Tiananmen 30 years later: A first-hand account

Editor’s note: In May 1989, nearly a million Chinese students and others led a three-week, peaceful protest for democracy in central Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. On June 4, Chinese security forces stormed the square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds. Thousands died or were arrested and “disappeared.”

Victoria Bruno of Hayden was traveling in Beijing at the time with her (former) husband, a visiting professor. The following are excerpts from her journal.

May 24, 1989

CBS News interrupted its scheduled programming to announce that the live satellite feed from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square was being terminated. In four days I would be leaving for Beijing. Although we were concerned, we did not fear that we would encounter danger.

May 28 – Sunday

I don’t want to forget the warm faces waiting to greet us as we walked out of customs. The friendliness of Li Zhen [our host from Beijing University] was almost overwhelming. Everyone we have met so far has been eager to make us feel comfortable.

May 29 – Monday

Very quiet. Arose around 6:15. Could hear a rooster crowing outside and the sound of light traffic.

Professor Li Zhen, Professor Song and his daughter Zhuang…came for a visit. I will do a great deal of sightseeing with her tomorrow, traveling around Beijing on bicycles. When we left the university together, she took my arm in hers and treated me as if we had always known one another.

May 30 – Tuesday

Earlier in the day, went to a public market, department stores, Tiananmen Square, and a “Baby Garden” (Kings Garden) where children spend the day. I took photos of children in the playground. Zhuang’s daughter was in one of the classrooms we visited. After thanking the teachers for their hospitality, we bicycled to Tiananmen Square.

We talked with some of the students in Tiananmen Square. It seemed not at all as bad as what we saw on the news, but we heard that three of the leaders from the working units had been arrested. No student leaders yet. It could still get bad.

In fact there was a great deal of optimism and a sense of celebration in Tiananmen Square that day. The student protesters were extremely earnest in their desire to bring democracy to China.

June 1 – Thursday

Visited a monastery. [Almost] too beautiful for words.

The Yonghe Gong Palace of Peace and Harmony was serenely breathtaking. Each doorway we entered led into another quiet room or landscaped courtyard. It was like being introduced to the concept of infinite options.

June 4 – Sunday

Students returned from Tiananmen Square early in the morning. They said a massacre had taken place. It never occurred to the protestors that Chinese soldiers would shoot their own people. Students from Beijing University who made it back from the square carried pieces of blood-soaked concrete.

Tiananmen Square was entered by soldiers; between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., tanks, guns, soldiers. and tear gas hit the square. People who did not move were shot or run over by tanks. Bodies burned so identification impossible. Government said that only garbage was being burned. Also, students referred to as guerillas/revolutionists who want to overthrow the government.

Many students disappeared. If taken to hospitals, not seen again. Many more than the 2,000 students, innocent women, children, and the elderly, were also indiscriminately shot.

Shanghai trip called off. Too dangerous to be separated from Peter. I may not be able to return safely.

When I first signed up to get a plane ticket to Shanghai, I had to give my passport to the travel agency. When the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred, the agency was still in possession of it. I was anxious to retrieve it and with Zhuang’s help, I did.

Around midnight. Talk has been that government troops may try to occupy [Beijing University]. It’s hard to tell just what is going to happen. It is still difficult to believe that so many people were killed.

While still in Beijing, we were told about a deadly intersection where, as students returned to their universities, tanks pulled up in front of and behind them, blocking the road in both directions. The students were slaughtered.

We did not realize until later that over 10,000 people lost their lives during that period.

June 5 – Monday

Morning. Was able to reach mother and have her call the people we worried about most, who would worry about us most.

The situation is ambiguous. The army seems to strike at the least expected and most vulnerable times.

In spite of alarming circumstances, people for the most part, not students, seem to be going about their business. I don’t know what is going to happen.

We waited in the dorm room. Peter [said] that many Americans were worried and panicked and that the American Embassy had urged Americans to return home. The USC [University of Southern California] bus was leaving at 2:30 p.m. However, once we witnessed people pushing and shoving others out of the way to secure a seat, we decided against it. Li Zhen was able to schedule a car and driver to the airport.

The mood is surreal.

A woman I met this morning when making a phone call, Melanie, was on a “hit list” and had to get out of her apartment. A woman named Diane was trying to get out of the compound with all her stuff. We waited until another car came. With suitcases in the backseat, we set out.

We had to take a tortuous route around Tiananmen Square because it lay directly between Beijing University and the hotel.

Occasionally, we saw printed leaflets being posted to telephone poles. Within minutes of such a post, hundreds of people gathered to see what had been reported. I secured a couple of these messages, rolled them up, and hid them with my film in our check-in baggage. I hoped that the leaflets and film would (not) be confiscated, or worse.

After riding a few miles, we passed army trucks, deserted streets, turned-over buses and burned cars, small boulders and cement blocks, a waste can on its side in the middle of the road, more army trucks, and troops.

I felt what it must have been like to have been in the siege of Beirut [1982].

We were stopped by unidentifiable persons at a roadblock. I thought we would be shot.

It turned out that they were part of the student movement and were simply making sure that no additional soldiers or government forces entered the area. A sense of relief engulfed us.

I looked at Professor Li, his face weathered by many years of struggle. He had been a member of the Long March led by Chiang Kai-shek in the 1930s. What was remarkable was that he offered his apologies to us – he felt badly that we had witnessed his country’s tragedy.

As a parting gesture, he gave us a beautiful, finely-carved, sandalwood fan. He wanted us to remember the beauty of China.

We are in a [hotel] room. While Peter was getting the room, I found out that the army was ordered to shoot people if more than three were gathered. Also, that after 4:00 p.m., the army was to fire on anyone not in their homes.

There we all were – the three of us and a driver, around 4:30 p.m., driving away from Beijing University. Anything could have happened. A string quartet playing Brahms provided a surreal score as we entered the Lido Hotel.

June 6 – Tuesday

Woke early to get tickets. Finally got a flight to Tokyo. Song Zhuang got through on the phone. A long, tearful conversation. Still hard to believe that so much has happened in such a short time. There is talk of civil war.

June 7 – Wednesday

Finally on the plane. (Victoria and Peter finally made it home on June 8, but not before tanks blocked the runway and soldiers boarded the plane.)

Epilogue

The world changes underneath our feet. Sometimes, we can feel it. Moments of change are fraught with resistance and disturbance and can set a new course for human events. I witnessed such a moment in China.

Much of the Beijing I encountered in 1989 doesn’t exist anymore, yet it was there and then that I experienced a government exercising total control over its peoples.

Our proximity and connection to human calamities make them more or less meaningful to us. Song Zhuang’s amiable companionship gave special meaning to those 10 days.

We are still friends.