember going to Emory University with many other Chinese students from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Someone had somehow gotten permission to meet in one of the theaters at Emory. We didn’t know what to do, we didn’t know what we could or should have done, all we knew was that there was this unbearable flood of emotions surfacing. We sobbed uncontrollably and we gave speeches, nonsensical and emotion laden speeches. No one was making any sense, we just knew that we had to get our frustrations, anger, and sorrow out of our minds and bodies lest those frustrations, anger, and sorrow get turned internally and killed us all from the inside out.

The frustrations, anger, and sorrow grew in those days following June 4, as the sights and sounds, at least those that were allowed to be broadcasted, came out of the hermetically sealed airwaves of China. There were unsubstantiated rumors of the total number of people killed and imprisoned by the CCP.

As with all things, the urgency and immediacy of the moment subsided as the news cycle moved on and the CCP succeeded in locking up all the news coming out about Tiananmen.

Now here we are, 36 years later. Many things have changed over nearly four decades. Even though I assiduously observe the day as a personal day of remembrance: of my personal memories and of those souls that were lost during that period immediately after the massacre. It is also a personal remembrance of the day that my innocence died. My innocent belief that there is a limit to the kind of cruelty that humans can unleash on other humans died that day. My innocent belief in my father’s admonition that because we are all off springs of the Yellow Emperor we should all be one family died that day. I wouldn’t say that my general cynicism was born that day, but it grew considerably from that day forward.

In the intervening years, I have met many Chinese students who had come to the US as scholars, but we never talked about where they were on June 4, I left well enough alone, but there had always been an unasked question about that day.

There have been interminable diagnosis and analysis of what had happened, debates had erupted amongst us about whether the CCP did the right thing in putting down the “rebellion” in the face of uncertainty, with the potential risk of undoing the central government control that had survived centuries of upheavals. It is an unending debate.

36 years later. Those student leaders who had managed to disappear from China and from the world are nearing the age of retirement or have already retired. What were once heads of jet-black hair are now full of grey. Memories are fraying at the edges. I have images in my mind’s eye of the youthful student leaders: defiant, hopeful, and completely ignorant that their fate had been tragically foretold by thousands of years of precedence, a fate characterized by unimaginable cruelty and betrayal.

I wonder what they are thinking, whether if they felt it was worth the sacrifices that they have made.

I wonder if they had ever heard of Benjamin Franklin’s quote: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." I wonder if they had seriously contemplated the meaning of that quote, I wonder if they have any regrets.

What of those nameless and faceless apparatchiks? They have also seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth. Those who ordered the crackdowns. Those who ordered the others to fire. Those who pulled the trigger. Those who ran over the prone bodies of the helpless fellow off springs of the Yellow Emperor in Tiananmen. What are they feeling 36 years hence? How do they feel after having played a critical role in the continuation of the inexorable flow of Chinese history? I wonder if they actually think about it. I wonder if they have any regrets.

My own memories are fading as well, the pictures in my head from watching the news coverage 36 years ago are sepia toned, the edges are frayed by time. I know that my emotions and feeling are still the same: disappointment, nausea, betrayal, and ultimately resignation because I am Chinese, I know what to expect from the Mandarins in the Chinese culture when dealing with the rest of us peasants.

I will however, fight the good fight against the flow of time eroding my memories and my emotions. I will continue the day of remembrance on June 4 every year.