A Beijing Gathering Memorizing Tiananmen Massacre

According to the web site China in Perspective, more than a dozen citizens in Beijing gathered today to recall the 1989 student movement and memorize those who died in the massacre. Among them are mothers who had lost their children in the event and movement participants such as Liang Xiaoyan and Pu Zhiqiang.

Harvard Class Teaches Freshmen China's 1989

This year, freshmen attending Harvard University had an opportunity to attend a class named "Rebels with a Cause: Tiananmen in History and Memory," taught by Lecturer Rowena Xiaoqing He. The class covers the entire history of the 1989 Chinese student movement

In 1989, Dr. He was in China and had first-hand experience with the movement herself. In an interview with the Harvard newspaper, she recalled that "we learned to lie to survive" during the ensuring crackdown.

The class at Harvard is a part of the school's freshman seminar series. Students, who were not even born at the time when the event took place, had face-to-face discussions with some of the leaders of the movement. They studied archives collected in the Harvard-Yenching Library and re-enacted some of the scenes. As an conclusion, they are organizing a conference to present their papers on the subject.

14 students attended this year's class, which is a sold-out crowd, according to Dr. He. She also said that the class will continue to be offered this fall as well.

As a significant historical event, the 1989 Chinese student movement is undoubtedly a part of many history lessons. But a class exclusively dedicated to this single event is a first at Harvard and possibly everywhere else.

Remembering Tiananmen Massacre in Roman Numerials

The Roman numerals above read "8964," as June 4, 1989, yet another way of bypassing censorship in China.

Tiananmen Picture Appeared in Beijing Newspaper, and then Censored

It was one thing to mistake a Hong Kong vigil for Tiananmen Massacre victims for a fund-raising event for earthquake victims. It was entirely another to actually publish a picture depicting a scene, albeit a subtle one, of the massacre in the newspaper.

But after nineteen years of tight control in the official media blackout, something is bound to slip through the cracks. It happened last week. A popular Beijing newspaper, The Beijing News (新京报), inadvertently included a photo of the massacre as one of the remarkable news pictures taken throughout the career of a photo journalist.

The photo, seen below in the lower-right corner of a scanned image of the paper, was discreet and simply labeled as "the wounded". Yet the imagery is unmistakable. It was a familiar scene during the massacre, when residents carried dead and wounded to hospitals in flatbed tricycles.

In an Associated Press story, the journalist Li Datong was quoted for his reaction:

Li Datong, a veteran state newspaper journalist who was forced from a top editing job for reporting on sensitive subjects, said the photograph was likely put in the paper by a young editor who was unaware of its background.

"A lot of editors now are really young. News about June 4 has been off-limits. They don't have any memory of it, so they'll think it's just a regular wounded person," Li said.

Editors at Beijing News would definitely be punished for the slip-up, he said. "They'll be lucky if they don't get fired. This is a major political error."

The paper is being recalled off the streets of Beijing and its web site censored.

Today's Youth in China React to Tiananmen

Over at Vice, Jojje Ohlsson reported interesting reactions when he handed downloaded copies of documentaries about Tiananmen to his teacher and fellow students in Beijing. The three people in their twenties reacted with a variuos degree of denial, disbelief, and disinterest.

Tiananmen Massacre is almost twenty years old. Due to the long and deliberate silence in the official media and the strict censorship, today's twenty-somethings have grown up with little or no exposure to this historical event.

CCTV Reports Hong Kong Vigil For Tiananmen

Each year at the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, thousands of people in Hong Kong stage a candlelight vigil commemorating the death. The annual ritual survived the Chinese take-over of Hong Kong in 1997, although the number of participants is dwindling as time passes.

This year's version was held in the evening of June 4th and somewhere between 15,700 (police estimate) and 48,000 (organizer estimate) turned out.

What must be a surprising twist for everyone is that the event made it to CCTV, the official television station. Of course, anything related to the Massacre is still taboo in mainland China. But CCTV reported this commemoration in Hong Kong as 40,000 Hong Kong residences holding candlelight vigil commemorating victims of earthquake.

The donations collected during the Hong Kong vigil was indeed allocated to earthquake victims this year.

Tiananmen Mothers Have Their Own Web Site

Just in time for the coming 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, the Tiananmen Mothers finally have their own web presence at:

http://www.tiananmenmother.org/

The web site is constructed and maintained by a group of anonymous volunteers. It has an ambitious plan as an archival and forum site. Most of the contents has yet to be added. Right now, the site contains the history of Tiananmen Mothers as a group, as well as a list of 188 names they had verified to be the victims of the massacre.

All the contents are in Chinese, for now. There is a link for English language, but no content is available yet.

Hong Kong Run For Tiananmen

About 50 activists staged a 19-kilometer run in Hong Kong to persuade Beijing to reverse the verdict on Tiananmen Massacre. The event is organized by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. The distance symbolizes the 19 years since the crackdown.

Yang Jianli To Walk For Tiananmen

Back in 1989, Yang Jianli (杨建利) was a student in the United States. As the student movement developed in Beijing, he decided to make a trip back there for support and also deliver donations collected in the States. In Beijing, he witnessed the massacre. Back in US, he abandoned his academic career and became an activist, or dissident in exile.

In 2002, he decided to go back to China once more, using someone else's passport. He was caught and sentenced in jail for five years.

Now that he is once again back in the United States, he is launching a solo-walk to commemorate the upcoming anniversary of Tiananmen Massacre. Dubbed as "from May Fourth to June Fourth", he will start his walk on May 4 from Boston and schedule to arrive at Washington DC on June 4.

The New England Cable News has an interview with Yang Jianli here.