MEMORY OF TIANANMEN

BANGKOK POST INTERVIEW:
ON THE WRITING OF TIANANMEN MOON

Cunningham on the memory of Tiananmen
By: Ezra Erker
Published: 15/06/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Outlook

Twenty years have passed since the June 4 incident. What made you write 'Tiananmen Moon' now?

I want to commemorate a turning point in modern Chinese history, and the courage of all those who participated in it. While 20 years is well within memory, it's also long enough where people begin to forget. This is a task whose urgency has only increased because it can't be openly talked about, mourned or memorialised in China.





Philip J Cunningham.






Immediately after the events in 1989, I was involved in several documentaries: Rape of Liberty for the BBC, Tragedy at Tiananmen for ABC, Gate of Heavenly Peace for PBS and Sunday Project for TV Asahi. In addition, I was contractually tied up in a feature film deal with HBO for a movie called "Tiananmen Square". Alas, the film was not made, understandably in part due to the daunting logistics of crowd scenes in pre-CGI days, but less forgivably because the story as I told it had "too many Chinese in it".

There is remarkable attention to detail in the book, from where and what you ate, to who you were with, what people said, changing slogans, how the marches were organised and what people wore. Did you take copious notes at the time or are you trusting memory to fill in the gaps?

I did take notes, which I then hammered out on a keyboard nearly every day for several months starting in June 1989. I also had interviews on tape and was prodded to remember things while working on various documentaries. My photos helped a great deal with details such as clothing, signs and slogans, and minutiae of the background environment. But what makes it possible for me, even now, to give a day-by-day account of that particular month is first and foremost the dramatic salience of the events themselves - it's amazing how the past comes alive when you talk with other witnesses.

I also tend to be nostalgic about the past and save things, mentally and physically, that others might discard. For example, there is a scene where a student activist rips off a piece of the Beijing Hotel menu to write some notes - I still have that piece of the menu, and could accurately report the price of chilled lychees or whatever. And I kept the "last will and testament" in which Chai Ling entrusted me to tell her story "to all the Chinese of the world" as well. Ditto for the 1989 Democratic Tide shirt given to me by the hunger striker Meng, and his school pin from the Central Academy of Drama.

Then there's the additional factor of being in "exchange student mode" or "journalist mode", a departure from the quotidian in which one carefully observes and records everything novel and strange. There are many weeks, many months of routine workaday life that I give little thought to, and don't make any attempt to preserve at all. On the other hand, my first memories of Thailand, for example, are incredibly vivid: Stepping out on the tarmac of Don Mueang in the heat of a murky tropical night, hearing shouts of "Yankee go home" before being wai'ed and given jasmine-scented garlands and some juicy, sticky rambutan by my AFS hosts on the way into town.

Why is it important for China to keep the memory of June 4 alive?

An entirely peaceful and humanitarian protest movement involving millions of people was tragically and unnecessarily cut down on June 4, 1989. Yet the tragic denouement should not be allowed to eclipse what was arguably one of the largest, sustained and harmonious demonstrations in human history, a singular accomplishment of the then collective-minded Chinese people. It's something to be proud of, despite the botched ending, and all the more spiritually haunting because of the sacrifices involved. It's something that transcends the crass materialism of today and speaks to the potential of people power at its best and most inspired. And it inspired peaceful transformation around the globe.

'Newsweek' once ran a cover story on Asian amnesia, an unwillingness for many countries in Asia to confront unpatriotic or controversial episodes of modern history in textbooks or state-sponsored media. Is this especially an Asian problem or a broader human tendency?

That sounds about right ... an insupportable generalisation in support of a catchy cover story. No, I'd rather see it as a human tendency. Denial can range from something benign, a kind of play-acting that goes on, awaiting the passage of time to heal old wounds, to something quite malicious and manipulative, especially on the part of those with vested interests in obscuring the truth.

You've lived in Asia much of your life and speak several of its languages. As a native New Yorker, why do you feel such an affinity for the Far East?

I think my AFS experience in Thailand was the key to that; my friends and Thai family went out of their way to make me feel at home. At Cornell, I studied Thai, because I loved the beauty of the language, and Chinese, because it was another universe. And I now work in Kyoto, a city with a thousand years of history on display. I've been told I must have been Asian in a previous life. But I give credit to my parents, both Irish-Americans, who had an abiding respect for other cultures, and New York, one of the few places outside of Asia where I can find continuity with my "Asian lifestyle" in the sense of rich cultural diversity, stimulating crowds, excellent ethnic food and people from everywhere.

THE NIGHT OF NO MOON

(June 4, 1989 excerpt from Tiananmen Moon)

You didn't have to be a fortune-teller to know Tiananmen was the target, but what were they going to hit it with and when? The long anticipated crackdown had been postponed so long, getting it over with might resolve the political impasse, but it wouldn't bring justice, it wouldn't buy back the mandate of heaven.

Being part of the teeming mass as the army approached, I had little choice but move in tandem. It was well nigh impossible to stand still, to move against the flow would beg injury. Only when I reached the concrete and steel divider in the middle of Chang’an Boulevard, guided by those in front, pushed by those behind me, could I pause and wring myself free of the seething throng long enough to climb on top of a cement road barrier to get a better view of what was going on.

A military vehicle that looked like a tank came careening recklessly through the sea of people like an icebreaker cracking through thin ice. Tanks on Tiananmen Square! It was crazy, what was the PLA doing, what did they think this could achieve? The armored vehicle roared down thickly people Chang’an Boulevard as fast as its heavy treads would permit, not as a peacekeeper, but provocateur. Then there appeared another metallic monster, begging for a clash, beckoning blood.

The reckless charging of two heavy vehicles in the middle of a crowd of thousands shocked me; the rules of engagement had changed. The military’s admirable discipline and restraint had been abandoned, giving way to reckless, violent acts. The armored vehicle was so unforgiving, so heavy, so hard, the bodies it bolted past so vulnerable and soft.

So far, no one had been hit or run over but it could happen any second now. It was a deadly game of "chicken" in which the winner was the last one to flinch, but it the rules were supremely unfair, pitting tank against man. I shuddered in dread of seeing people mowed over, but amazingly the men and women around me seemed emboldened by the prospect of conflict.

It was as if the daredevils possessed a belief in mind-over-matter, like the martial arts warriors of the late Qing Boxer Rebellion who convinced themselves they were invulnerable to bullets. I’d seen plenty of people tempt fate crossing streets in busy traffic, but never did I dream it possible to slow a tank's advance by jumping in front of it!

Numb and immobilized I watched the vanguard dart back and forth in front of the armored vehicle, taunting the unseen driver. The armored continued to penetrate the crowd, slowing to turn around, speeding up on the straightaway, heading directly at the flag and banner-waving provocateurs like a mad bull aiming for a matador. With each sweep, the crowd parted, some running for their lives, others, tempting fate, holding their ground.

The passionate insanity of the moment was contagious, after a second silent signal, which caused the people immediately around me to snap into action, I stumbled, and then without really thinking about it, joined the fray.

The heavy concrete and steel road divider that I had been standing jerked sharply and suddenly lurched into the air. I lost balance fell hard, the shock of my tumble softened by the unfortunate people I landed on. I tried to right myself, feeling like a surfer who had just wiped out only to get caught in the undertow. My first reaction was annoyance at having the ground pulled out from under my feet, and being at the mercy of agitated strangers.

I was floundering below a turbulent crowd that was attempting to yank a heavy road divider from its moorings. A lengthy section of the concrete and iron barrier, once broken free, was rotated 90 degrees, from its original east-west mooring to block traffic on the boulevard. The heavy railing, momentarily made featherlight by hundreds of hands, was dropped to the ground with a thud.

Once I regained my footing, with the unexpectedly attentive assistance of the two young men closest to me, I joined the crowd in its tug of war with the barrier. We rotated it in slow increments, like the jerking second hand on an old clock, lift, drop, lift, drop. Whose idea it had been was impossible to say, for nobody was really in charge. No one had told me what to do either, for that matter, rather it was instinctive, a collective move to slow the arrival of hostile invaders. I doubted it would seriously deter the movement of army vehicles such as the ones we saw buzzing the crowd, but taking fate into one’s hands and doing something felt better than doing nothing.

By the time we had the concrete barrier in place, the offending vehicle had moved on. The men around me breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Only after the intense and immediate sense of danger had subsided did anyone realize, or have the time to react to the unusual fact that there was a foreigner on the team. Several sweaty men in T-shirts, arms and wrists no doubt aching after the sudden bout of weightlifting, offered trembling hands. One man welcomed me, the other called me friend.

“Huanying ni!”
“Pengyou!”

The simple words moved me, almost to tears. The verbal embrace was at once formulaic and reassuringly real.
…

Meng, who had been separated from me by the erratic movement of bodies when the APC came streaming through, had closely observed the roadblock incident from the other side of the divider.

"I saw that. They are taunting us,” he muttered bitterly. “They are trying to break our will. They are trying to incite violence."

"So, what's next?" I ask, wanting to know, wanting him to have the answer.

"Nothing will happen, I think. The government is just trying to scare the people."

We backed away from the crew, scanning the swarming multitude for some indication of what might happen next. Suddenly Meng’s face lit up in recognition of some familiar faces coming our way.

Two women were walking their bicycles, weaving through the jumpy crowd in front of Tiananmen Gate. After negotiating the uppity throng gracefully, they parked their bikes next to the BBC's tripod as if it were a parking meter.

Soon they were deep in a whispery conversation with Meng, pouring out words too fast for me to keep up with. I stood back, content to watch the beautiful, expressive faces of three people who knew each other well, baring their souls in the subdued lamplight on the Square.

"Jin Peili," Meng said, pulling me over, trying to include me. "These are my classmates. They study acting at the Central Drama Academy."

We all shook hands, exchanging smiles. Despite the unsettled if frightening outlook of the evening so far, time was had become malleable and that fleeting but somehow poignant encounter was imbued with an enduring beauty. Ordinary life, as we had come to know it, was slipping away by the minute. Nothing would be the same, nothing could be taken for granted. Win or lose, the final showdown was at hand.

I observed the drama school comrades as they huddled close, the pale outlines of the Goddess of Democracy glowing behind the trio in the darkness. The night sky was absolutely black –no moon, no stars.
…

Here on the northern periphery of the square, there were no workers manning barricades, or students urging restraint or marchers singing the Internationale, not even the usual idle onlookers.

The unsung, unseen heroes who had kept the peace for over a month could retroactively be appreciated by their absence. Student types were in scant evidence this night. Instead there were warriors with agendas unknown pressing in on us. No overt hostility was directed at the crew, but the seething anger and lust for violence was palpable.

The May Fourth spirit was gone, replaced by something murky and malevolent. There was a new element I hadn't noticed much of before, young punks decidedly less than student-like in appearance. In the place of headbands and signed shirts with university pins they wore cheap, ill-fitting polyester clothes and loose windbreakers. Under our lights, their eyes gleaming with mischief, they brazenly revealed hidden Molotov cocktails.

The camera lights, in this dark and troubling hour, seemed to attract all species of insect.

"Turn off the lights!" I yelled at Wang Li. "This isn't working, turn off the lights! We better get out of here!"

Who were these punks in shorts and sandals, carrying petrol bombs?

Gasoline is tightly rationed, they could not come up with these things spontaneously. Who taught them to make bottle bombs and for whom were the incendiary devices intended?

Lights still blazing, Ingo started shooting from the hip to capture some pictures of the provocateurs. The noose of spectators tightened.

Lights out, the shoving match subsided. But the troublemakers lingered, smiling inappropriately as they stared at us. Frustrated, I led the crew to the most obscure and least crowded spot I could find, aiming for the massive outer wall of the Forbidden City. Not surprisingly, we were jeered for making an apparent retreat.

"Look, foreigners! Ha ha!"

"What are they doing there?"

"The foreigners are scared!"

"Hel-lo? Where are you going?"

"They don't care about China!"

"Cowards!"

"They are running away!"

Some of the comments sounded like veiled threats. I pretended not to understand in order not to have to react. We were not running away, but I didn't owe them an explanation. The technical requirements for a well-lit interview were hard to meet under such agitated conditions.

Could the mass yet turn on us? Were we dealing with rational individuals or an irrational collective? How could one possibly distinguish good from bad in such a vast gathering of people?

We walked with our heads down in silence, a solemn file of five Caucasians and two Chinese. Finally we set up tripod and camera next to some trees along side the majestic vermilion wall lining Worker's Park on the northeast corner of the Square. On the other side of the wall was a potential sanctuary, the entrance courtyard to the Forbidden City.

The relatively secluded location gave us about a minute to tape before things got out of control again. There were ogling onlookers as before, but the random mix of townspeople in our new location was less implicitly threatening than the Molotov cocktail gang. When things got tight, merely switching the lights off sufficed to relax the stranglehold of the instant gaggle that coalesced around us.

Looking at the indecision and fear on the strange faces watching us, I felt we were much alike in our unspoken desperation, looking to one another for cues on how to act, grasping at straws in the wind, trying to figure out what was going on. Given the communal uncertainty, it was easy to understand how an incandescent circle of light on a dark plaza might be mistaken for a meaningful vortex of activity.

While Simpson brushed his hair, Clayton made notations on her producer’s sheet, Ingo unwrapped his camera, Wang Li fumbled with the lights and Mark readied the sound gear, I would try to explain to the usual knot of people closing in on us what we were doing in order not to excite too much attention.

"We are the BBC, English television, we’re just doing a random interview, please step back, we appreciate your cooperation, thank you."

In no time at all, interviewer became interviewee.

"What do you think will happen?"

"What information do you have?"

"How many killed at Muxudi?"

While I was trying to cope with such questions, Simpson shouted that another APC was heading our way. Everyone dropped what they were doing, immobilized by fright as the green monster bore down upon us.

As before, the horde parted only reluctantly from the path of the careening vehicle, and usually not a second too soon, leaping away left and right, defiantly till the last possible moment. The BBC crew swiftly backed onto the sidewalk, wisely regrouping behind some trees that offered a modicum of protection. The threatening vehicle then lurched to the left, veering away.
…

My pace quickened as I approached the stalled vehicle, infected by the toxic glee of the mob, but then I caught myself. Why was I rushing towards trouble? Because everyone else was? I slowed down to a trot in the wake of a thundering herd of one mass mind.

Breaking with the pack, I stopped running, exerting the effort necessary to free myself from the unspoken imperative to follow others forward.

Someone tossed a Molotov cocktail, setting the APC on fire. Flames spread quickly over the top of the vehicle and spilled onto the pavement. The throng roared victoriously and moved in closer, enraged faces illuminated in the orange glow.

But wait! I thought, there's somebody still inside of that, it's not just a machine! There must be people inside. This is not man against dinosaur, but man against man!

Meng protectively pulled me away to join a handful of head-banded students who sought to exert some control. Expending what little moral capital his hunger strike signature saturated shirt still exerted, he spoke up for the soldier.

"Let the man out," he cried. "Help the soldier, help him get out!"

The agitated congregation was in no mood for mercy. Angry, blood-curdling voices ricocheted around us.

"Kill the mother fucker!" one said. Then another voice, even more chilling than the first screamed,

"He is not human, he is a thing."

“Kill it, kill it!" shouted bystanders, bloody enthusiasm now whipped up to a high pitch.

"Stop! Don't hurt him!" Meng pleaded, leaving me behind as he tried to reason with the vigilantes.

"Stop, he is just a soldier!"

"He is not human, kill him, kill him!" said a voice.

"Get back, get back!" Meng started screaming on the top of his lungs.

"Leave him alone, the soldiers are not our enemy, the government is the enemy!"

The former hunger striker howled until his lungs failed him, his voice weak, raspy and hoarse.

Meng’s head-banded comrades descended on the stricken vehicle but were unable to placate vigilantes keyed up for action.

"Make room for the ambulance," one of the students yelled. "Please cooperate, please step back!"

I watched from 20-30 feet away as the students tried to extract from the burning vehicle the driver who had nearly killed them. He had trouble walking, he appeared to be injured and in serious pain, but quality of crowd mercy was uneven.

"He's not a person, he's a thing, kill him!" voices continued to shout out. Hotheads were deliberately instigating violence, putting them at odds with conscientious demonstrators who had no intention of hurting anyone.

The assembly surrounding the armored vehicle shared a paroxysm of joy in stopping it, but was of more than one mind about what to do next. At least one surrendering soldier was safely evacuated to a waiting ambulance, but then the ambulance itself was attacked, the back door almost ripped off by protesters determined to punish the man in uniform.

Up until now, the volunteer ambulances were symbols of the movement’s caring side, carting collapsed hunger strikers away from Tiananmen to hospitals for physical restoration. Until this night, city ambulances, plying slowly through the pack with that familiar, almost reassuring up-and-down wail, had been sacrosanct and untouchable.

A man with a metal pipe smashed the rear of the ambulance, breaking the tail-light. Two or three other men pounded on the back door demanding that the limp body of the soldier be handed over. The driver desperately begged the vigilantes to leave the injured man alone, to let him be taken to the hospital.

The back door of the ambulance swung open and the injured soldier was about to be extracted for a bout of “people’s” justice when the vehicle lurched forward, and raced off in the direction of the Beijing Hotel. Student traffic directors trying to impose a semblance of order did their best to hold back those seeking blood long enough for the ambulance to escape.

So it had come to this. The dream was over, people were killing each other. The mutual restraint, one of the things I admired so much about all parties in this monumental conflict of wills, was breaking down.

The students lost control, the crowd started cracking, and the movement was breaking up into splintered mobs. There were calls for cooperation and shouts for vengeance, the blood thirst made me nauseous.

Meng was distraught. "Don't use violence!" he yelled, straining his voice to persuade anyone who would listen. "Don't fight!" he cried hoarsely, over and over. But whipped up into a state of true turmoil, few cared to listen.

The ambulance was gone, the APC was now a flaming hulk, billowing black smoke that masked the sky. The ghoulish glow of distant fires – one could only imagine what might be going on --reinforced the gloom of this moonless night.

The BBC crew reassembled, shaken but unhurt. Before we could gather our wits, however, the sky was suddenly pierced with red shooting stars.

"What in the world?" I had never seen anything like it before.

"Tracer bullets," shouted Simpson. "We better get out of here!"

The red traces of speeding projectiles crisscrossed Chang’an Boulevard. The cracking sound of gunfire was steadily audible in the distance. The now seething mass was not easily intimidated, and became only further enraged. Empty-handed civilians cursed the government, venting violent epithets.

I looked at the anguish in Meng’s face, tears welling in his eyes.

"This is no longer a student movement, he said. “This is. . ." He paused, fists clenched with rage, face lined with resignation. "This is a people's uprising.”

As the fighting worsened, with gunfire close by, I had to physically drag Meng; so reluctant was he to leave the street, towards the Beijing Hotel for shelter. There he joined the BBC crew, along with Wang Li and myself, in room 1413 to sit out the lethal madness. Patricia, the Hong Kong journalist, joined us shortly afterwards.

But the Beijing Hotel was no longer a safe haven. "What are you doing here?" one of the guards had barked at Meng as we crossed the threshold. In our haste we had failed to notice the gatekeepers were in place again, guard posts fully operational.

"He's with me!" I answered firmly. Not wanting to get stuck at the guarded elevators, I took Meng by the arm and led him away from the heavily monitored entrance into the long central corridor ringed with dimly-lit lounges. The guards did not follow us, so we first lingered there, taking comfort in the incongruous fact that the deserted coffee lounge was still operational.

We gathered up an armful of yogurts and soft drinks for the crew and went up to 1413 by a less guarded passage.

From my balcony high above Chang’an Boulevard, we surveyed the horizon. It looked like nothing less than war as I had imagined it as a child; fire and flares in every direction. Burning vehicles emitted an oily smoke that funneled upward, linking with its long black columns the murky sky and the ground.

Screams and gunfire could be heard almost directly below, more distant cries and rumbles intermittently carried by the breeze. Tracer bullets fired from somewhere across the street arched upwards along a parabolic path and fell behind the hotel. The frequency of gunfire intensified.

We watched in stunned silence as the tanks rolled in. As bodies were rolled out on carts. As the once defiant crowd was bent, then broken. Sporadic gunfire could be heard all night long.

THE PEOPLE'S ARMY AND THE PEOPLE

(June 3, 1989 excerpt from Tiananmen Moon)

The driver of the gypsy cab carrying the camera crew hit the brakes with an unexpected jolt, narrowly avoiding a collision. The way forward was blocked by a militant swarm of pedestrians milling about on West Chang’an Boulevard. At Liubukou, not far from the guarded entrance Zhongnanhai, traffic was choked up with the carcasses of three smashed buses and shards of broken brick and glass. We stepped out of the car cautiously, not sure the bricks had stopped flying. The tension in the air was almost visible, like heat hovering over a hot road.

The buses resembled beetles that had been attacked and stripped of meat by an army of ants. The interiors had been picked clean by the mob, upholstered seats ripped apart, metal bars bent out of shape. This was no ordinary case of looting, but an expression of hatred to the fingertips, hatred to the bone. Why the anger, the sacking of a bus? I asked around and was told the story of the Trojan horse. The bus had been full of lethal weapons, ammunition and other military supplies.

"Guns!" a vocal vigilante explained.

"Military issue! There were hand grenades were on the bus!"

But why were the seats pulled apart, the windows smashed?

"The army tried to trick the people," another man interjected.

"They tried to make it look like we had the weapons! It was a trap. They are looking for an excuse. It is they who are criminals, not us!"

A student brought me over to see the evidence. Rifles, machine guns, tear gas cylinders, daggers and grenades were piled on top of the bus for all to see, but wisely placed out of reach. There was a twin danger; a distraught demonstrator might be tempted to grab a weapon and turn it on his tormentors, or the conscientious men guarding the weapons might be accused of collecting them with violent intent; either way creating an excuse for crackdown.

It had all been so sporting up until now, a battle of wits, a battle of wills. A battle of empty hands, empty stomachs, incantatory voices, and tired feet. The introduction of military hardware changed the game entirely. It made a mockery of a month of non-violent struggle. Who was funneling in the weapons? Were they a pretext to crack down or the tools to do so?

“The bus and the weapons are part of a conspiracy to smuggle in troops and weapons to attack Tiananmen,” explained a young man in a white shirt.

"But, what happened to the soldiers on the bus?"

"Those cowards, they ran into the gate of Zhongnanhai. They ran away, they are afraid of the will of the people," he said choking up with anger. "They are afraid. . ."

Although I did not disagree with his words, the strident and unforgiving tone of his voice unnerved me.

"If they didn't run away," added another self-appointed spokesman, "They would face the justice of the masses."

“Justice of the masses,” echoed another man approvingly.

Mass justice, vigilante justice, just what does that consist of? By now I was worried that our BBC crew might become embroiled in a misdirected mass action for some perceived slight, so I erred on the side of caution, quietly asking permission to take some pictures on the bus. Permission granted.

While Ingo and Mark recorded the scene, I studied the tense, shiftless ring of bodies lining the intersection between the broad boulevard and the side road that led to the music hall. There were angry scowls, twitching limbs, nervous facial tics and palpable worry in people's eyes. It was spooky and made me want to leave.

While the film crew did their job, I jotted down some of the anti-government slogans and graffiti on the roadside walls.

DON'T BETRAY THE PEOPLE!

NEVER TRUST THE MOTHER FUCKING GOVERNMENT!

IS THE PEOPLE'S ARMY AFRAID OF THE PEOPLE?

Thousands of people stood around shiftily, but their faces lacked the reassuring neutrality of the idle loafers one normally encounters in China. There wasn't much to do, but there was much to think about. Things were way past the point where people wanted to practice English or know where we were from. A number of the young men near the bus stared right through us, numb with rage and fear perhaps, nerves frayed by acidulous thoughts.

Conversation, even among partisans on the same side of the barricade, was difficult. Loquacious small talk, the lubricant of Beijing street life, had all but dried up.

What was happening to the marchers, once so resilient, so peaceful, so optimistic for so many weeks. Were these the same people? If so, were they not fast approaching a psychological breaking point? It pained me to look at them, there was venom in their eyes.

Chai Ling had given a clue as to the true nature of the movement in its current decayed state; it was about blood, but with a twist. Both sides taunted and provoked, intimidated and humiliated, hoping the other side would attack first. Once the blood started to flow, all sorts of unreasonable actions could be justified, once the blood started to flow, an upsurge in sympathy would accrue to those most effectively portrayed as victims of the violence.

That’s what made the hunger strike so effective, if one side could claim victim-hood, the other side started to look like a cruel victimizer. Conversely, that’s why the government was recklessly sending in probes, discarding weapons in plain sight, setting up a pretext. If the people attacked the soldiers, if the generally beloved and legendarily pro-citizen PLA themselves became victims, the polarity of sympathy could be flipped, with the students and their ilk seen in a novel way, not as lambs being led to slaughter, but wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The mounting war of nerves, designed to make the other side look like the predator, brought to mind the haunting lyrics written by Chyi Chin; the northern wolf, cold fangs bared, dust and wind blowing, ready to strike.

The weather was an irritant in its own right. It was hot and muggy, and yet dark for midday. What sun there was, was filtered through a thick haze, the air was stiflingly still. We took our establishing shots, asked a few more questions and beat a quick exit, and not a second too soon. It occurred to me that in a moment of mass panic, our gear could be mistaken for weaponry. Once we broke ranks with the raw, almost seething crowd, a number of unfriendly comments were hurled in our direction, as if we were abandoning them, or somehow colluding with the government.

Even with our heads bent low, we had inadvertently become target for the pent-up anger around us. The driver sensed this, and got in the habit of patiently and deferentially fielding questions from those around us, even those who banged on the car demanding to know who was inside. The driver knew what to say and when to say it. He had uttered not a word in the parking lot when we were cornered by the police, but was quick to mediate when we got caught up in civilian disputes, such as happened in a backstreet hutong near Qianmen when a posse of indignant residents prevented us from filming.

The atmosphere was so edgy, I started to fear the undisciplined crowd more than the highly-restrained soldiers. There were more than a few people looking to vent their anger on anyone, anything. Mercifully, the driver’s gift of gab helped keep things on an even keel and served to deflect those who might otherwise see us as a convenient target.

The rusty jalopy, loaded down with our oversized western bodies and heavy gear, lurched and sputtered along the agitated, littered streets in the direction of the Great Hall of the People. Before we had a chance to establish where we were going, the driver pulled over to the curb and opened the door for us.

"Take pictures here," he instructed matter-of-factly, as if he had suddenly become our producer, and in a way he had. “I will wait for you in the car."

We went along with the driver’s suggestion, taking some of the gear with us, but we didn’t even bother to set things up. Nothing of importance seemed to be happening, maybe that was the point, a chance to rest in the shade. The Great Hall of the People towered to the east over the tiled rooftops of low-rise brick dwellings.

Back alley residents moped around listlessly. There were the usual drifters and loafers, but the habitual stares were glazed over a bit. A brick wall blocked our view of the nearest intersection, but we weren’t looking for escape routes. It was calm, perhaps a bit too calm given the bulging eyes and absence of earthy voices, but calm enough for our attention to revert back to things BBC, talking about our recent trip to the countryside, the June 2 follow-up interview with Chai Ling and other excursions I had been on since getting re-hired by the Beeb on May 29. I distributed popsicles to the thirsty crew as we shuffled slowly in the direction of the Great Hall.

We were sufficiently inattentive to the oddly muffled crowd dynamics to get us on the topic of what to do for lunch. But when we turned the corner, all conversation ceased mid-sentence.

Whoa! Before us a thousand soldiers in full battle dress occupied the street. They had staked out a bit of strategic high ground, running from the rear of the Great Hall of the People to Chang’an Boulevard.

Where did they come from? How did they get past all those people on Tiananmen? Had the Square been breached? Then I recalled the Beijing whispers, long pre-dating this crisis. There were said to be secret underground tunnels all around Tiananmen, leading to and from the Great Hall, Zhongnanhai and other government power centers.

It was as if they just popped in out of nowhere. The uniformed military men, well over a thousand strong, were in crisp formation unlike the rag-tag army units we had seen the night before. Though surrounded by civilians pleading for peace, the men looked beyond persuasion, quietly fired up, ready to kill. If the soldiers in white T-shirts and green pants who jogged into town last night could be characterized as slightly unfriendly, then the fully equipped soldiers today were outright hostile. The only saving grace was their utter immobility, like an army un-earthed from a century’s sleep.

The sight of a battalion of People's Liberation Army soldiers facing down a mass of unarmed protesters on the back steps of the Great Hall of the People was incongruous and unsettling. The tough men were organized in units, some helmeted, some carrying backpacks, others carrying field radios with thick black antennae sticking up into the air. Their self-restraint and inaction encouraged us to move around for a closer look. I helped the crew get set up on the wide marble steps of the back door to the Great Hall, the dignified solidity of the building somehow stiffened our reserve. After getting our establishing shot we approached the ring of soldiers for close-ups. We inched in on the soldiers, careful to look for an escape path in case something untoward happened.

In front of us a tense negotiation was in progress, as members of the neighborhood and student negotiators pleaded with the men in green. The discussion appeared to bear no fruit, argument seemed futile, but at least it was still possible to talk. The soldiers however, were clearly under some kind of disciple that made them impervious to the naive charm of fellow citizens begging for peace.

The situation could get out of hand all too quickly. I scanned the ceremonial cityscape for possible escape routes and hiding places. Would it be safer to go back to the steps of the Great Hall or dive into some courtyard? Would the thick walls of the public bathroom over there provide cover? Would the soldiers use tear gas or clubs? What about guns?

The troops deployed today were the real deal. This was the sort of iron-fisted response to political protest that I feared most when I joined Bright and Jennifer as they stepped through the gates of the university out onto the streets of Beijing on May 4.

We broke the law against demonstrations and nothing happened. Students took to the streets day after day and nothing happened. Students took over the Square and nothing happened. Soon the numbers swelled to a million, student leaders talked of overthrowing the government and nothing happened.

No crackdown, no nothing. The blossoming of the Tiananmen movement was as much the result of inaction as action. It was widely believed that the government, at least part of it, supported the students. China was going through some sort of paradigm upheaval, bigger than any of the parties involved, and to date it was a mercifully peaceful transformation.

The natural outcome might well be political reform that allowed for more personal freedom and open discussion. Or so it seemed.

The army units now entering Beijing by stealth were game changers. In a matter of days, the government’s alleged patience took on a more sinister air. The unwillingness to crackdown the day martial law was declared did not mean there was tacit support for the students, nor did it reveal a compassionate desire for reconciliation; it was just a logistical logjam. It had taken two weeks to move the army into place, and now that the troops were finally face to face with the protesters, things were a lot less ambiguous than before.

I went back to our pre-arranged meeting spot and looked for the driver to discuss a plan of action in case all hell broke loose, but the driver and the old jalopy were gone.

What a time to abandon us! I paced up and down the street where he had told us to wait for him, furious at his betrayal.

"Are you all right?" asked a man who had been watching me. My consternation was visible.

“What?”

"Are you lost?"


"No, I'm looking for someone.”

"The driver? Perhaps he has gone."

I had trusted him. Was I such a poor judge of character?

"It is not safe here, but you will be okay if you walk in that direction," the man said pointing south.

“But I have to find the car, our stuff is in it!"

“What can I do to help?”

The stranger surely meant well, then again how could one know for sure? Judging the trustworthiness of strangers, in the best of times an inexact science, but at a time like this it could be the difference between escape and entrapment.

I thanked the man for his advice and retreated to the wall near the intersection to commiserate with the crew. Being penned between maze-like hutong and the back of the Great Hall, with thousands of soldiers blocking traffic the path to Tiananmen was claustrophobic.

The gear was gone but an uneasy equipoise prevailed. The soldiers were, for the moment, content to ignore us. Perhaps we could get back to the Square the long way, circling the south flank of the Square on foot, cut past the Public Security compound and eventually make our way back to the Beijing Hotel.

The crew wanted to bail, but just as soon as we commenced our roundabout retreat, there was a surprise.

Our driver was back! He ran up to us, waving to get our attention, huffing and puffing out of breath.

"Sorry, friends, I was busy."

"Where'd you go? We were looking all over..."

"I took an injured man to the hospital," he said, wiping his sweaty forehead with his sleeve.

"What? The hospital? I was almost going to shout 'but you're working for BBC!' when I realized that I could hardly fault him for an impulsive act of compassion.

"What do you mean, hospital? What happened?"

"A man was beaten by a soldier, he was bleeding all over. The hospital is far, all the way over by Chongwenmen,” he said breathlessly.

“Sorry. It took so long."

"No, forget it. I guess, what you did is more important."

"Thank you for understanding." he said shaking my hand, nodding to the others. "You are true friends of the people."

Touched by his concern for others, but not in a comparably altruistic mood ourselves, we decided to return to the hotel with our gear while we could. On the way, the driver suggested we stop by the hospital to take a look. Maybe we could film some of the people who had been wounded, and we all quickly agreed. The broken-doored jalopy offered scant comfort or safety as we meandered through streets bubbling with nervous energy. Getting out of car quickly was no longer the issue, the streets were menacing.

The driver veered south, edging his way through the crowd, patiently snaked around clusters of people left and right and finally made it to Chongwenmen intersection via a series of back alleys.

The driver pulled up to the emergency room entrance of the hospital. A middle-aged woman with bobbed hair wearing a white smock shook her head no, dismayed at the sight of a car full of foreigners, emphatically shooing us away. Wang Li and I got out, with the help of the driver, and approached the prim-looking lady.

"Nihao! Women shi yingguo dianshitai laide," We're from BBC television, we'd like to talk to some of the patients who were injured today. . ."

"You are here in violation of martial law!" she railed loudly. She then parroted word by word a few lines from the martial law regulations. Unmoved by her reasoning, I repeated our request.

"We won't take any pictures, we just want to find out what happened and talk to anyone injured in the fighting."

"As I said," she rejoined, raising her metallic voice an octave, "You are in violation of martial law!"

Wang Li asked me to slip him my little camera, allowing him to walk into the hospital unnoticed while I distracted the woman, who was sounding more and more like a communist party tape loop. She repeated her martial law statement a third time.

"Would you like to say that to the camera?"

By now Ingo had the camera rolling and he was coming our way.

"Get that camera out of here!" she screamed.

She ran after Ingo and Mark, allowing me to slip inside. Wang Li waved me into a sick room. One man, heavily bandaged said he was struck by the military police outside Zhongnanhai. There were several other patients recently wounded. I ran out to see if we could somehow get Ingo in with the camera. This time the woman in charge planted her body between me and the entrance.

"As I said, you are in violation,” she sputtered. “If you don't leave immediately I will, I will..."

I tried to win the support of onlookers to swing things in our favor, a technique that worked when we were of one mind with the masses.

"Just admit it," I said to her, keeping an eye on the group around us, "You're only saying that because you have to, right? In your heart you side with the people, don't you?"

"Get out of here!" she screamed, raising her arm as if to hit me.

What could we do? She may have been a broken record, but this was her workplace. My bid to win lateral support failed badly, no one budged an inch. I backed away from the enforcer and told the crew to pack it up.

A familiar-looking young man with a wispy beard came forward. He was wearing a loose-fitting mint green cotton top that looked like hospital garb, and I would have taken him for a patient wandering the halls were it not for the stenciled words, 1989 Democratic Tide and tell-tale autographs scribbled across his shirt.

He was a student and he had been watching us in silence. Just at the moment when we gave in and started to pack up, he came over to me to talk.

"That woman is unreasonable. She should have let you in."

"Thanks for the encouragement," I said. It surprised me that a Chinese person would readily take my side when I had been arguing, rather rudely, with another Chinese.

"Sometimes I wonder if I should even bother."

I heard you," the young man added. "You have the right to say what you said."

Even though you're a foreigner, he might have added.

The young man's sun-scorched, high-cheeked face reminded me of someone. Where had I seen him before? Apparently he had a similar sense of deja vu.

"Aren't you with ABC?" he asked me.

"No, BBC, England, though I am from America."

It struck me as uncanny that he should ask about ABC. The police had closed down ABC and inspected the office after a copy of the May 28 tape was intercepted at the airport. I had to assume they were looking for me since they were somehow tipped off about the interview I did with Chai Ling.

"My name is Meng, I am a student, from the Central Academy of Drama," he said.

Meng and I got talking and realized we had much in common, driven by a shared desire to keep on top of what was happening at Tiananmen. He looked dangerously undernourished, presumably the result of the hunger strike and water strike. I invited him to join the crew for something to eat, which he agreed to do only if we would make quick work of it in order to hurry back to the Square together.