Twenty years

The Beijing I knew in my brief visits is a product of the last two decades, the time since Tiananmen Square, when China traded political freedom for economic liberty. It's a city I remember as thriving, diverse, crowded and still growing. It's the only place in China I ever heard anyone acknowledge what happened twenty years ago today.

I wrote about that memory two years ago, when I was an English teacher in Dalian. The day after getting blank stares from a group of college freshmen when I asked about the date, a graduate student dismissed the movement, saying: "Maybe they had too much free time. I don't really know what it was about. You know, I was small when all that happened."

I don't really know what else to say about Tiananmen. Fortunately, there's an internet of thought out there:

More Links

You can follow all my Tiananmen-related links on Publish2 or in my link stream

Before: Beyond publishing | After: Do something.