Stories from the Crowd: Postscripts from Tiananmen Square
by Candace Partridge
“Every trip that sustains us is in fact a journey home. Perhaps the dragons guarding our way are princesses in possession of the lost key to that place we seek.” -Anonymous
“It is not death that man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
-Marcus Arelius
In the early morning of June 5th, 1989, in a hard rain, I set out for Beijing. I am to catch a mid afternoon flight that will take me the twelve hundred miles from Hong Kong to China’s capitol city. At noon I learn all flights into and out of Beijing have been cancelled. The student protests of yesterday in Tiananmen Square have put all of China under martial law, a total military lock down.
My feelings toward China are conflicted. The people to me appear passive and indifferent while the government is filled with corruption, acting like underworld thugs. Yet China has many secrets and I want to know more about this mysterious country. The Ming emperors with their dynastic warlords, the religious mysticism of the Tao, the historical legacies of The Great Wall, The Forbidden City and the underground realm of over seven thousand terra cotta warriors all amaze me. At the same time China, with over a billion people, is the second largest Communist country in the world. Its people, controlled by fear and threats, seem to want more freedom, yet thirty five years earlier they embraced Mao Zedong and the promises of Communism and equality. Discontent, the people today want more.
It’s the Reagan years, a time of uncertainty. The United States is in the middle of the cold-war thunderstorms of a forty year battle against communism. Two years ago Reagan demanded Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall; it still stands in defiance. It is a time of perilous anti-communist thinking where the Chinese doctrine of ‘rule by fear and intimidation’ is despised and feared by most Americans. Yet, its darkness and oppression intrigue me. I’m searching for freedom too, from the confinements of my own narrow beliefs, that is, my self-imposed oppression of the stagnant perceptions of “should” and “ought to.
In a few short weeks we leave Hong Kong and Southeast Asia for good. As expatriates, we will return to New York after calling Asia our home for ten years. We must return now. Although reluctant to visit Beijing, especially with the current mounting tension, I realize it may be my last chance to visit this ancient country. Surmounting my preconceived prejudices I book a flight. Our friends, the Simons have been on assignment in Beijing for the past year and I’ve arranged to stay in their guest room. It seems a safe enough trip to make alone, or so I convince myself.
I wait anxiously, hoping China will open its doors soon, before we must return to New York.
On the humid, airless morning of June 12, Lew and Carol Simon call saying “Board the earliest plane possible, now.” At last China has opened its flights but they could close again at any moment. Without thinking, I drop everything and call Dennis, my husband at the time. Then I call my travel agent to repurchase my ticket, take a taxi to the embassy and get the necessary visas reissued and finally drive off to Kai Tak Airport to catch the last flight of the day. Alone.
The evening sky is dark and the State owned CAAC Russian Antonov An-30 is filled with dark-eyed Chinese businessmen. There is neither a tourist nor a woman in sight. Undaunted I close my eyes, take a deep breath and walk to my assigned seat. My bags placed securely in the overhead compartment, I sit in my assigned seat and stare at my neatly folded hands. Desperate for a distraction, I think about my children and what they are doing tonight. I wonder if they are doing their homework or talking to friends. I miss their ready smiles and casual laughter yet I doubt they will miss me much. They are teenagers with lives of their own. The man next to me clears his throat then spits in his hand and wipes it on his pants. It’s bad enough they spit in the streets but in an airplane too! I close my eyes. The three hour flight will be longer than I expected. The tall Chinese steward says something in Mandarin, and we take off.
Three long hours later, at seven o’clock, I’m startled by the young steward once again. I look out the window into the darkened sky but see no bright city lights greeting us to one of the greatest cities on earth. I step out into the hot night air and walk across the tarmac and into the single terminal of the small Beijing Capital International Airport. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) waits, standing guard as we pass through the gray cement building. There are no pictures on the walls, except for Mao, few windows and no concession stands. It looks like a large prison cell. My nose stings with the smell of mold and years of dirt and decay. Rubble and trash lie piled in the corners. Although the building is only five years old, it looks as though it might collapse at any moment.
Officials stand at the perimeter, eyes hollow, listlessly watching the crowd, as though in a trance. I recognize their darkness and shudder.
Finally, Carol waves to me from outside. We have known each other almost eight years having met in Tokyo. She has two girls the same age as Kristen and Stacy, and our friendship is through our children’s. She is smart, witty, and above all a pragmatist. I admire her strength and resilience having raised two children in foreign countries while maintaining a successful career as a freelance political writer for the New Yorker and other international publications. Her fortitude makes me stronger.
I place my bags in the trunk of her small company car and we drive off to downtown Beijing. Their flat is on Chang’an Avenue and part of a cement block housing complex built by Russians for foreigners in the early 1950’s. Carol explains these four buildings are the only ones in all of Beijing with hot water and heat!
We take the rickety iron bar and glass elevator to their sixth floor flat. Their apartment is Spartan but functional and furnished with well-worn company furniture. The only beauty is an upright piano in the corner and Carol’s prized Pakistani rugs collected while on assignment in Pakistan many years ago. Their three bedrooms all face Chang’an Avenue, which feeds into Tiananmen Square, the same street where military tanks rolled down during the protests. It’s unnerving and eerie, laughing and dining so close to the Square where so many perished only days ago. Ghostly lights hover in the cautious air.
For the next hour we talk so intensely I wonder if there would be anything left to say during my five day visit, but Carol and Lew are shrewd adventurers with one eye always fixed on injustice and truth. Their opinions matter having covered so many of the world’s tumultuous ‘hot spots’.
It’s late, the oppressive heat exhausting, but I’m anxious to see Beijing. We clear the table, and then the three of us take the short walk down Chang’an Avenue to the third largest city square in the world.
There are no trees lining the avenue, only armed soldiers standing twenty feet apart with guns alarmingly aimed at us. There are no shops, no neon lights and no vendors. No capitalism anywhere! The street is devoid of anything recognizable. Nothing could’ve prepared me for this. It is deserted. The hustle bustle one would expect of a city with over six million people is non-existent. Beijing is a ghost town. Her people have vanished. In their place looms the visceral heaviness of fear and death, suspended in the still night air.
The street is swept almost obsessively, both by hand and with small mechanical sweepers. I wonder what terrifying memories they erase. In the distance the imposing Square is being washed repetitively by a pair of compact water trucks, even more memories expunged. The giant poster of Mao, the Monument to the Peoples Heroes’, Mao Zedong’s Mausoleum, the National Museum of China and the Great Hall of the People all clean. Beyond Tiananmen Gate lies The Forbidden City and home to Ming Dynasty emperors. Insects, dirt, dogs, cats and even birds, have vanished. Yet the air wafts of violence. The thick silence constricts like wet cloth sticking to my skin and the sound of silent terror fills the Square. I wonder what shadowy truths lay beneath the pristine façade.
Communism and the Cultural Revolution of 1966 have destroyed any sense of history for these enduring people with a culture over twelve thousand years old. Religious temples, shops and markets, have disappeared and been replaced by faceless cement buildings without names. Each worn structure looks like the next. These ancient people have been broken by an indelible apathy poured into them through years of fear. I am a silent witness to an ancient culture at the precipice of death.
The late night is warm yet I am cold. We return to the safety of their barren flat. My senses now heightened, I notice a thin film of dirt everywhere. The gritty, fine sand sticks to my throat. It tightens as I grope for clean air. Carol explains Beijing lies on the edge of the Gobi Desert and the dust is suffocating at times. Sandy dirt sneaks through the cracks of the double paned windows leaving dirt in its’ wake, such a difference from the streets outside.
It is the morning of June 12th and the oppressive dry heat continues. Today we are off to see the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, the reason for my timely visit. Only an hour and a half car ride from Beijing Carol and I, her Egyptian neighbor Fatima and her five year old son Omar pack her ‘work unit car’ (no private cars are allowed in Beijing) and set out for our excursion with Carol’s driver at the wheel. Fatima tells me she and her husband recently arrived in Beijing with the Egyptian Embassy. Their official term is four years with no home visit until the end of their duty. Some diplomatic families from small or poor countries come for ten or fifteen years with no home returns. I wonder what kind of life she and others live with so little to fill their time. The isolation seems an unbearable sacrifice. I take a deep breath, and there at the bottom was my old friend, the visceral ‘falling’ feeling of deep emptiness. Breathless, I close my eyes and wait for the hollow pain of loneliness to pass.
We continue the drive in silence. The westward path is flat, filled with the resined air of pine and cedar and undulating green hills. The countryside is dotted with rice fields and small communes of vacant children and listless adults, bent dogs, mud, trash, weeds and stagnant ditches. We finally arrive in Badaling, the main to entrance to the Great Wall. After the long car ride I am in need of a bathroom and a woman shakes an irritated finger at me and points to the far side of the building. There before me are four thirty foot long trenches, like vegetable rows but filled with human excrement. Men, women and children are squatting or standing side by side and speaking altogether and relieving themselves. I cannot comprehend what I see yet there is no option. Throwing pride and shame to the wind and in my fashionable tight western, I join them. Dark eyes shift to watch the red haired stranger.
Finally, I look up and there it is! A cold chill races up my spine. The Great Wall has inspired me since I was a child. Its grandeur captures my breath as I stare in awe at this thirteen mile fortress. The largest manmade structure in the world is the pinnacle of freedom, illuminating the risks, endurance and tenacity it can take to guarantee peace and the human right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. The Wall stands stoic, a mirror of my own journey. I touch its’ coldness and feel power and struggle of such a simple people. Silver lichens, golden moss the screech of a crimson pheasant and the cool northern breeze: the view south is bright and full of light. I carve Marissa’s name, at her request, into the stone as thousands before me have done the same.
We move on reluctantly and head northwest for the Ming Tombs, the burial site of the sixteen Ming dynasty emperors. Lining the entrance of the boxed canyon are statues of guardian animals and officials. Most of the site has deteriorated from the harsh elements. Only one tomb has been excavated and restored but it too has slipped into decay. Excavation of any historical site today is forbidden except when necessary for rescue purposes only.
The next day at dawn on the thirteenth of June, I go out for a quiet morning walk before the city awakens. Perilously I take a few pictures of people sweeping and the stark gray buildings. In a moment of false courage I even try sneaking a picture of two armed guards with Assault rifles but I am spotted. Their black eyes glare as they walk towards me. Caught, I quickly turn away and move towards an alleyway.
They stop to exchange words then move on. I am lucky today.
The alley leads to the infamous Jiangoo Hotel, the colorful hangout for local expatriates, diplomats, journalists, professors and students. I stop for tea, grateful to have escaped the guard’s scrutiny.
That evening Carol, Lew and I meet McKinney Russell for dinner at the Szechuan Restaurant in the Palace Hotel not far from their flat. McKinney is the second in command at the American Embassy here but because of his seniority he has more authority than the Ambassador. His actual title is Head of Uses Information Services and he knows Scott Hallford, an acquaintance of ours from the American ‘embassy’ in Taiwan (AIT). Somehow McKinney thinks I am the Bureau Chief for Time magazine! I am not sure what or why the rumor started but he and others believe I am a journalist. For now I don’t dispute his misconceptions. It may be a cover Lew and Carol have devised for my safety.
The dinner conversation is lively with talk of the student’s protest last week, China’s emerging power “and how the recent crackdown would impact her future with the West. They speak of treachery, secret murders and the widespread arrests just before imposing martial law. “Many journalists have been expelled”, McKinney comments. “Those few remaining are forbidden to speak to anyone and have resorted to interviewing each other. It’s time for Americans to leave for now,” he continues.
It’s the early morning of the fourteenth of June and I leave tomorrow. The monsoon rains arrived last night and in spite of the dampness an inner percipience calls me to ride Carol’s bike one last time to Tiananmen Square. I want a picture of the giant poster of Mao hanging in the square and of Chang’an Avenue. The street is empty so I stop to take a quick photo. Out of nowhere I am instantly surrounded by four soldiers wearing armbands from the People’s Liberation Army, their Assault rifles aimed directly at me. They are no more than ten feet away. A silent scream wells inside me.
What happened next would change my life forever. As an American I took freedom and my own life for granted never imagining death by firing squad or a possibility or life in a Chinese prison for that matter.
My body turns cold. Do I stay or run, fight or flight? Running could mean a gunshot in my back. My mind races with terror but I can’t understand what it’s thinking and I can’t keep up with my thoughts; blind panic, options, death, prison cell, freedom, family, my cats flash before me. “Stop”, comes the inner scream. I remember as a young child my father taught me when faced with a ferocious, snarling dog, to remain calm, drop to your knees in humility, meet its eyes and beg friendship. It’s different when you are looking down a rifle barrel, but I try his advice. Feigning confidence I rapidly explain in English my passionate regard for photography and that I am unaware of the illegality of a moving vehicle to stop while driving through the square. Their eyes wild with fear, rage and confusion, their arms flail in the air and begin yelling at me in Mandarin. I speak a little of their language yet understand nothing they scream. “More humility”, I urge myself. Once again I claim the naïve tourist. A mistake! My father never explained what to do if his wisdom failed and the angered dog decided to attack.
Enraged, they care little of what I say. They can’t understand me nor seem to believe anything I say. Frantic with fear I worry they have become unpredictable. I look for help but there is no one. The streets are deserted. It is just them and me.
They begin to argue, yelling between themselves, all the while thrusting their rifles in the air. They seem unsure what to do with the forbidden foreigner. I am now so frightened I’ve lost all sense of feeling and am reliant upon the psychic instinct of self-preservation. They continue arguing. As I watch and listen my escape plan begins to emerge.
With my life hanging in the balance, I pantomime deep and humble apologies for my audacious stupidity, cautiously place my camera back into the backpack and promise no more picture taking. Suddenly, the soldier nearest me leaps forward, grabs the camera, rips out the film then hands the camera back. They continue to fight amongst themselves as I slide onto the bicycle and unnoticed, ride off ever so slowly. I escape before their eyes. I looked back once. They never followed as I raced back to Carols’ flat.
Tonight is my last and denial of the day’s events propels me through the evening. We are dining with a small group of Belgian and Indian diplomats Carol and Lew know. The conversation is again lively and opinionated, with discussions of the ‘Tiananmen Square Massacre’, which it is now being called.
These diplomats are convinced the students were the cover in a coup attempt to take over the Communist ruling government! They suspect blanks were used in the beginning as they saw only fifty or so bodies in the actual square. Yet that night, when all lights went out at four in the morning, the relentless and unforgiving shots began in earnest. For two hours the incessant gunfire never stopped. Lew and Carol heard it all. They saw the students rounded up by tanks, ushered behind the National Museum then heard the systematic gunfire of continuous executions. “Thousands died that night in the slaughter,” one said. Lew and Carol watched from their bedroom window as the square turned red with blood. I am sickened with disbelief, despair and grief. The students’ restless struggle had summoned a collective courage within the people of Beijing as they rose to face the oppressive regime. Yet their bravery was crushed by war tanks and machine guns. How could this happen? How many more must to perish before their voices heard? Tonight I sleep with a heavy heart.
Light breaks through the moonless night and I am off to the airport. Yet another sunless day and I wonder how many are like this. After checking in for my flight back to Hong Kong, a young woman begins to approach me. She says her name is Sandra. She is a journalist for CNN. “In my hand”, she whispers, “is a newsreel of live coverage of the massacre that took place behind the National Museum the night of June 4th. I filmed this myself”. Could she have the eye witness proof others had only suspected to be true, of the slaughter of hundreds, if not thousands of unarmed civilians? “I need to get this to the United States and CNN where it can be broadcast for the world to see. This is proof of what happened that night behind the National Museum.” Relentless and firm, she clearly had made up her mind that I am the right person for the mission. Her goal now was to convince me. Sandra’s bold audacity shows me that previous attempts to get them out of China had failed. To approach me, a complete stranger, to carry her ‘prize’ home, means she is desperate and out of options.
There is a fine line between stupidity and even greater stupidity yet I stand there and continue listening. I can’t walk away. I think back upon the incidents of the past few days as my courage is once again challenged. A pragmatic “No” screams inside.
Sandra and I are in the center of the small, militarized terminal. Anyone can be watching and take action at any moment—guards, staff, agents. Again I remember the rifles pointed in my face, the dark eyes of fear and the courageous people who have perished for freedom; the Great Wall. I think of other countries fighting today for their independence, and reflect upon my own struggles.
Will you help get me out of prison if I’m caught?” I ask.
“You won’t,” she argued. “You are traveling alone as a female tourist. They won’t suspect you. Someone will meet you as soon as you get off the plane. You will never see them. Carry the reels loosely in your left hand and they will be taken from you. You will never know who it is but they will know you.”
Weighing my options with care, my confidence is sealed; I somehow find the courage to risk life one last time. With reluctance, I nod yes and Sandra hands me the newsreel. Without another word I take the black bag, turn and with head down, walk through the terminal. Alone again.
To board the plane I must pass through the customs exit declaration attendant yet the reels are in a large flat nylon bag about two feet square. “Stay calm. I’m on a mission,” I convince myself. The vision of a cold, dark prison flashes through my mind. If caught with this film I may never be seen or heard from again. That is not an option.
“I see you declared, Mrs. Bishop, two fans and a scarf,” stated the customs agent with a piercing stare. “Do you have anything else to declare?”
Without hesitation and with equal confidence and intensity I meet his eyes and lie, “No”. With that, he stamps my exit visa and passport. I walk onto the tarmac and never look back.
Once in Hong Kong it is easy for CNN to identify me, the only woman on the return flight. The pass off happens just as Sandra said it would. I don’t see who takes the black case. He or she fades into the crowd with ease, a clandestine handoff well executed. Just like that, in a moment, it’s over. No thank you or even a nod. It’s done. Grateful to be home on safe soil, grateful for my freedom and my life, and grateful for the opportunity to help, I feel proud to be an American.
Today the People’s Republic of China still suppresses all public mention of the student protests and of the atrocities occurring that infamous night on the fourth of June, 1989. All memory eradicated, washed away. Yet the world remembers as we helplessly bore witness to the horrific slaughter caught on CNNs’ film.
After years repressing the events of that trip, I can now look back on the time and acknowledge the part I played in China’s unfolding story. I realize the magnitude of relentless terror that engulfed me each day and night during my visit, and the risks I took. It was the cathartic moment in my life when I said “I can do this” for CNN. I can live my own life, find my path and succeed-no matter the uncertainty. My trip to China, and the shocking events that unfolded, solidified the courage I needed in the coming years of my own discontent, to confront the new and unknown worlds in my journey home.
Excerpt From
Stories from the Crowd
Scott Ballew
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