stopped me right there on the sidewalk next to the campus’s official message board.
“This isn’t good,” he said, pointing to a newly posted white sign.
“The Communist Party has made a decisive decision to crack down on counterrevolutionaries,” I read aloud. “We urge these leaders of the illegal organization to surrender.”
“Isn’t that you?” he asked. “You’re the main leader. They’regoing to arrest you!” Dan and I both were a little rattled after our incident with the police.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I assured him. “It just says I need to surrender. If they’d wanted to arrest me, they would’ve done it back home.”
And so, I scurried off to find if the other student leaders were still around or if they’d gone home. I found about six others, and we made the trek to the police station, walking slowly as we tried to figure out what would happen. Would we be arrested? Would we be interrogated? Would they try to deny the truth of what some of our group had seen with their own eyes?
“So what did you see?” I asked the others to make sure I understood the basic outline of the story. As they had done when I was there, the students had set up barricades to block the tanks from entering the square. At about 10:30 p.m. on June 3, the army fired live bullets at the protestors. Later that night, after midnight, they completely broke through using tanks and armored personnel carriers. Many people were killed. Reports from the government were that no one had died. I knew for a fact that Heidi’s graduate school advisor had an eighteen-year-old son who was at the protest. He was shot to death on his mother’s birthday. I also knew that a tank pushed over the goddess of democracy statue, its hand and torch breaking off when it struck the ground. We knew the military had been watching the protests, but we never anticipated this. Not an actual massacre.
“Looks like they’re ready for us,” a friend said, nodding to a sign that read, “Illegal Organization Leaders Surrender This Way.”
In spite of the grave circumstances, we nervously chuckled. That was not the kind of sign we saw every day.
Obediently, we followed the markings, and I tried to calm myself. I was in a better position than most. First of all, I wasn’t even there at the time of the massacre. Second of all, I had acted in accordance with my school’s administration and our studentbody. I’d defied no one locally, and I hadn’t done anything wrong. After all, we were simply advocating for truth.
“Sit down,” a policeman barked when we walked in. “What have you done?” he said to our group collectively, without waiting for a response. I’d come in ready to defend myself, but apparently the police were not interested in negotiating.
“You all need to register as counterrevolutionaries,” he explained. First, he took our fingerprints, and I felt like a criminal. Then he slammed a form in front of each of us. “Fill these out.”
I picked up the pen, and began to carefully fill in the blanks—my name, age, hometown, parents’ names. It was the first time I’d filled in a form since my mother’s death, and I felt a pang in my heart as I wrote her name on the piece of paper. What would she think of this ? I wondered. For a couple of silent hours, we were left with these forms staring at us in the face. We were forced to write general descriptions of how we were involved in the protests, when we started, and why. Finally, the agent came back into the room, collected our papers, and told us to stand.
“Go back to your school,” he said. But I had a feeling this was far from over. “Your administors will give you further instruction.”
The walk back to school was like a funeral procession.
“What have we done?” a friend lamented.
“What if they yank us from school?” another asked.
I almost tripped over the sidewalk when I heard that. The thought had never occurred to me. Getting removed from
“This isn’t good,” he said, pointing to a newly posted white sign.
“The Communist Party has made a decisive decision to crack down on counterrevolutionaries,” I read aloud. “We urge these leaders of the illegal organization to surrender.”
“Isn’t that you?” he asked. “You’re the main leader. They’regoing to arrest you!” Dan and I both were a little rattled after our incident with the police.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I assured him. “It just says I need to surrender. If they’d wanted to arrest me, they would’ve done it back home.”
And so, I scurried off to find if the other student leaders were still around or if they’d gone home. I found about six others, and we made the trek to the police station, walking slowly as we tried to figure out what would happen. Would we be arrested? Would we be interrogated? Would they try to deny the truth of what some of our group had seen with their own eyes?
“So what did you see?” I asked the others to make sure I understood the basic outline of the story. As they had done when I was there, the students had set up barricades to block the tanks from entering the square. At about 10:30 p.m. on June 3, the army fired live bullets at the protestors. Later that night, after midnight, they completely broke through using tanks and armored personnel carriers. Many people were killed. Reports from the government were that no one had died. I knew for a fact that Heidi’s graduate school advisor had an eighteen-year-old son who was at the protest. He was shot to death on his mother’s birthday. I also knew that a tank pushed over the goddess of democracy statue, its hand and torch breaking off when it struck the ground. We knew the military had been watching the protests, but we never anticipated this. Not an actual massacre.
“Looks like they’re ready for us,” a friend said, nodding to a sign that read, “Illegal Organization Leaders Surrender This Way.”
In spite of the grave circumstances, we nervously chuckled. That was not the kind of sign we saw every day.
Obediently, we followed the markings, and I tried to calm myself. I was in a better position than most. First of all, I wasn’t even there at the time of the massacre. Second of all, I had acted in accordance with my school’s administration and our studentbody. I’d defied no one locally, and I hadn’t done anything wrong. After all, we were simply advocating for truth.
“Sit down,” a policeman barked when we walked in. “What have you done?” he said to our group collectively, without waiting for a response. I’d come in ready to defend myself, but apparently the police were not interested in negotiating.
“You all need to register as counterrevolutionaries,” he explained. First, he took our fingerprints, and I felt like a criminal. Then he slammed a form in front of each of us. “Fill these out.”
I picked up the pen, and began to carefully fill in the blanks—my name, age, hometown, parents’ names. It was the first time I’d filled in a form since my mother’s death, and I felt a pang in my heart as I wrote her name on the piece of paper. What would she think of this ? I wondered. For a couple of silent hours, we were left with these forms staring at us in the face. We were forced to write general descriptions of how we were involved in the protests, when we started, and why. Finally, the agent came back into the room, collected our papers, and told us to stand.
“Go back to your school,” he said. But I had a feeling this was far from over. “Your administors will give you further instruction.”
The walk back to school was like a funeral procession.
“What have we done?” a friend lamented.
“What if they yank us from school?” another asked.
I almost tripped over the sidewalk when I heard that. The thought had never occurred to me. Getting removed from
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