ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

Amongst other commemorations stymied by COVID_19, the Hong Kong Vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre was cancelled this year.  The cancellation of this annual vigil seems highly significant because of the protests in Hong Kong — and even more so now because China has taken advantage of worldwide attention on events in America to introduce harsh new anti-sedition laws to repress dissent in Hong Kong.

So it’s timely to look at a thoughtful new coming-of-age memoir by a young Chinese woman who was present at the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989.  For most of us, knowledge about these events is sketchy, framed by the iconic image of Tank Man and the Western media’s focus on the students and their campaign for democracy.  We know very little about what ordinary Chinese people knew about those protests and the brutal crackdown on June 4th.  This memoir fills in some of those gaps.

The early part of the book is interesting because it describes the benefits and limitations of living in a central economy managed by an authoritarian elite.  Anna Wang grew up believing the slogans she was taught but occasionally found ways to circumvent rules about where she might live, study and work.  Some of these limitations seem bizarre to us, and some, like the judgements passed on women with bound feet, seem cruel.  (Bound feet were a symbol and evidence that couldn’t be hidden, that the women had not been peasants or workers in pre-Communist China).

Anna becomes a clever young student with a rebellious streak, but what rebellion meant in China was by Western standards trivial.  She found ways to get residency rights in Beijing, and she found a way to switch a university course that didn’t suit her, to one that did, studying literature instead of more advantageous subjects.  She lived with her grandmother instead of her parents, and she wangled her way into a job with the newly established Japanese Canon office.  Her coming-of-age coincided with China’s transition out of a planned economy, and she was convinced that she was on her way to joining the emerging middle-class.  It also coincides with the student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989…

The long build-up to the massacre coincides with Anna’s first love affair, with a married man called Guo Yan.  Guo Yan is very keen on her, but when Anna finds out about his wife she no longer trusts him, and this extends to interpreting what he says through a political lens.  People are used to concealing any thoughts that might be considered subversive and many of this couple’s flirtatious exchanges reveal him to be imprudent and opportunistic about what might emerge from the growing protest movement.  Changes in government policy and economic reforms might have benefits but clearly caution is needed: previous changes in the social and economic order under Mao such as The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution underwent sudden reversals, and it was literally fatal to have supported the old ideologies.

This on-off romance wears a bit thin for the reader, and the lead-up to the massacre is rather drawn out.  However, what it shows is Anna’s conflicted reactions to what was happening.  She is curious and hopeful, but concerned about possible impacts not just on those she knows but also on China itself.  She’s very anxious about the students especially when they go on a hunger strike, but she’s a bit cavalier about her grandmother’s concern that the turmoil might reach them at home.  It’s also clear that people were ready to turn on each other for supporting the cause, or not. (Later, she is shocked to learn that some of her neighbours didn’t want the students to escape).

Yet Anna is willing to take some risks to see what’s going on.  Her workplace was very close to Tiananmen Square, and her Japanese boss like many others was concerned that the protests would disrupt the company’s operations.  With the benefit of hindsight it seems incredibly naïve of him to send her to the Square to take photos so that they can monitor events, but that’s how she became a first-hand witness to events.

When martial law was declared she discusses the potential use of force with her boss:

Canon’s head office wanted a straight answer: Would the military turn guns on its own people?
I felt it was likely, but surely they would use rubber bullets.  At least, that what people were saying.
‘I doubt it,’ Mr Murata said.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t think China has time to import them.  Western countries have weapons embargoes on China.’
‘You mean China doesn’t manufacture rubber bullets? It can’t be harder than making real ones!’ I exclaimed.
‘Rubber bullets are made to scare and disperse.  When a country sees regular problems with riots or civil arrest, they stock up on rubber ones.  China’s never had this problem before.’
Panic washed over me.  ‘They’re gonna use real bullets?  That can’t be true!’
‘Personally, I still don’t think they’ll even use guns,’ Mr Murata said calmly.  ‘They’ll probably do what they did during the last mass protests in 1976.  Water hoses and wooden clubs did the trick then.  I don’t see why they wouldn’t now.’ (p.216)

Despite what we can see now was Murata’s misplaced confidence, she stays home on the fateful day.

I’d been so fierce and defiant, but when history actually reached a turning point, I became a coward.
I was definitely afraid of violence at the hands of the military.  They had guns, batons, tanks, you name it.  Still, if I died or got hurt standing up to martial law, I could call myself a hero.  But what if I got hit by a random falling brick?  What if I was killed by a wayward Molotov cocktail?  There was no glory in becoming collateral damage.  (p.223)

One of the aspects of the massacre that shocked the West, was how quickly Beijing returned to normal.  But while the focus for us was on the information blackout about how many had died or were injured, and about what form retribution took, outside Beijing itself there was disbelief.  Anna heard the accidental shooting of a young worker out late, and she has a friend who asks her to hide incriminating documents for him, but her cousin from beyond the city isn’t convinced that anything happened at all.

For ordinary people, the impact of Western sanctions brings both benefits and problems: Anna can afford expensive seafood formerly destined for foreign markets, but a young musician on the cusp of his big break has his career ruined, and Anna’s cousin’s import-export business collapses too.

But for those who knew what had happened, the scars run deep.  Six months later, even students who hadn’t been anywhere near Tiananmen Square were still traumatised.

Even tracks left by a tank were terrifying.  From then on, images, words, even pronunciations similar to tanks would trigger nightmares.  The incident had hijacked our brains.  Our generation would never again raise our voices in protest.  Not in twenty years, not in thirty years, not in our lifetimes. (p.285)

Like many, Anna considered using her academic prowess to leave China, but it takes some years before she is ready to risk trying.  Today she is a Canadian citizen, and this book is her declaration:

Since the start of the trade war between China and the United States, I’ve had a feeling that a time would come when Chinese people living in Western countries would have to choose sides.  In the past, I was content to break away from China in terms of citizenship, but now it seems this might not be enough.
Coming from China means that we need to do more simply because of the baggage on our backs.  If we want to establish that Chinese people are not the same as China’s regime, we need to fight for China to accept universal human values.  Telling my truth of what happened 30 years ago is part of this effort. (p.369)

These words have even greater resonance in the wake of the Hong Kong protests, and China’s response to them.

Author: Anna Wang
Title: Inconvenient Memories, a Personal Account of the Tiananmen Square Incident and the China Before and After
Publisher: Purple Pegasus, 2019
ISBN: 9780996640572, hbk., 369 pages
Review copy courtesy of the author.