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20 Years Later: Remembering Tian An Men Square

I feel so many different emotions when I think about the words “Tian An Men”.

TianAnMen

TianAnMen means “gate of heavenly peace”.

It stands before the entrance of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. The Forbidden City served as the royal palace during the time of imperialism from the time of the Ming dynasty (who built the palace in the early 1400’s) until the early 1900’s when the Qing dynasty was overthrown (remember the movie about The Last Emperor ? Pu Yi?)

Now, the TianAnMén gate can be toured (for a price) and contains photos and relics from the days of Chairman Mao.

In front of the gate and across the street lies TianAnMén Square. The square is 100 acres of pavement and is officially the largest open square in any urban city.

It is surrounded on the remaining three sides by official buildings: The Great Hall of the People, and Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum, where you can go get a quick view of his embalmed arm (quick! They really hustle you by, no photos allowed).

I have toured all of these places countless times between 2002 and 2006. I have had my photo taken probably 200 or more times next to special points of interest within the Forbidden City, outside of Tian An Men gate, and in the square itself. The photo at the top of this post is from our visit to TianAnMén Square in 2006. Dozens of Chinese tourists (from varying provinces of the Mother Land) clamored to have their picture taken with 18-month-old Jojo.

So when I think of TianAnMén I think of touristy photos. I think of vendors aggressively hawking souvenir postcards, Mao memorabilia, and fans.

But I also think about a friend I met in China in 2002 who asked me what were the TianAnMén Square protests of 1989?

She had seen something I referenced on a blog. I froze up because, believe it or not, I had been officially instructed not to discuss three things with people in China 1) September 11th, 2) Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and 3) Christianity.

I said something vague and pointed her toward a web site where she could read more. This was a person who had just graduated college (in China).

It might baffle the Western mind to think about how an entire generation, an entire nation of people have been kept in the dark about this dark and momentous event in their history.

For me, I only feel sadness. The students that died, protesting peaceably in Tian An Men square in 1989 were no doubt the children of those who had participated in the Cultural Revolution as students themselves. At the very least, they lived through it.

During the Cultural Revolution, youth literally turned China upside down as “The Great Leader” Mao Zedong encouraged them to destroy the “Four Olds” (Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas), they zealously demolished temples, burned sacred literature and art, and killed thousands of people.

These same bereaved parents must have been children during the long famine that proceeded the Cultural Revolution. In leading a workshop for English teachers in Gansu province in 2002, I met a middle aged woman who told of being a child during a time of famine. Every day her parents went to work and left her older sister with one steamed bun to feed her. The sister had to be careful to make the bun last all day, though her little sister whined and cried and always pestered her for more.

I’m sad not only for the students who died in TianAnMén Square on June 4, 1989, but for their families and what they have lived through before and since.

They have never received an apology from the government for the deaths of their children. They have “faced imprisonment, house-arrest, phone-tapping and constant surveillance.”

It is unknown how many lost their lives that day.
Estimates from different sources:

• 10,000 dead (including civilians and soldiers) - Soviet Union.^[27]
• 7000 deaths - NATO intelligence.^[27]
• 4000 to 6000 civilians killed, but no one really knows - Edward Timperlake.^[28]
• 2600 had officially died by the morning of June 4 (later denied) - the Chinese Red Cross.^[22] An unnamed Chinese Red Cross official estimated that, in total, 5000 people were killed and 30,000 injured.^[29]
• According to a Time article, Amnesty International and some of the protest participants put the number of dead closer to 1,000^[22]. Other statements by Amnesty International have characterized the number of deaths as hundreds.^[30]
• In excess of 3700 killed, excluding disappearance or secret deaths and those denied medical treatment - PLA defector citing a document circulating among officers.^[28]
• 300 to 1,000 according to a Western diplomat that compiled estimates.^[4]
• 400 to 800 plausible according to the New York Times‘ Nicholas D. Kristof.^[4]
• A declassified NSA document indicated early casualty estimates of 180-500.^[31]
• According to the Chinese government, the official figure is 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7000 wounded.^[3]
• 186 named individuals confirmed dead as at the end of June 2006 - Professor Ding Zilin.^[32] But note that the cause of deaths of some of the individuals on Ding’s list not are directly at the hands of the army. For example, at least one person had committed suicide after the June 4th incident (please see detailed list on article regarding Professor Ding).

I am a voracious reader of Asia-related literature.
For more easy-to-digest info on these topics, here is some Mom Most Traveled recommended titles:
Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China, which follows three generations of women (a grandmother, mother, and daughter), through the whirlwind of change in Chinese history, starting at Imperial China, through Japanese occupation, the Nationalist movement, the Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communists, Communist takeover, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and Mao Zedong’s death. This is a huge book that you just won’t be able to put down (it reads like a novel). And it is banned in China. This is history, but is at the same time beautifully written and highly personal.
Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now is a title I purchased at a yard sale and once I picked it up, I was amazed to find a real treasure behind the cheesy title. The writer of this book actually left her home in Canada in the 1960’s to join the Cultural Revolution in China. Eventually disillusioned, she stuck around and was an actual eye witness to the events on Tian An Men Square in June, 1989. I love this eye-witness account.
From the Library Journal review:

At first, as a confused teenager coming of age amid the tumultuous late Sixties and early Seventies in Canada, she became a devoted Maoist, believing China to be “Paradise.” She studied and worked in China for six years as an ordinary citizen, going through the Cultural Revolution and the period of the “Gang of Four.” Later, as a reporter for the Toronto Globe and Mail, she spent another six years in China, witnessing the Tiananmen massacre, interviewing important dissidents such as Wei Jingsheng and Ren Wanding, and reporting on issues such as birth control and peasant riots in rural areas.

To mark the 20 year anniversary of the events at Tiananmen Square on June 3 and 4, 1989, BBC has created a touching audio slide show using images and quotes from interviews that day. Go take a look.

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