It’s been about a year since I was on this site. Look at all those shiny new smilies. Impressive.
Okay, here’s my question. I was talking to a “mainland” Chinese cultural attache to my home country, and, questioning trouble-maker that I am, I asked about the prospect of democracy in China and a bunch of other questions that arrogant, pesky foreigners often gravitate to. The subject of Tiananmen came up, and I mentioned the tank man. This individual told me that the tank man also had great signficance to people in China as they had all seen him on TV. But, you see, I really doubt that. I have read that the CCP has gone to great lengths to expunge any Tiananmen imagery from “the Internets,” and I can’t imagine that people watched it on TV like we did in the morally devoid West. In fact, I have read that virtually no one in China could possibly know who the tank man is, as in: never saw the footage/pictures.
So, my question to you is: was this person lying? (They certainly lied about other things.) Does anyone happen to know if footage from Tiananmen Square was broadcast into Chinese living rooms?
It’s a long shot, but this is the place to ask.
How’s everyone doin’? And how is old Taiwan these days?
It’s been about a year since I was on this site. Look at all those shiny new smilies. Impressive.
Okay, here’s my question. I was talking to a “mainland” Chinese cultural attache to my home country, and, questioning trouble-maker that I am, I asked about the prospect of democracy in China and a bunch of other questions that arrogant, pesky foreigners often gravitate to. The subject of Tiananmen came up, and I mentioned the tank man. This individual told me that the tank man also had great signficance to people in China as they had all seen him on TV. But, you see, I really doubt that. I have read that the CCP has gone to great lengths to expunge any Tiananmen imagery from “the Internets,” and I can’t imagine that people watched it on TV like we did in the morally devoid West. In fact, I have read that virtually no one in China could possibly know who the tank man is, as in: never saw the footage/pictures.
So, my question to you is: was this person lying? (They certainly lied about other things.) Does anyone happen to know if footage from Tiananmen Square was broadcast into Chinese living rooms?
It’s a long shot, but this is the place to ask.
How’s everyone doin’? And how is old Taiwan these days?
Ed [/quote]
AKAIK there was zero footage broadcast locally. I travelled in southern China in the weeks following 6/4 and people were constantly asking me what the hell was going on in Beijing. They had no real idea; just some rumors about some trouble and some shooting.
I was in southern China (Guizhou) the following spring, and most people I talked to had a pretty good idea of what happened i.e.massacre of students in Tiananmen Square; don’t know specifically about the tank guy- their attitude was not happy, but whaddya gonna do? You can’t fight City Hall.
When I was working in Shanghai there were often periods when the internet got slower and more censored. Once I asked one person at work about it and he said at the time we were approaching the June 4 incident anniversary and that’s why things were slow.
I took the opportunity to ask what he knew about the incident. He was only 24 (he’s now about 27) so he was a young child at the time. He said that he knew about it, knew that there were people who got hurt when they complained about the government, but said that this would never change in China and there was no point doing anything about it. He read about it in the internet but since it was all now a long time ago it wasn’t really relevant and didn’t really study it in detail.
The point is that people do know about what happened, some may know about tank man, but few actually think it is at all important. China has moved on immensely since 1989 - no one there thinks that the events that happened there has any bearing on their lives now
Santayana said it best: When experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
PLA’s General Political Department officially released a 1/2 hour “documentary” on their version of 6/4. The “tank man” clip was included as part of that film. He was described as a “hoodlum”. You can find the first ten minutes here: PLA Film (tank man appears at 6:42). Parts 2 and 3 are also on youtube. This film was shown on CCTV.
If they thought there was a massacre of students in Tiananmen Square then they did not have a pretty good idea of what happened.
The film was released not long after the June 4 events and was moreorless compulsory viewing for everyone. I saw part of it in London in 1989. However it later became unavailable. In 1993 I went directly to the distributor’s outlet near Tiananmen Square in Beijing to buy a copy but they denied there was any such film. When I insisted, they said remaining copies were in the warehouse and not for sale.
