Candlelit Vigil

I did go to the Tiananmen Square vigil. It didn’t rain and Victoria Park was packed with people holding candles, their flames cupped in paper cones. The crowd was quiet and attentive. At a given signal everyone sat down like obedient children at a school assembly. At other times all the candles were held aloft. They looked like silver tulips nodding in the wind. Songs were sung and speeches heard. Applause was polite, respectful and the atmosphere attentive rather than rousing. All of it was in Puthongua. It was the only time I had ever attended a mass rally without understanding a word of what was being said. And yet it was surprisingly moving just to be a part of that collective demonstration. An exhibition at one end of the park displayed names and photographs of some of Tiananmen’s victims with an appeal by the Tiananmen Mothers’ group. Many mothers of the dead who came together in their search for truth and justice are now in their 70’s and 80’s and are still under surveillance by state security in Beijing for their perceived role in the 1989 protests.

One announcement was made in English. In 1990, at the first anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre 100,000 people gathered for the first candlelit vigil in Victoria Park. Yesterday at the 20th anniversary vigil, the announcer said, there were 150,000 people attending. I was glad to be one of them.