It’s the 18th anniversary of when “Tank Man” stood before the heavy metal during the seige following the Tiananmen Square Massacre, an extremely powerful image that brings to light not only the symbolic power of a single peaceful individual, but also the modern difference between how Google works in China vs. elsewhere in the world. Ah, the things we’ll do for market share. Frontline did a truely compelling episode on these events I urge everyone to see at some point.

I mean no disrespect to the friend involved in the following story, nor to the people of China either. I intend only to illustrate a point in how their logic works differently than my own: I actually stood in Tiananmen sq. in Jan ‘06 and tried to imagine those events that took place while I was still in high school. I asked my friend, over a decade younger than myself, what she thought about the events in the capital city at that time.

“I don’t know about these things. I’ve heard some things, but I don’t know what is true”, was her response. Keep in mind that from their view, westerners are people to not be entirely trusted. There is the lingering possibility that we are steeped in propaganda and capitalists eat their babies (possibly a metaphor that went awry…). I assured her the things did happen in the place where we stood, nearly 2 decades earlier. Keep in mind 90+% of Chinese nationals have never seen the image in this post, it made me think a lot about propaganda and control: perception trumps truth. Apply this line of thinking to your own culture.

So there in the Square is also Mao’s tomb which was really important to her that I see. I waited in line, actually was escorted to the head of the line by a power abusing official of some sort wanting a bribe, filed past the statue where the cultish devotees leave flowers, then saw the likeness of a human body in a crystal sarcophagus. Bizarre. But no bags nor cameras where allowed inside and so she waitied outside with my stuff while I toured.
Crossing a large road we headed into the Forbidden City, where there was no security check of any kind. When I pointed out the strangeness of this, she didn’t seem to see my point.
“But what if some crazy person where to bring a bomb into the Forbidden City?”
“We can always rebuild the Forbidden City”, she said. “But we have only one body of the chairman.”