21 years later

While this post is coming a bit late, it will focus on my evening last Friday, on June 4th, 2010, here in Beijing.

For those who don't recognize the date, June 4th, 1989 was the day when the PLA violently cracked down on the protests that were being staged in Tiananmen square. Here in China, practically all images, including the iconic photo of tank and lone protester, or records of the event have been censored from the public. Probably only those who were in Beijing at the time of the massacre or who have been educated abroad are really aware that anything happened at all. However, as China continues to forge ahead as a world power, many in the international community are reluctant to fully acknowledge the country's prominence because of the brutality that took place here 21 years ago. To be a little comical, the incident is like a bit of greens stuck between China's teeth; embarrassingly noticeable by everyone but China itself.

Finding myself in the capital on the anniversary, I felt that it would be more than worthwhile to head to the center or the city to where everything had taken place. While I was unable to attend the flag raising ceremony (sunrise was around 5 AM) or visit the square during the day, I was able to head over in the evening just as the soldiers were to lower the flag for the night.

I had been to the square on several occasions over the past week, but today security was quite heavier. SWAT teams as well as Beijing police were scattered across the perimeter. Police vehicles patrolled the square, weaving between tourists. The step up in security was noticeable to me, but did the Chinese tourists that filled the square realize it either? And did the extra police on duty know why they were there?

As I went through the standard security checkpoint that you find in all entrances to public areas in the city, I emerged onto a field of Chinese tourists, running about, taking photos, and following the flags that their tour leaders carried. It was your standard fare of out-of-towners, wearing their matching hats that were probably handed to them on the bus and speaking in their local dialects, yet they were all seemingly unaware that historically, today was not just any day in the People's Republic. And among the crowds I knew there were members of the police, dressed to match to tourists, and I looked hard to find them.

The most overwhelming thing about the current Chinese urban condition is the density, and while Beijing isn't overall statistically as dense as some other cities like Shanghai, the city isn't spread out evenly either. This results in system or main arteries, such as the subway, which carry most of the city's traffic which then branch off into a countless number of capillaries, like back alleys and hutongs, that access the remaining built space. Tiananmen breaks away from that system. Around its perimeter, traffic is directed along a certain path, but within the square, the pedestrian is free to walk in whichever direction he chooses. This is one of the sensational qualities of the void. There is no ahead or behind as the surface is vast and with that loss of direction, there is also a loss of velocity which seems to be present throughout modern Chinese society and daily life. With the traffic surging around the square, one feels to be moving a lot slower within its premises. And while you will never find the square completely empty during the day, there is ironically, a sense of peacefulness that results in the open area and wide sky above.

However, for me, the most extraordinary thing about standing in that particular place on that particular day was the feeling that I got knowing that I was perhaps one of the few people who knew what happened there 21 years ago. This was a sense that was magnified by the space and the both the physical and historical void that I felt engulfed in. While I can't say that it's architecture, the square and its layout provide a sensation unattainable almost anywhere else in the city.

While many abroad, especially in other Chinese communities like Hong Kong and Taiwan who themselves enjoy freedom of speech, call for the Chinese government to reveal the truth about Tiananmen, that day may may or may not come soon. Regardless, it is not often that I find myself standing in one spot one day, and then practically the same spot in what seems like the same situation the next day, but feeling completely different. Architecture is often associated with context, but often that doesn't include historical context. Nowadays, in a place like Beijing's Central Business District, I can only imagine what the land where the office that I work in used looked like a millennium ago, and that sense of historical context is lost there as well as in many areas of China, yet for me at least, it still exists in Tiananmen.