Tiananmen Square - Tank Man (travelogue poem)

Tiananmen Square – Tank Man
from Wikipedia



Tiananmen Square, known at The Gate of Heavenly Peace, located in the center of Beijing, the capital of China, was the oddest of odd tourist experiences of our entire trip. I kept wondering why I was there. Why were the other 200,000, mostly Chinese tourists, there? I am sure they were not there to celebrate the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 where an estimated several hundred to thousands of student and worker demonstrators were shot dead by Chinese troops on that infamous, hot Sunday afternoon of June 4th.To this Day, discussion, public or private, of the “military crackdown”, as the Chinese Government euphemistically calls it, is strictly prohibited in China. Our Tour guide warned us not to even discuss it among ourselves in fear of being overheard.

 

An untold number of ghosts

hover above Tiananmen Square

protesting in silence.

Tank Man still stands

brave among brave.




When we arrived at Tiananmen Square through a tunnel, under a busy street, we pushed into the square past Mao Zedong’s mausoleum (also known as Chairman Mao) surrounded by thousands upon thousands of devotees slowly shuffling, inching, their way for a reverent ten-second view of Chairman Mao’s preserved body.

 

Chairman Mao revered

now in death, in mythology

more than he could possibly

have been while alive.

Millions line up every year

to gaze at his mortal remains,

worshipped

for ten second intervals,

rushed by guards

to move along, move along.

Snapshots secured in memory,

no cameras allowed.

 

Just as a quick reminder, he was the Chinese communist revolutionary who became the founding father of the People's Republic of China, which he ruled as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from when it was established in 1949 until his death in 1976.



For me visiting Tiananmen Square was like going to a huge, full, crowded football stadium on a day when there was no football game scheduled, no cheerleaders practicing, no music piped in, no smell of hotdogs. We were there simply because of the hype that this was “a place of places” not to be missed but in fact, for me, it was just a big open square with a bunch of people, standing, squatting, mulling, smiling, taking pictures. Mind you the huge, sculptural, painted flower pot, thirty to forty feet tall, in the middle of the square was impressively large and made quite a striking presentation. Anything smaller would have disappeared in the vastness of the open space.

 



“A place of places?” maybe not

but the huge flower pot

standing forty feet tall

says something about clemency,

peace and forgiveness.

This might actually have been

what was strived for

by the redemptive designers.




Despite the throng of people Tiananmen Square felt empty to me, void of warmth, culture and even history. It was like you were there to see the Emperor’s new clothes – hmm no new clothes – not even the Emperor was there.  I feel like I was sold a bill of goods and dragged to see the vastness of nothing. I am willing to say that maybe, just maybe I didn’t understand something significant.



Granted you could see “The Great Hall of the People”, a kind of Chinese parliament building, located at the western edge of Tiananmen Square. On the other side the majestic, stately “National Museum of China” proudly faces the Great Hall of the People.  The strange thing is that there was not a soul to be seen in front of either impressive building. Everyone seemed to rather be in Tiananmen Square, contained, focused.



Soldiers,

riot gear

at their feet.

Poised, ready

for any eventuality.

 



Well back to the football field analogy. Even though I am not a big football fan, I could kind of imagine a bunch of football fans showing up to an empty stadium just to sit and imagine the history of the football league.  In the distance there might have been a huge picture of a revered football player that you have never seen and will never get to see and for me never care to see. Well sticking with the, somewhat flawed analogy, you admire this figure simply because others and history have admired their accomplishments and maybe are worthy of admiration.

 

So here we were roaming around

the world’s seventh largest

public square taking pictures

of people taking pictures

so we could go home and say

we were in the very place where

“The Tank Man” stood down

a Chinese tank

on that day of shame.



Richard M. Grove/Tai