Tian'anmen Today

CNN has an article about how young people in China don't have any opinions on the 1989 massacre at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing. The article asks whether their apathy is real - that they just don't care, or if it is in line with the Chinese concept of putting up a front - for everything.

Sure, CNN did some interviews of students saying that politics in China is dirty and everyone wants to stay away. But I think it's obvious that the government doesn't want it's young people to know what happened...

Suggesting that Tian'anmen is anything but a community square for Mao-worship and hanging out with the family (one child per, please) is like treason. Don't talk about these things, people.

This past year, I informed a young Chinese friend of what the rest of the world associates with Tian'anmen. It was a rough evening for both of us. He couldn't believe he had never, ever heard of this before. He was outraged that it has been so covered up in his country. And I felt really weird for showing him that almost everything he's known his whole life might possibly be a conspiracy.

Of course the young people don't know. And if they do, why should they care, because no one else around them has ever mentioned it before.