Last month, in a small room at the back of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers Union headquarters in Mong Kok, eight students gathered to discuss their feelings towards the 1989 democracy movement.
Sitting around a small rectangular table in a cramped room, the eight students hesitatingly introduced themselves and revealed which universities they attended before expressing their feelings on a historical event they have rarely had the opportunity to discuss.
They drank tea and ate biscuits. All eight of them were only 20 years old.
Twenty years earlier, students from universities all over Beijing had descended upon Tiananmen Square to commemorate the death of Hu Yaobang and call for widespread reforms in a protest movement that ended with the crackdown on June 4.
Wang Dan, a history student at Peking University, who later topped a most wanted list for his involvement in the protest, had just turned 20.
Wuerkaixi, a student at Beijing Normal University, second on the wanted list, was 21.
Last month’s tea gathering was organised by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which hopes to stoke interest in the 1989 pro-democracy movement among students too young to remember it. The Y89 movement hopes to gather students born in 1989 to take part in commemorative events and take to the stage during the June 4 candle-light vigil to symbolise how the next generation will not forget.
But so far, only 60 students have joined, well short of the 200 originally hoped for.
Many blame the lack of awareness on the absence of structured teaching and the unwillingness of textbook publishers to dedicate space to such a sensitive topic.
Another factor dissuading greater participation is the stigma attached to being politically active. Young people who participate in the June 4 candle-light vigil are sometimes derided by their peers for “playing with candle wax”.
Despite the obstacles, activists are optimistic that by using technology, including the Web, along with the persistence of those who remember the events, the democracy movement will not be forgotten.
Li Yiu-kai, who is helping to organise the Y89 movement, admitted that recruiting participants has been difficult, and that at first, potential participants were worried about job prospects and whether they would be barred from the mainland.
Christina Chan Hau-man, who made headlines as a pro-Tibet protester who was hauled away while the Olympic torch relay passed through Hong Kong, is cited as an example of one who has been stigmatised because of her views.
Following her protest, she was denied entry to Macau under its internal security law even though she planned only to board a connecting flight that same day.
Furthermore, curiosity about her views turned to animosity, with both her e-mail and Facebook accounts being flooded with unwanted messages. “The guy who first organised the Facebook campaign with me - he just doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore,” said Ms. Chan. “I did think about leaving Hong Kong and never coming back.”
Judith Ngan Sin-ling, a 20-year-old Baptist University student, said that while she grew up in a family who cared deeply about the 1989 movement, it was only this year that she committed herself to participating in commemorative events. “I never felt it was something I couldn’t talk about because we talk about it all the time [at home]. But now I feel it is getting harder to talk about it, which is why I feel I need to do something,” she said.
Ms. Ngan has signed up to take to the stage at Victoria Park on June 4, but managed to persuade only one of her friends to take an interest. “It’s not that they laugh at me, but they just don’t care,” she said. Hong Kong Federation of Students Secretary General Crystal Chow Ching blamed a lack of education rather than discrimination for preventing young people from participating.
“The real problem is not the students themselves, but [the fact that the] education system does not encourage much discussion of this topic. The lack of information in the textbooks is the real problem,” Ms. Chow said.
Last month, the students’ union at City University published its monthly newspaper commemorating the anniversary. On its front page, it stated: “On June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party’s general secretary Hu Yaobang suddenly passed away.”
The two factual mistakes in the statement immediately raised concerns about the extent of student ignorance over the topic. Hu died on April 15, 1989, and was no longer the party’s general secretary.
Coverage of the crackdown in history textbooks for secondary students varies from just one sentence to two pages, with most of them labelling the crackdown as the “June 4 incident”.
One publication dismisses the several months of protests, political deliberations, and military crackdown in one short sentence: “The government suppressed the student movement.” In other textbooks, the “June 4 incident” is mentioned without further details and interested students must seek further information in the footnotes.
None of the textbooks say the People’s Liberation Army “opened fire”; only words like “armed interference” or “the army cleared Tiananmen Square” are used. There are no pictures of tanks, only of protesting students. None of the textbooks touch on casualties or the death toll. The Education Bureau said its curriculum development institute outlined a guide for each subject but also allowed editorial freedom for textbook publishers. Textbooks were important but were not the only references, the bureau stressed.
With limited information in textbooks, veteran Chinese history teacher Chan Hon-sum organises his own materials. Every year since the crackdown, Mr. Chan has spent a lesson showing footage from news reports at the time, displaying newspaper clippings and sometimes sharing with them his personal views on the crackdown.
“I am never too radical in class and the footage I show is just news reports,” he said, adding that he came under no pressure from the school as a result.
“The way I teach is similar to news reporting but I do not hide my personal views from them. I do tell them that I was aggrieved whenever I recall it,” said Mr. Chan, who has taught history for almost 30 years. “I think teachers can share with students their thoughts on the incident. It does not matter if students have opposite views ... what matters is that the facts cannot be washed away, particularly those having significant impact on the future.”
Ho Hon-kuen, deputy president of the pressure group Education Convergence and deputy principal of Elegantia College in Sheung Shui, shows news reports and film documentaries about the protests and crackdown every year.
Mr. Ho said the crackdown should be understood in the context of contemporary Chinese history. “It is not enough to talk about June 4. The [1919] May Fourth movement should also be taught. The crackdown has its origins and consequences,” he said.
With Chinese history textbooks generally avoiding the politically sensitive details of the crackdown, Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, vice-chairman of the alliance, worried that the younger generation would be misled: “They may think it was not something big or it was just a general social issue, which had no significant impact at all. Once they are out of school and realise the difference between what they learn and the fuller picture, they may misunderstand, and think that some people have magnified the whole thing,” he said.
However, Mr. Tsoi remained optimistic. “What we are doing is to guide them into making the first step. I hope they will make the second and the third step to discover the facts by themselves.”
Indeed, Mr. Li said that despite the disappointing reaction from 20-year-olds so far, those who had signed up had given him confidence that the memory of June 4 would not die.
Reflecting on the tea party last month, he said that despite initial nervousness, the students showed a deeper than expected knowledge. “You could tell that they understood this was not just an isolated event, but one that has implications for democratic development in China and Hong Kong” he said.
Mr. Li, who has also created the Y89 website which includes YouTube clips of events in 1989, said the internet had been one of the most significant factors in preserving June 4 in people’s consciousness. “Real images are always much better than our written texts,” he said, adding that the alliance was planning to adopt more new media technologies in its efforts to educate the public.
Even immigration obstacles for exiled dissidents will soon be overcome, with plans to hold video conferences, so the likes of Wang Dan can talk to students, Mr. Li said.
And despite their relative lack of activism compared to their counterparts in 1989, who joined hunger strikes and took donations to the protesters, Andrew To Kwan-hang, then-secretary general of the HKFS, said he was not overly concerned about today’s students. “The current crop of students may not even have been born then, or were just one or two years old; you can’t expect them to feel as strongly as we did, who saw and felt it first-hand,” he said.
He also noted that the students in 1989 did nothing extraordinary. “You have to remember that we did nothing except follow the public sentiment. We were not acting so differently from the rest of the population,” he said.
Nevertheless, he stressed that the role of a student leader, especially among those in the HKFS, was to “take the initiative”. Ms. Chow stressed that the HKFS understood its role as a leader of student movements, and would not waver in its commitment to vindicating the June 4 victims. “Our role is not only based on history and tradition, but it has come about through rational debate about June 4, and what it means to be Chinese and strive for a democratic China.”
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Will today’s students remember?
Keeping memories of June 4 alive is a challenge
Albert Wong and Eva Wu
31 May 2009
Last month, in a small room at the back of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers Union headquarters in Mong Kok, eight students gathered to discuss their feelings towards the 1989 democracy movement.
Sitting around a small rectangular table in a cramped room, the eight students hesitatingly introduced themselves and revealed which universities they attended before expressing their feelings on a historical event they have rarely had the opportunity to discuss.
They drank tea and ate biscuits. All eight of them were only 20 years old.
Twenty years earlier, students from universities all over Beijing had descended upon Tiananmen Square to commemorate the death of Hu Yaobang and call for widespread reforms in a protest movement that ended with the crackdown on June 4.
Wang Dan, a history student at Peking University, who later topped a most wanted list for his involvement in the protest, had just turned 20.
Wuerkaixi, a student at Beijing Normal University, second on the wanted list, was 21.
Last month’s tea gathering was organised by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which hopes to stoke interest in the 1989 pro-democracy movement among students too young to remember it. The Y89 movement hopes to gather students born in 1989 to take part in commemorative events and take to the stage during the June 4 candle-light vigil to symbolise how the next generation will not forget.
But so far, only 60 students have joined, well short of the 200 originally hoped for.
Many blame the lack of awareness on the absence of structured teaching and the unwillingness of textbook publishers to dedicate space to such a sensitive topic.
Another factor dissuading greater participation is the stigma attached to being politically active. Young people who participate in the June 4 candle-light vigil are sometimes derided by their peers for “playing with candle wax”.
Despite the obstacles, activists are optimistic that by using technology, including the Web, along with the persistence of those who remember the events, the democracy movement will not be forgotten.
Li Yiu-kai, who is helping to organise the Y89 movement, admitted that recruiting participants has been difficult, and that at first, potential participants were worried about job prospects and whether they would be barred from the mainland.
Christina Chan Hau-man, who made headlines as a pro-Tibet protester who was hauled away while the Olympic torch relay passed through Hong Kong, is cited as an example of one who has been stigmatised because of her views.
Following her protest, she was denied entry to Macau under its internal security law even though she planned only to board a connecting flight that same day.
Furthermore, curiosity about her views turned to animosity, with both her e-mail and Facebook accounts being flooded with unwanted messages. “The guy who first organised the Facebook campaign with me - he just doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore,” said Ms. Chan. “I did think about leaving Hong Kong and never coming back.”
Judith Ngan Sin-ling, a 20-year-old Baptist University student, said that while she grew up in a family who cared deeply about the 1989 movement, it was only this year that she committed herself to participating in commemorative events. “I never felt it was something I couldn’t talk about because we talk about it all the time [at home]. But now I feel it is getting harder to talk about it, which is why I feel I need to do something,” she said.
Ms. Ngan has signed up to take to the stage at Victoria Park on June 4, but managed to persuade only one of her friends to take an interest. “It’s not that they laugh at me, but they just don’t care,” she said. Hong Kong Federation of Students Secretary General Crystal Chow Ching blamed a lack of education rather than discrimination for preventing young people from participating.
“The real problem is not the students themselves, but [the fact that the] education system does not encourage much discussion of this topic. The lack of information in the textbooks is the real problem,” Ms. Chow said.
Last month, the students’ union at City University published its monthly newspaper commemorating the anniversary. On its front page, it stated: “On June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party’s general secretary Hu Yaobang suddenly passed away.”
The two factual mistakes in the statement immediately raised concerns about the extent of student ignorance over the topic. Hu died on April 15, 1989, and was no longer the party’s general secretary.
Coverage of the crackdown in history textbooks for secondary students varies from just one sentence to two pages, with most of them labelling the crackdown as the “June 4 incident”.
One publication dismisses the several months of protests, political deliberations, and military crackdown in one short sentence: “The government suppressed the student movement.” In other textbooks, the “June 4 incident” is mentioned without further details and interested students must seek further information in the footnotes.
None of the textbooks say the People’s Liberation Army “opened fire”; only words like “armed interference” or “the army cleared Tiananmen Square” are used. There are no pictures of tanks, only of protesting students. None of the textbooks touch on casualties or the death toll. The Education Bureau said its curriculum development institute outlined a guide for each subject but also allowed editorial freedom for textbook publishers. Textbooks were important but were not the only references, the bureau stressed.
With limited information in textbooks, veteran Chinese history teacher Chan Hon-sum organises his own materials. Every year since the crackdown, Mr. Chan has spent a lesson showing footage from news reports at the time, displaying newspaper clippings and sometimes sharing with them his personal views on the crackdown.
“I am never too radical in class and the footage I show is just news reports,” he said, adding that he came under no pressure from the school as a result.
“The way I teach is similar to news reporting but I do not hide my personal views from them. I do tell them that I was aggrieved whenever I recall it,” said Mr. Chan, who has taught history for almost 30 years. “I think teachers can share with students their thoughts on the incident. It does not matter if students have opposite views ... what matters is that the facts cannot be washed away, particularly those having significant impact on the future.”
Ho Hon-kuen, deputy president of the pressure group Education Convergence and deputy principal of Elegantia College in Sheung Shui, shows news reports and film documentaries about the protests and crackdown every year.
Mr. Ho said the crackdown should be understood in the context of contemporary Chinese history. “It is not enough to talk about June 4. The [1919] May Fourth movement should also be taught. The crackdown has its origins and consequences,” he said.
With Chinese history textbooks generally avoiding the politically sensitive details of the crackdown, Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, vice-chairman of the alliance, worried that the younger generation would be misled: “They may think it was not something big or it was just a general social issue, which had no significant impact at all. Once they are out of school and realise the difference between what they learn and the fuller picture, they may misunderstand, and think that some people have magnified the whole thing,” he said.
However, Mr. Tsoi remained optimistic. “What we are doing is to guide them into making the first step. I hope they will make the second and the third step to discover the facts by themselves.”
Indeed, Mr. Li said that despite the disappointing reaction from 20-year-olds so far, those who had signed up had given him confidence that the memory of June 4 would not die.
Reflecting on the tea party last month, he said that despite initial nervousness, the students showed a deeper than expected knowledge. “You could tell that they understood this was not just an isolated event, but one that has implications for democratic development in China and Hong Kong” he said.
Mr. Li, who has also created the Y89 website which includes YouTube clips of events in 1989, said the internet had been one of the most significant factors in preserving June 4 in people’s consciousness. “Real images are always much better than our written texts,” he said, adding that the alliance was planning to adopt more new media technologies in its efforts to educate the public.
Even immigration obstacles for exiled dissidents will soon be overcome, with plans to hold video conferences, so the likes of Wang Dan can talk to students, Mr. Li said.
And despite their relative lack of activism compared to their counterparts in 1989, who joined hunger strikes and took donations to the protesters, Andrew To Kwan-hang, then-secretary general of the HKFS, said he was not overly concerned about today’s students. “The current crop of students may not even have been born then, or were just one or two years old; you can’t expect them to feel as strongly as we did, who saw and felt it first-hand,” he said.
He also noted that the students in 1989 did nothing extraordinary. “You have to remember that we did nothing except follow the public sentiment. We were not acting so differently from the rest of the population,” he said.
Nevertheless, he stressed that the role of a student leader, especially among those in the HKFS, was to “take the initiative”. Ms. Chow stressed that the HKFS understood its role as a leader of student movements, and would not waver in its commitment to vindicating the June 4 victims. “Our role is not only based on history and tradition, but it has come about through rational debate about June 4, and what it means to be Chinese and strive for a democratic China.”
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