I have always had the gift of traveling around the world on someone else's dime. First it was to Africa as a high-school senior after I received the 1974 Kodak/Scholastic Photography Travel Scholarship. Then a fact-finding trip through South America in 1978. United Press International paid for my posting to Brussels in 1981. The Associated Press offered Asia on a plate during my Bangkok assignment in 1987. A recent trip to New York courtesy of a Columbia University DART award. Then, a few days ago, I returned to Honolulu from Beijing. The BBC had provided a very special gift -- the chance to revisit a part of my past during the 20th anniversary of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square.
***
When I entered the lobby of the Jianguo Hotel on May 17, 2009, I noticed minor changes since my stay in 1989. The coffee shop windows were no longer boarded up from Army gunfire. The bamboo chairs in the lobby were still there though a bit darker with age. I could still envision the photographers sitting in the lounge asking every new arrival what was happening in the streets outside. The heavy smell of cigarette smoke lingered as my luggage dropped to the floor. I opened the drapes and looked outside to the view below. My God, so much had changed. I reflected back to cowering behind the same bathroom wall every time a column of soldiers fired their weapons and that hellish night of June 4th following the Tiananmen crackdown. I had suffered a serious concussion after a stray rock slammed into my face. The Nikon Titanium camera had absorbed the blow saving my life.
As I ordered room service, the stale cheeseburger reminded me of how stunned I was 20 years earlier to see CNN footage of events I experienced only a few hours before on the street. I recalled how sick I was from the flu and my throbbing concussion. That feeling of guilt mixed with regret for not returning to the streets after the injury and my sheer terror of almost dying. The fact is, I was just too scared, injured and sick. The decision probably saved my life.
One positive observation was that the Jianguo Hotel staff was more pleasant than 1989. There seemed to be a happier, more upbeat feeling in the air. The heaviness that I experienced two-decades earlier was absent. Perhaps China had indeed improved for the better?
I had some reservations about returning to Tiananmen Square. But as I walked down one of the wide, tree-lined boulevards near the US Embassy, I felt such peace from that hell two decades earlier. The wood burning smell of Asia in the air took me back to my Bangkok posting years before. It was like visiting an old friend. I looked in wonder at all the new shops and office buildings. It all had become more capitalistic than America.
On the day before my return to Honolulu, I struggled with jet lag and finally made the pilgrimage to Tiananmen Square. Security police squinted at me with cold stares and I felt like squinting back but I could not. The black and white video of a Chinese tank toppling the Goddess of Democracy was still etched in my brain. It was hard to imagine that this wide open square in the late afternoon was once filled with joyous hope for the future and dancing children only to be left in ruins with blood-stained tents.
Yes, China had changed... but not the cold stare of watchful eyes.
Here are photos I took from the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989:
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Courtesy of Jeff Widener
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
How could anyone in their right mind in that country stand where they knew they could either die or surely get really hurt but they wanted to stand up for their rights and they had none then and still don't have any today.
For the most part people in the United States don't even know how lucky they really really are and I don't believe they ever will and that is a fact.
"One example of the government's interpretation of events is the infamous image of a man in a white shirt blocking four Chinese tanks. At the time, the Western media pushed the "Tank Man" as a symbol of Chinese military might bearing down on its own people. Chinese television broadcast the entire video—in which the tanks try to drive around him before he finally disappears into the crowd—to show how much restraint the soldiers used."
http://www.slate.com/id/2219697/
If you read some of the comments, you would believe the tankman was either eventually ran over by the tank, or maybe caught by the secret police and executed. What's a lot more likely happened is that nothing happened to the tank man...
Just imagine that happening the US, the US police will shoot first question later. We all know about US police brutal of shooting people who are unarmed.
I also saw picture of burning army vehicle, which mean the army was attacked as well. It is a protest turn violent, and need to be put down.
Try protesting and attacking US army vehicle. Of course, the only picture we see is the iconic image of the tank man.
This is like saying that because the US isn't perfect, no American has any right to criticize China. Take the Kent State and Jackson State killings--six dead; and any coverup was not nearly as hegemonic. There was no pressure on May 4, 1990 to pretend it never happened.
"I also saw picture of burning army vehicle, which mean the army was attacked as well."
It's lamentable when a protest movement doesn't live up to an ideal of Gandhian nonviolence, but there has been zero evidence that the students were nearly as lethal as the Chinese Army.
"It is a protest turn violent, and need to be put down."
That is, if you believe that Li Peng has ESP. The putdown started long before the protest turned violent; and if victorsays had any concern for his own credibility, he would know that.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-tiananmen-pictures,0,2647279.photogallery?index=16
It's interesting that most publications do not publish this picture. If you read the caption for this picture, it stated that the students killed the soldier and were kicking his corpse. Maybe the students were angry because the soldier fired and killed first, but if you were a soldier who witnessed this it would be difficult to control the situation without resorting to further violence.
Both the Chinese and the Western media tried to make this into a black and white issue. It's difficult to argue that journalists were not biased from the selection of the pictures which were published. At the end of the day, the reality is a lot more complex than what the Chinese nationalists and the China-haters would like to believe.
Why doesn't the Chinese government proudly show him off, to prove that everyone is wrong about their fears?
Think for a moment, the tank man is the single most recognizable person in this whole incident, even more than the student leaders themselves. After this event the entire China was under the microscope of Western Media and student activists. If the Chinese government arrests this guy, wouldn't his relatives, friends, or anyone contact the student movement which will eventually be discovered by the Western media? Afterall, this guy is a hero to many people.
time to show respect. The last time I say Wu'er Kaixi, he was scolding the Chinese gov officials that generously agreed to meet with him.
Why do you care, anywhy? What have you done to help lift China out of the third world? The majority of Chinese people have made real sacrifices to improve China for everyone who lives there, not just for a few spoiled intellectuals.
Obama's support for the new Graham-Lieberman secrecy law
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/01/photos/
"What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people?
(This) is part of a broader trend whereby the Government simply retroactively changes the law whenever it decides it does not want to abide by it.
Other than creating an illusion of transparency and accountability, what's the point of having laws that purport to restrict what the Government can do if political officials just retroactively waive those laws whenever they want? What's the point of having a FOIA law if the Government will simply pass a new law exempting itself from FOIA's mandates any time it loses in court and wants to conceal evidence anyway?
Given that anything which reflects poorly on our Government can be said to endanger our troops and American citizens, why stop here? Why not just have a general power of suppression whereby the President can keep any evidence secret as long as his Defense Secretary decrees that its disclosure will "endanger" the troops?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uuWVHT1WUY
What happens if picture evidence of much much worse emerges? Of course it has the potential to strain diplomatic efforts with the Middle East and of course it has the potential of causing riots which directly endanger U.S. troops. It's not a stupid argument. It's an argument based on well document facts of passed reality.
What happened when they found out x happened-strained relations and anti-US riots. What happens when pictures of worse emerges? My guess, possibly more of the same. In the end I think they should be released but it's not like he's doing it cause he likes Bush so much or he's really an a-hole. He has everything to gain from making the GOP look bad, he has no motivation to hide them since he had nothing to do with it. I am willing to believe he thinks it's the best thing for the above stated reasons. I disagree in the end, but it's not a bad argument.
You cannot stifle the truth. You cannot change what happened. You cannot rewrite reality.
I will remember this event like it was yesterday. And so will the thousands and thousdands of students I have taught since, and so will their children.
It makes me wonder if they actually had a democratic society if it would be a sham nonetheless.
Please get an education.
a war with china?
I wonder of you would have supported that war?
Let this day be a reminder to all how important The Freedom of Information Act and Transparency are in the US.
This man's stand was profound and represents all peaceful and freedom loving people across the world.
I hereby declare 5 June 2009 as The Freedom of Information Act Day - aka Tank Man Day
As for those who want to follow every story about world atrocities with "oh but America's done comparable, if not worst" the very fact that you can say that, and face absolutely no government reprisals prove that America is, in fact, not. And for those of us who came to this country for shelter from the oppression from the land of our births, we'd like you chew on that for a bit.
Are you aware that the #1 country's citizens applying for immigration into the U.S. are the Chinese? I wasn't aware of this either! If things are so wonderful over there, as the Chinese government would have us believe, the people would want to stay! It's a day to mourn.
I'll say it again, "get an education you ignorant fool"!