共和國的土壤上有我們付出的愛.
(This is probably the worst thing I've written about Tiananmen in all these years. All apologies to those who gave up their lives. You deserve much better from myself.)
In midst of all my personal battles that I am losing at every turn, in the back of my mind is that in a few short hours here in the Pacific standard time zone, it will be June 4th, yet again. I make it a point to always write on this date, as my small, small way of paying tribute to what happened seventeen years ago in Tiananmen Square.
Through the years, I think that anything I have to say about Tiananmen has already been said. It's amazing to watch China progress at its current rate, to be bandied about as the next superpower and yet so many there either know nothing about June 4th or refuse to publicly admit anything about June 4th. June 4th to someone my age is the most despicable thing that the government of the PRC has done. Unfortunately, there are many more from where that came from.
It's weird because in a way, if I hear others criticising China, a defense mechanism kicks in, where I automatically defend her, yet the same things that people say about China are things that I've said and thought, too. I've always had a rather love/hate relationship with the Mainland. On one hand, I think that as Chinese people, whether we're Mainlanders, Hong Kongers or Taiwanese, we should stick together. Then again, I know we're all different and we all sort of dislike each other for a myriad of reasons, some appropriate, such as the 228 Incident or the Central Government's (PRC) handling of SARS.
It's so weird because every year I think that June 4th is less significant to me than it was the previous year and that for once, I won't be crying when I basically have 血染的風采 (Grace of Our Bloodstain) playing on a loop.
Every year, I'm wrong.
(For Hong Kong, I can only hope that before I die, that someday we will have a real democracy where if we make mistakes, at least they're OUR mistakes to make.)
In midst of all my personal battles that I am losing at every turn, in the back of my mind is that in a few short hours here in the Pacific standard time zone, it will be June 4th, yet again. I make it a point to always write on this date, as my small, small way of paying tribute to what happened seventeen years ago in Tiananmen Square.
Through the years, I think that anything I have to say about Tiananmen has already been said. It's amazing to watch China progress at its current rate, to be bandied about as the next superpower and yet so many there either know nothing about June 4th or refuse to publicly admit anything about June 4th. June 4th to someone my age is the most despicable thing that the government of the PRC has done. Unfortunately, there are many more from where that came from.
It's weird because in a way, if I hear others criticising China, a defense mechanism kicks in, where I automatically defend her, yet the same things that people say about China are things that I've said and thought, too. I've always had a rather love/hate relationship with the Mainland. On one hand, I think that as Chinese people, whether we're Mainlanders, Hong Kongers or Taiwanese, we should stick together. Then again, I know we're all different and we all sort of dislike each other for a myriad of reasons, some appropriate, such as the 228 Incident or the Central Government's (PRC) handling of SARS.
It's so weird because every year I think that June 4th is less significant to me than it was the previous year and that for once, I won't be crying when I basically have 血染的風采 (Grace of Our Bloodstain) playing on a loop.
Every year, I'm wrong.
(For Hong Kong, I can only hope that before I die, that someday we will have a real democracy where if we make mistakes, at least they're OUR mistakes to make.)