Proceeding with Life

The man is outspoken. “I love China,” he tells me, “but government is shit.”

Because I am an outsider, people say things to me they do not say to others.

My friend and his wife are now in their 40’s. As I get to know them, I learn they were at the 1989 student protest on Tiananmen Square which ended with tanks rolling in.  The Chinese government denies that this happened.

“When the protest began, we were happy,” says the woman. They sat on the square and sang songs.  People made speeches. It was Woodstock with political overtones minus the drugs.  But a few days later, there was word that trouble was coming.  My friends elected to leave and survived.

Today, they are teachers.  The man belongs to the Communist Party, though he hates the system. They have made a life in this country.