Songs of 1989

More to come...

1. March of the Volunteers
2. Blood Colored Glory
3. Last Shot
   

Songs of 1989: March of the Volunteers

With China gears up for an extravaganza to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, her blaring and rising national anthem is expected to be featured in TV news and featured stories.

China's national anthem, March of the Volunteers, was originally composed as a theme song for a patriotic movie during the anti-Japanese war era, when the nation was facing "its greatest peril." As such, the song was awe-inspiring in its grandiosity, urgency and even desperation. A while back, China Beat published a nice and comprehensive essay on the origin of the song and its lyricist and composer.

As a national anthem, March of the Volunteers was played at the beginning of most important public events in the country. That was no different in 1989, when Chinese students staged their protests. They sang the song early and often in their own marches and demonstrations, with utmost proud and passion. Quite ironically, at the end, when they were facing the tanks and soldiers of the Communist army, the two songs they repeatedly sang were March of the Volunteers and the Internationale, the anthem of the Communism.

A version of the song can be heard here.

Arise! All who refuse to be slaves!
Let our flesh and blood
Become our new Great Wall!
As the Chinese nation faces its greatest peril,
All forcefully expend their last cries.
Arise! Arise! Arise!

May our million hearts beat as one,
Brave the enemy's fire,
March on!
Brave the enemy's fire,
March on!
March on! March on! On!

起来！不愿做奴隶的人们！
把我们的血肉，筑成我们新的长城！
中华民族到了最危险的时候，
每个人被迫着发出最后的吼声。
起来！起来！起来！

我们万众一心，
冒着敌人的炮火，前进！
冒着敌人的炮火，前进！
前进！前进！进！

Fang Zheng Plans to Dance with his Wife

In an op-ed piece published in the Wall Street Journal, David Feith disclosed that Fang Zheng, who is undergoing physical therapy, plans to dance with his wife for the first time. The October 7 occasion will be broadcast on YouTube.

Fang Zheng is Standing Up Again

Fang Zheng, who lost both of his legs when a tank ran over him in the early morning of June 4, 1989, is finally receiving proper medical treatment near Washington DC:

Record of Cui Jian at Tiananmen Surfaced

During the later days of the hunger strike at Tiananmen in 1989, many prominent people had visited the hunger strikers to express their sympathy, support, as well as persuasion to stop the strike. None of them matched that of Cui Jian (崔健), the undisputed king of rock n roll in China. His impromptu concert at Tiananmen was an unforgettable scene highlighted both in the documentary The Gate of Heavenly Peace and my book Standoff at Tiananmen.

Sipping through some of the historical records, however, I was never able to pinpoint the exact date when he did the performance. Until now.

Danwei reported on a recently surfaced audio tape of Cui Jian's concert. At the beginning of the recording, a voice clearly stated that "it is the seventh day of the hunger strike...," which places the event at around May 18, a day before the hunger strike was finally called off with an impending martial law.

In the recording, Cui Jian altered some of the lyrics to dedicate his songs to the hunger strikers. Curiously, this recording is missing his most famous song, "Nothing to my Name." (一无所有)

Danwei also summarized the conversations during the performance which showed Cui Jian's reluctance to perform the boisterous music out of the concern of the condition of the hunger strikers. He was then persuaded by the crowd to continue. From the tape, voices could be heard in the background appealing for Cui Jian to stop, but it was overruled by the enthusiastic crowd in the foreground, which is most likely made up by those who did not participate in the hunger strike.

I had heard personal accounts from hunger strikers at the scene describing that the music was unbearable for their much weakened heart.

In the background of the recording, one could also hear the sirens of ambulances.

Reviews of Books About Tiananmen

Reviews of books about Tiananmen, more to come...

1. Chai Ling: A Heart for Freedom, October, 2011 
2. Li Jinjin: From the Square to QinCheng, June 2011
3. Tang Baiqiao: My Two Chinas, March 2011
4. Phillip J. Cunningham, Tiananmen Moon, November, 2010
5. Zhao Ziyang: Prisoner of the State, June 2009
6. Wu Renhua: The Martial Law Troops in the June 4 Event, May, 2009
7. Wu Renhua: Inside Story of the Bloody Clearance of Tiananmen Square, June, 2007 
8. George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed, September, 1998

Book Review: Zhao Ziyang Falls Short in Telling His Story

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen Massacre, the book Prisoner of the State, the Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang was published with great fanfare. There have been many instant reviews in the mainstream media hailing for the importance of the book, especially that it tells the "real story of Tiananmen."

According to the book's publishers and editors, Zhao Ziyang had spent parts of his last years recording his thoughts in secret. The audio tapes were only discovered after his death. He left no words on the purpose and intention of these tapes. Bao Pu, the son of Zhao Ziyang's long-time political assistant Bao Tong, led the efforts in transcript the tapes and make them into this book, published separately in Chinese and English versions.

Bao Pu has since refused to make the tapes themselves available to the public, other than a few excerpts. So there are no independent means to assess the authenticity of the book material. As memoirs of Chinese leaders are usually non-existent, it is also almost impossible to cross-examine the content against other similar books.

Nevertheless, I did not have high expectations when I started reading the book and yet still came away disappointed. I did have a few questions related to the 1989 student movement that I had hoped to find the answers from Zhao Ziyang's own words, for example,

1. Did he actually agree and approve the infamous April 26 People's Daily editorial before its publication while he was away in North Korea?
2. During the critical period in early May when he was personally in charge and conducting dialogues with the public to defuse the tension, why did he not make any such efforts to reach out to the protesting students before the hunger strike?
3. After the hunger strike, did he direct and/or authorize Yan Mingfu's dialogue with student leaders? What was the strategy for that dialogue?
4. Why did he disclose the "state secret" that Deng Xiaoping was still the supreme leader in China during his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev?

Actually, the 306 pages long book only has its first part, merely 49 pages, dealing with the 1989 student movement. That certainly could not, and did not, do justice to the greatest event which would dominate Zhao Ziyang's historical legacy.

That short passage read in a very defensive, and indeed self-pity, tone. Zhao Ziyang tried to blame a conspiracy, led by then Premier Li Peng and supported by Deng Xiaoping, which undermined his strategy and led to the martial law and the eventual massacre. But it was unclear what his strategy or leadership was. Being the General Secretary at the time, the book showed a leader who was lost, soft, and lack of ideas or willingness to take any meaningful action on his own.

More specifically, on the questions I was looking for answers:

1. Zhao Ziyang did confirm that he had approved the publication of the editorial. He attempted to explain that he could not have done anything else because he was away and did not know all the facts.
2. Zhao Ziyang blamed Li Peng and other leaders not to contact student leaders. There was no words explaining why he did not try to do it himself.
3. The book did not mention Yan Mingfu's dialogue attempts at all. It was as if that important facets of the movement had never happened.
4. The book did dedicate a whole short chapter to the Gorbachev meeting. He tried to downplay its significance. But the rationale presented there sounded contrived and weak. It also contradicted to Bao Tong's own testimony that Bao Tong had intentionally inserted the statements at last minutes.

As far as the Tiananmen is concerned, this is a rather uninformative book. It is not surprising since the "real story" of that magnificent movement did not happen within the walls of the government compound. It happened on the campuses, on the streets, and in Tiananmen Square. That is a story that Zhao Ziyang, or any other government leaders at the time, is unable and unwilling to tell.


Books about Tiananmen