Looking for tank man, p.12
Looking for Tank Man, page 12
15
MY PARENTS DIDN’T come for my commencement, but that didn’t bother me. The flights were so expensive. Worse, they wouldn’t have wanted to share a room in a hotel. That would have made a joint trip to Boston more cumbersome. If my mother had come, I’d have taken constant care to keep her from blowing her top when she rubbed shoulders with my father. She may have just been starting menopause, and her temper was quite volatile. I told her that I would head back in early May, before commencement, which I didn’t mind skipping. I would receive my diploma through the mail anyway.
My mother loved to have me home. I planned to take a part-time job and to rest some to get ready for the fall. Schools and colleges didn’t let out until mid-July in Beijing, so I was allowed to teach a short English class in my former high school. I taught tenth graders, not a class of rising seniors, who would have been taking the national entrance exam the next year, so I didn’t have serious responsibilities. As long as I could hold the students’ interest and make them learn some English, my duty would be fulfilled. So I felt comfortable about the arrangement and pleased that I could have a few weeks for myself before I started graduate school at Columbia. I didn’t use a textbook in my teaching, since my course was a mere supplementary class, “listening comprehension.” I used some English magazines and newspapers and mainly read out the articles to the class. I read loudly and slowly and whenever coming upon a word or phrase that might be hard for the thirty-four students to follow, I would pause to ask them if they understood it. If nobody knew, I would clarify its meaning for them. They seemed to like my casual way of teaching, and I was careful to exclude articles that might be politically sensitive. But because the class was taught in English, I could get away with a lot. From time to time I would slip in some words that expressed novel or radical concepts and entities to the students, such as transgender, the Senate and the House, affirmative action, age discrimination, same-sex marriage. About the last phrase the class got into an argument. At first, most of my students didn’t think such a marriage was appropriate. The grounds for their objection were that a couple of the same sex couldn’t make babies, so the marriage defeats the purpose of such a union. I said, “Let us think about this in a different light. What if someone argues that the purpose of marriage is not to produce babies but to make two individuals more able to love and help each other? In other words, what if the basis of marriage is not procreation but love?” That stumped the class. Later, a few of them told me in private that they had changed their minds about the issue and that if two persons really loved each other, they could get married and the marriage should be their own business and be justified. On another occasion, I talked about various uses of the word “office,” from which I gave them the phrase “run for office.” They were fascinated, and then more questions came up. So I included words more related to elections, like “electorate,” “ballot,” “constituency,” and “gerrymander.” Luckily, nobody told on me to the school leaders.
The high school was near Tsinghua University, which I passed by on my way to work. Though I was certain that for my graduate work I would concentrate on the democracy movement in 1989, I hadn’t brought back many books because I was no longer at Harvard, having no access to its libraries anymore. I owned a few titles that I ought to read as an aspiring historian, but I hadn’t brought them back, afraid that customs might confiscate them. Unfortunately, in this place there were no useful books or periodicals available on the Tiananmen movement, which was treated as a suppressed riot in all publications here. Even at Tsinghua University, where I could use my mother’s employee card to access its libraries, I couldn’t find anything useful for the study of my future field. This scarcity of information pained me and made me feel deprived. It indicated how the facts and truths had been erased from people’s minds or revised to avoid tarnishing the party’s image. The city seemed to still be bathing in the afterglow of the successful Olympics that had taken place here three years back. But I couldn’t help wondering, Have people really forgotten what broke out just two decades ago? Was it so easy to tailor or blot out history?
I had brought back a photo of Tank Man. It was a bookmark handed out at the Tiananmen Square Massacre conference organized by Loana two years before. Placed between the pages in a dictionary, the picture had slipped through customs at the Beijing airport, though a woman officer had seized my copy of Jonathan D. Spence’s The Search for Modern China. I was perplexed and outraged, explaining to her that this wasn’t a reactionary book and that it was written by an author regarded as a friend of China’s. As hard as I argued, she wouldn’t give it back to me. Probably one of the officers knew English and was eager to get hold of a book like that for personal use, or maybe they were going to present it to a superior who happened to know the foreign tongue and loved forbidden books. In China, a lot of outrageous things were done for personal reasons under the pretext of law, regulations, patriotism.
One afternoon, as I was walking home after teaching, I saw two female students coming out of Tsinghua University’s side entrance, I went up to them and pulled the photo of Tank Man out of my skirt pocket and said, “Excuse me, Miss, do you happen to know what this picture is about?”
At the sight of the bookmark, both girls gasped and recoiled, as if it were a contaminated object. They shook their heads no, but their faces twisted with fear in spite of their efforts to smile. One of them said, “I have no idea who he is. Maybe it’s part of an ad?”
The other one took the photo from me and said, “I can’t see his face here. Of course I can’t tell who he is. Maybe it was made on a computer.”
As they were hurrying away, they turned their heads to observe me. I could see that to them I must be a crazy woman, but I could also tell that they knew who Tank Man was. Their denial upset me.
Feeling bold, I entered the gate. A young man wearing sunglasses turned up, heading out of campus. I greeted him and asked, “Excuse me, do you recognize who this is?” I flashed the photo at him.
“No, I have no idea.” He looked blank, shaking his head of thick hair. “Let me see it again,” he said, and took the bookmark from me, removed his shades, and looked at it more carefully. Evidently he didn’t know who Tank Man was.
“He’s an international icon,” I said. “Probably the most popular Chinese man in the world. This photo shows how he singlehandedly stopped a column of tanks at Tiananmen Square.”
“When was that?” He looked incredulous.
“On June 5, 1989. You’ve never heard of the Tiananmen Massacre, in which hundreds of people or more got killed?”
“Not really. Oh, I remember in my high school’s politics class, a teacher once mentioned an uprising in Tiananmen Square, but she referred to it only in passing, so I didn’t register it as a significant historical event that involved losses of lives.”
More people were stepping out of a nearby building. A girl called to him, and he turned away to join her. I thought of going up to the crowd and showing the photo to them, but thought better of it.
As I was leaving, I saw a woman in her thirties. She must have been a graduate student or a junior faculty member and might have a clearer memory, so I went up to her and said, “Miss, do you recognize this man?” I raised the photo to her.
She nodded calmly. “Yes, I saw a picture like that long ago, but I don’t believe it was based on a real event.”
“Do you remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre?”
“It was not a massacre. Yes, some people died, but the government had no choice but to suppress the rebellion, or the country would have lapsed into chaos. As for this photo, it was a product manufactured by the Western media to demonize China.”
“You really think so?” I was amazed.
“Beyond a shadow of a doubt. There was simply no other way for the government to restore order, so it had to use force.”
“Even field armies, tanks, and machine guns?”
“Look, the government was not experienced in dealing with such an insurrection, so mistakes were unavoidable.” She fixed her thin eyes on my face, looking daggers.
I realized we were talking at different frequencies, unable to communicate at all, so I stepped away and went out the front gate and headed home. I hadn’t walked for more than three minutes when a jeep pulled up ahead of me, as quietly as a shadow. Two cops stepped out of the vehicle and blocked my way.
One of them said, “Hey, you must come with us.”
I saw “Tsinghua Police” on the car door. “What for?” I asked. “What crime did I commit?”
“You just displayed some reactionary material on campus. We must bring you in so you can answer a couple questions.”
“What if I don’t want to answer?”
“Then we won’t let you go.”
I realized there was no way to wriggle out of this, so I agreed to go with them. The moment I got in the backseat, the jeep swerved around and pulled away. The cop in the passenger seat asked me, “Are you a student here?”
“I won’t answer you now. I must see my attorney first.” In spite of saying that, I had no clue where to find a lawyer here.
They both cracked up. The one at the wheel, who I noticed kept observing me in the rearview mirror, told me, “We can send you to a jailhouse without bothering to involve your lawyer. You’d better be more polite to us and more obliging.”
I did my best to keep mum all the way, though my throat tightened with panic. The cop in the passenger seat phoned their headquarters, saying they were bringing me over now. We stopped in front of the police station, a white house with tall windows, and they ordered me to get out. They led me into an office, in which an older officer pointed at a chair for me. The instant I sat down opposite him, he began to question me. He asked my name and age and my home address. I answered truthfully.
“Are you a college student?” he continued.
I nodded and tried to stop squirming. I rubbed my hands, the palms wet with perspiration.
“Yes or no?” he said.
“Yes.”
“What college?”
“Harvard.”
“Are you making fun of me?” He looked cross, pulling a long face and wrinkling his forehead.
I took out my Harvard ID and handed it to him. He looked at it, then leaned in and held the photo up closer to my face, peering at me as if to make sure I was the person on the card. “Truth to tell, you look better than in the picture,” he said.
“Thanks. I wish I were photogenic, I’m sorry.”
He giggled, then laughed. “You must be a good kid. There’s no need to be so somber and so frightened. I’m Officer Bian. As long as you level with me, I won’t hurt you.”
“Okay, I’ll be honest,” I said.
At this point, his secretary, a tallish woman in her early forties, stepped in, and he handed her my ID. “Make a copy of this,” he told her.
Once the woman was out of earshot, I said to him, “Now, Uncle Bian, you believe I’m a college student studying in America, right? Please let me go.”
“I’ll be damned. Why did you fool around here? Didn’t your studies at Harvard already keep you busy enough?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You showed a banned photo to our students, didn’t you?”
“Look, I had no idea this photo was banned.” I fished it out and handed it to him. “See, it’s a bookmark handed out at a conference about the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The conference was held at Harvard two years ago.”
I placed the photo into his open hand. As he was observing it, his straight eyebrows knitted. He sighed and said, “So the Tiananmen turmoil is studied at Harvard?”
“Yes, I took a seminar on this subject. That was why I thought Tsinghua students might already know something about it too.”
“Nobody wants to remember that sad, bloody event. Please stop reminding people of it.”
I thought of countering him by elaborating on the necessity of fighting against the official effort to make the public into amnesiacs, but I bit my tongue, unwilling to show I was well informed and more sophisticated. I’d better play ignorant and stupid so that they would set me free. Officer Bian didn’t look mean or malicious at all.
He seemed to be able to read some English. He was perusing the words printed at the bottom of the photo, which indicated the conference was held in memory of the victims and centered around the role that the People’s Liberation Army had played in the tragedy. He rubbed his eyes as if they were irritated. He said, “Amazing, the Americans try to remember our misfortune, our tragedy.”
I begged, “Uncle, please let me go. I saw lots of photos and footage in my class. Everyone in the West knows about the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I really had no idea this was banned here.”
“Not only here. If you show others this photo outside Tsinghua, you’ll be in a big mess.”
“Okay, I won’t do that. Let me go home, please. My mother will be worried sick if I don’t get back before dark.”
“Where does your mother work?”
“Here, in the archaeology institute.” I thought of withholding her name, but then told him the truth, feeling he might be more lenient since my mother was a kind of colleague.
I guessed right. He asked his secretary to make a copy of the Tank Man photo as well. He turned to me and said, “I’ve known your mom since she was in her twenties. Tell her Uncle Bian says hi. I remember now, you were the talk for some time a few years ago. We felt happy for your mother. It wasn’t easy for her to raise you alone, to do such a great job with you, so for her sake you must stop fooling around.”
“Thanks, I will pass on your greetings to her,” I said.
When his secretary returned the Tank Man bookmark to him, he fished out a scarlet lighter, flicked it on, and set the bead of flame to the photo. He twirled the blazing strip, and said to me, “You must understand I’m doing this to help you. I can let you go this time, because I know Anmin, your mother, and you’re a good kid. Don’t ever mess around like this again. If you’re caught next time, nobody can protect you and we’ll have to hand you over to the city police. Then you’ll be handled as a criminal and get a prison term or be shut up in a mental asylum.”
I said I had learned my lesson and wouldn’t make trouble again. They released me after making me sign the two sheets of their questions and my answers. I wrote out my name with the Sharpie the woman secretary handed me. Then I pressed the scarlet print of my right index finger on my signature too. I thanked Officer Bian and turned to the door.
I guessed I was lucky to run into a man who still remembered the Tiananmen tragedy, and he must have had some sympathy for a “troublemaker” like me. Though set free, I was plunged into a panic, my knees shaky and my heart throbbing fitfully on my way home. I forced myself not to run.
At dinner, I was as uptight as if my stomach had frozen—I was unable to swallow. I was unsure whether I should tell my mother about the brief detainment, but I decided to just mention Officer Bian, who had given her his greetings.
“I’m glad he still remembered me,” she muttered. “Where did you meet him?”
“I lost my ID. Somebody came across it and handed it to the police. They called me in to reclaim my ID. Officer Bian said he had known you for many years. Was he your friend?”
“No, he was just a flippant playboy.”
“Did you like him?”
“He was merely an acquaintance—he was all right.”
I was confused by her petulant tone of voice. I guessed Bian had been one of those men who used to drop by her workplace and flirt with her prior to her divorce, but who then evaded her afterward. So there might be no need for me to disturb my mother with more information about my troubles with the campus police. Neither of us referred to “Uncle Bian” again.
Indeed, my mother seemed unaware of my detention at all. During the following weeks, life continued peacefully.
16
BUT I HAD been cranky during this time. After the high school had let out, I didn’t work anymore and was eager to read and study to get myself prepared for graduate school in the fall. But the books I was most eager to read were not available here. I complained to my mother, saying this country would become an immense animal farm if it continued to act like a control freak over its people. This would definitely reduce the whole population’s intelligence.
She sighed and agreed that a lot of historical scholarship done in recent years was mere propaganda. She could see that if I wanted to be a historian, I’d have to study in the West, where genuine scholarship was possible. She even said that most fields in the humanities in China were “kind of whitewashing,” so it would always be safer to choose a practical profession so that you could make money and live more comfortably. But she also urged me “never to become a slave of anything,” neither of money or of power, not even of love. “A woman must be self-sufficient,” she said, “to live a good, meaningful life.” She often regretted not having continued with graduate studies, believing she’d have become a professor of archaeology if she’d earned a PhD. Deep down, she wasn’t really opposed to my interest in doing an impractical graduate degree in the States.
One evening, she placed a small tin that used to hold ginseng in front of me on the table and opened the lid. Inside was a maroon journal in a leatherette binding. She said, “Your dad called this morning and said we shouldn’t keep you in the dark about our involvement with the Tiananmen movement anymore. I was in college then and took part in the demonstrations. I kept a diary. Here it is. I thought you might be interested. Hopefully it will help you while away the summertime.”
