Tiananmen Square, June 4, 1989 by Dai Wang
From MemoryArchive
Who: Dai Wang What: My brother and his fight for China When: June 4, 1989 Where: Beijing, China
I tell this story for my brother, who is no longer alive to tell his tale.
My name is Dai, and when I was a young boy my mother and I left my brother and my father and moved to California. We had always thought that we would be able to send for the rest of my family, but by the time we could afford it, my brother no longer wanted to leave his China. My brother Hu was in the Chinese military. He stayed in China his entire life, and was very proud of his country and the fact that he lived in a Communist country. He grew up in a very small town in the central provinces, and was moved to Beijing in late 1986 at the order of the Government of the People’s Republic of China.
His primary function was to control traffic along the Monument to the People’s Heroes. He was to make sure nothing bad happened to the monument and that people treated it with the respect that it deserved. His job was easy and important and he liked it. He was really good with people, and got to spend much of his free time talking with tourists from all over China and the world. He learned to say the scripture written on the monument in five languages, and was very proud that he could say it in English. “Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people's war of liberation and the people's revolution in the past three years! Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people's war of liberation and the people's revolution in the past thirty years! Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who from 1840 laid down their lives in the many struggles against domestic and foreign enemies and for national independence and the freedom and well-being of the people!" He could often also go over to Mao Zedong’s mausoleum and help his friends who worked there.
While in Beijing, my brother began to hear more and more anti-communist sentiment, and this bothered him. He loved his country and his government. In 1987, when the riots began to occur in Tiananmen Square, my brother eagerly arrested many of the protestors that were there causing havoc to the government. Arrests occurred almost every day. Beijing has a large college population, and they often gathered in the government’s space to do protests, which were not allowed.
June 4, 1989, was to be the day that Hu would truly become helpful to his country. For what seemed like many months, protests had been going on heavily in the Square. People were being taken to prison every day, and on the next, more were there to take their place. My brother was too far away to see the small crowd that had initially gathered that morning, but by noon, it was almost chaos. Thousands upon thousands of students crowded into Tiananmen Square that day. Many were shouting anti-communist slogans. There were signs up angrily demanding a free press, and the protestors were not afraid to be violent. Many of the people at the protest had formerly committed treason against the government, and were not allowed to be in the Square. They began to get violent once the police and the military began to move in on the square in an attempt to restore order.
The militia, at first was overwhelmed. They had not received any orders on what to do if the people began to attack the other peoples. They had always known, that if they buildings they were protecting were harmed, then the first thing to do to the person was shoot to kill. It was their job. The men were not prepared for so many people. As crowds began swarming the monuments and the halls of the great leaders, many of the men just closed their eyes and began firing. My brother was one of those people. He always said that the first shot was the easiest shot to take. He did it because that is what he was told to do, and he didn’t think about the fact that he was firing on his own people. After that, firing was not so easy. He began to look for people in the crowd that perhaps looked like they weren’t from Beijing or was at least a minority. After that became too difficult, and no longer seemed to be getting the people away from him, he too closed his eyes and began firing.
He heard the tanks rolling in above the roar of the crowd, and always said it was the most beautiful sounds he had ever heard. Many of the students ran away from the monument and were trying to get into the main action of the square. For the first and only time in his career, my brother left the statue and began chasing the students into the square. He wasn’t firing at this point, he doesn’t think, he just wanted to make sure that the students weren’t going to get into the legislative chambers. He had a long way to run and had to push through a lot of people to get to the doors. The Monument to the People’s Heroes was on the edge of the square. He never did remember actually running from one edge of the square to the other, but he knows he got near many other police officers and the tanks, and waited for more commands on what to do.
As he awaited these commands, a man from the crowd tried to steal his gun. Hu would not have this, and tried to fight the man. The man held a rock in his hand, and hit my brother on the head with it. Another police officer saw this happen, and got the man who had hurt my brother. My brother crawled enough out of the way that he would not get trampled and waited for someone on the ambulance unit to come and get him and get him healthy.
My brother was able to watch from his medical cart when the cease fire occurred. The military had gained enough of the ground that the protestors were dispersing and there was some semblance of control again. The lady in the ambulance unit said that Hu had received an honorable concussion that day, and he was allowed to return to work 5 days later when he had healed. He was very excited to get to call America and tell me about what had happened. My mother and I had never heard him as proud as he was that day.
My brother died in 1994, comfortably at home after a car accident. He always said that Tiananmen Square was one of his most proud moments. My family is very proud of what he did for our country.
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