2388: Connecting Vocabularies, The Diary

The following are selected excerpts from Stefan Umærus diary, originally written by hand day by day in the months preceding June 4th, 1989.

1989, 22nd of May, Monday.

Two days ago, from 10 o'clock Saturday the 20th of May, martial law was declared in Beijing, at present of no consequence. At dawn trucks with soldiers aimed for Beijing came from provinces in China. Figures vary: 500 vehicles, 10 000 soldiers - the BBC mentions several 100 000. Soldiers had not read newspapers for a week, did not know the situation and had been told in advance it was an exercise. The trucks were stopped by citizens of Beijing, mainly students, informing them of the situation. Soldiers had advanced as far as Gong Zhu Fen, a crossroad and subway station connecting the Changan Jie and the third ring road, but withdrew to suburban Beijing, and have still not advanced into the city center and Tiananmen square, where tens of thousands of students are on hunger strike.

On the 24th of April I, attended a rally at Bei Da, short for Beijing University. Student leaders called for a revitalization of Bei DA traditions in political campaigning. Representatives of various faculties where presented, some infighting occurred. The mood of the students gathered in the newly built sports arena was subdued, and mingled with fear, though the demands had widespread support. Walls in and outside Bei DA are covered with hand written bulletins and sometimes witty descriptions of the state of the country, using foreign cigarette covers and the like to describe the situation. What is the state of the people? CAMEL. What is the state of the Chinese business man? AMERICAN BLEND NO.1.

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The last days of April, I went to Hangzhou, where news were scarce about events in Beijing, though the movement exists in many cities. On leaving Beijing, I saw trucks loaded with soldiers heading north along the third ring road - young boys with shaved heads, in green uniform and with blank faces. Public transportation, buses and subways were overcrowded. Beijing buses with normal rush hours capacity of 13 persons per square meter were overcrowded and did not stop, people throwing bottles at them. I was later told, by a friend, that this was the 38 army, jointly called in by the government and military headquarters, not only because of student demonstrations, but to prevent mutiny in Beijing regiments.

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The days and nights to come saw massive crowds streaming to Tiananmen, where the square had the appearance of a refugee camp. Young students on hunger strike were lying under temporary shelters - tents and umbrellas. They were organized over the square in groups belonging to different institutes, schools and universities, all under their own flag. Crows of curious and supportive Beijing residents filled the pavements and nearby streets. Bicycles were stacked in the corners of the square. Every second minute an ambulance with screaming sirens shot through the crowd, helped through by students forming chains, arm in arm.

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When evening fell the electric lights along Beijing avenues and crossroads - sparsely lit - created a stage set in yellow, shadows patterning the high red wall around the Forbidden City, and the gray walls of ancient Beijing houses. Riding on bicycle from Tiananmen to the west and northwest I saw every intersection swarming with citizens waiting. Many were children, young women, or elderly. Traffic was directed by students - occasionally lorries passed by on their way to Tiananmen. Outside high risers along the Changan Jie people were shouting, demanding the resignment of Li Peng. Student agitators with small loudspeaker occupied street corners. Occasional groups were discussing under the street lamps

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Many were waiting at the intersections, unarmed, standing on the simple barricades, on the road or on the pavement. At night people waiting by roadblocks looked very civilian and fragile, like swarming insects under the yellow streetlights. Slender girls sitting on the pulled out market stands in the middle of the road, foreign students walking down the white line in the middle of the road like exotic birds.

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In Haidian, the district in northwestern Beijing where universities and institutes are concentrated, housing students by the thousands in squalid dormitories, the white washed walls are black with finger prints, cement floors are constantly dirty, trash piles up along the rows of thin doors, all numbered. In austere cellar like rooms Chinese student live, often five to six in one small room, where they share a table. Laundry dries on zigzag wires strung between the beds.

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By now, Monday the 22nd of May, rumors abound about conflicts in the government. The crowds demand the resignation of Li Peng and Deng Xiaoping. Zhao Ziyang, who visited the hunger striking students some day after they begun - and with tears in his eyes held a speech, making an excuse for his being late, said the students were very young; their health should not be hazarded, and said hospitals and the Red Cross should be on the alert, is absent from official exposure, either by force or because of bad health. Zhao Ziyang is a member of the standing committee of the communist party. According to my friend a suggestion was made in the standing committee that demands of the students should be met - the sons of Li Peng held as examples to quell accusations of corruption in government bodies - other demands should also be met. The proposition was voted down.

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1989, 24th of May, Wednesday.

Wonderful weather, clear blue soft skies. At night no roadblocks are in the street. Near the Shangrila Hotel, a small crowd is gathered outside a captured trolley bus. A young woman ceaselessly reads texts through a small loudspeaker attached to the bus window corner. The voice carries much poignancy, less emotion, which is my general impression of student agitators in street corners. In daytime at Tiananmen the square looks much the same as the preceding days. The crowd has diminished in numbers and the piled up garbage is more apparent. The Red Cross warns there is a risk of epidemics.

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Beijing this day is close to normal. Crowds go shopping up and down Wangfujing street, the Beijing shopping mall. Many visitors crowding the sidewalks are not Beijing residents. They come from all over China. Students arrive by train to Beijing to participate in the movement, not paying their way with tickets. At times smaller units of demonstrators pass by on the Changan Jie. Policemen are visible again in demonstratively clean white jackets, directing the traffic. The threat of an army invasion is less apparent, possible troops have withdrawn. The traffic during preceding days was directed by students with red headbands. They are gone. The police is directing the crowds on bicycle swarming along the Changan Jie, and the not too many cars along the broad avenue. Beijing this day is more pleasant emotionally. The atmosphere, usually experienced as a tight organizational grip over society, regulating every detail, is different.

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1989. 28th of May, Sunday.

I spent most of the day at Tiananmen with a Chinese friend. He helps me translate texts on banners. Groups of demonstrators encircle the square. Demonstrators shout they will march till Li Peng has hanged himself. The French nursery rhyme "Frere Jacques" is given a new text:

"Deng Xiaoping, Li Peng, there is another scoundrel called Jiang Qing."

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1989, 31th of May, Wednesday.

At present 150 000 in troops are supposed to surround Beijing. It is very quiet and calm at Bei Wai. The days are hot.

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1989, 3rd of June, Saturday.

Spent day going nowhere. China Daily says the army is on duty in the city center, around the railway station and Tiananmen. I have not seen it though.

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1989, 4th of June, Sunday.

Radio report ( Voice of America), says the 27th army used violence to take control of Tiananmen, tanks running over bodies of citizens lying on the ground, blocking the way. Tanks demolishing roadblocks, soldiers using automatic rifles firing into the crowd leaving at least 100 dead and several hundred wounded. Reports says soldiers were clearly prepared for more bloodshed, children and elderly being among the dead and wounded.

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By this time, 10-10:30 a.m. the situation, according to the radio has quieted down. After listening to the news I went to see a Chinese friend, first to see if he was alive, secondly get a clear narrative, or confirmation of events. My friend was alive and unhurt. I said: "I heard on V.O.A. the army finally attacked. I did not think it possible. "Do you believe it now?". he answered. He had returned from Xidan, located near the Minzu Hotel, along the Changan Jie. He said probably more than a hundred were dead, since clashes took place in several places, first at Gong Zhu Fen, at Xidan, and at Fuchengmen.

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My friend said soldiers first fired into the air above the heads of the people trying to block the way, then firing at random into the crowd killing and wounding very many. When bullets hit, he saw the brain explode, or the stomach coming out. Possibly bullets that explode when they hit the body were used, not only were young students falling bleeding to the ground, also children and elderly were killed this way. Also tear gas was used. For people in the street no escape was possible. Some tried to run away, but could not escape. Some approached the tanks trying to argue with the soldiers, and were shot down at close range.

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After the soldiers firing automatic weapons, tanks followed, crushing roadblocks, and running over the people trying to stop them with their bodies. Often bodies were run over several times.

The Chinese government declares the army has shown themselves to be pillars of the dictatorship of the proletariat, protecting the fruits of labor. The army attack is hailed as a great victory. The citizens at Tiananmen are declared to be class enemy, lawless, thugs and criminals engaged in counterrevolutionary activity.

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In the afternoon I walk with a friend to the school of National Minorities. Students stand silent in groups. They are in sorrow. Many in this school are dead. Photographs, stuck to a notice board, show dead students soaked in blood. Other photographs show a dead soldier stripped naked and strung with a wire around his neck to the window of a bus raged by fire. Funerals flowers are in windows, sorrow music plays over the loudspeakers.

Over the telephone one of my friends calls from Beijing Daxue, and tell me to leave the dormitory. "They are arresting people, it doesn't matter if they are foreigners or not. They are burning bodies in the square"

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