Tiananmen Square
Over the past three or so weeks, I’ve had to pleasure of getting to know a lovely young Chinese woman who goes by the name of Hetty. She has been living in Mexico for 5 years and is currently working on a collaborative effort (an Asian institute here in Merida) with Alex’s little brother. It seems that the Barrera Ruiz residence receives people from all over the world (his brother’s friends from Germany, Austria and now China and myself, American). Even Alex’s mother was joking the other day about forming a mini UN in her house. Anyhow, that’s besides the point….
During my conversations with Hetty (her English nickname, many Chinese adopt English names to facilitate communication), I’ve been my usual inquisitive self. I’ve asked about Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other controversial issues. I’ve also asked about religious beliefs and cultural practices. She was telling me last night about the Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four and Mao Zedong. And of course there’s been talk of the Beijing Olympics and even trying to learn a few phrases of Chinese. I had her translate an email I received in Chinese from the Beijing Olympic committee (I applied to volunteer) to see if her translation could help clarify the misleading English portion of the email. It has been an enlightening experience for me as I find myself entirely too ignorant about the Orient and I’m dying to learn more.
Alex recently mentioned to her the massacre of Tiananmen Square. She looked at him with an expression of confusion on her face. It turns out that this moment of Chinese history has been eliminated from public access. So Hetty, with her own curiosities did some homework on the issue. From her internet searches, apparently many documents were destroyed and information on the massacre cannot be accessed within the country. Google was asked to remove any links from their Chinese website. I could see her newfound enlightenment left a look of deception on her face. Chinese people are very proud of their country and will often speak in favor of their nation. To see that something so profound is being hidden from the general public disturbed her. This began a discussion on what governments (and by this I refer to all countries, not specifically to mine) hide and whether or not they should expose controversial events of the past.
Tiananmen Square occurred almost 20 years ago, in my opinion this information should be disclosed to the citizens of China. How can China or any country for the matter learn from history (and by history I refer to the least biased version possible) if they do not know the past?
I can understand why specific events or projects may be temporarily considered classified to protect the public. However, over time I think we all deserve the right know our country’s history, both good and bad. Again, if we don’t know what our mistakes are, how can we ever learn from them?
During my conversations with Hetty (her English nickname, many Chinese adopt English names to facilitate communication), I’ve been my usual inquisitive self. I’ve asked about Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other controversial issues. I’ve also asked about religious beliefs and cultural practices. She was telling me last night about the Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four and Mao Zedong. And of course there’s been talk of the Beijing Olympics and even trying to learn a few phrases of Chinese. I had her translate an email I received in Chinese from the Beijing Olympic committee (I applied to volunteer) to see if her translation could help clarify the misleading English portion of the email. It has been an enlightening experience for me as I find myself entirely too ignorant about the Orient and I’m dying to learn more.
Alex recently mentioned to her the massacre of Tiananmen Square. She looked at him with an expression of confusion on her face. It turns out that this moment of Chinese history has been eliminated from public access. So Hetty, with her own curiosities did some homework on the issue. From her internet searches, apparently many documents were destroyed and information on the massacre cannot be accessed within the country. Google was asked to remove any links from their Chinese website. I could see her newfound enlightenment left a look of deception on her face. Chinese people are very proud of their country and will often speak in favor of their nation. To see that something so profound is being hidden from the general public disturbed her. This began a discussion on what governments (and by this I refer to all countries, not specifically to mine) hide and whether or not they should expose controversial events of the past.
Tiananmen Square occurred almost 20 years ago, in my opinion this information should be disclosed to the citizens of China. How can China or any country for the matter learn from history (and by history I refer to the least biased version possible) if they do not know the past?
I can understand why specific events or projects may be temporarily considered classified to protect the public. However, over time I think we all deserve the right know our country’s history, both good and bad. Again, if we don’t know what our mistakes are, how can we ever learn from them?