As Beijing`s battalions of bicyclists threaded their way through the burnt-out hulks of buses and army trucks, the debris of countless clashes between angry unarmed citizens and heavily armed Chinese army units, the old lady squatted under a tree on a small street just off the Avenue of Heavenly Peace. With a toothless smile she waved at potential customers for the melons she was selling.
”I have fresh melons here,” she shouted. ”Sweet melons.”
Eventually, a man on a bicycle pulled over and handed the woman a straw basket. ”Three,” he said.
”That`s right,” said the old lady. ”Even when we are angry we must eat. And I am giving those who support democracy a discount.”
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Jane Lin-Hierzi, an American of Chinese descent who is general manager of a company that provides cassette-tape tours in several languages for the Forbidden City on the north end of 100-acre Tiananmen Square, has found it difficult to get to her office during the last several days.
”I just kept going in every day during the Tiananmen Square occupation, but each day it kept getting more and more difficult,” said Lin-Hierzi of Acoustiguide Gugong Ltd. which has a contract with the Chinese government to provide the cassettes for tourists.
”Finally,” she said, ”after it became obvious that no tourists were coming to China the Chinese officials in the Forbidden City told me that this might be a good time for my staff and me to take a vacation. I didn`t argue.” – – –
In the 8-year-old Jianguo Hotel, one of Beijing`s first western-managed hostelries, things have continued normal despite the frequent rifle fire and the heavy T-59 tanks and armored personnel carriers that continually rumble past, shaking its windows and sending guests scurrying behind lobby furniture. A few days after the carnage in Tiananmen, and after it seemed likely that opposing units of the Chinese army might battle it out for control of Beijing, the hotel issued a special letter to its guests:
”Needless to say, you are strongly recommended to stay off your balconies and keep your heavy curtains closed. Furthermore, standing outside in front of the hotel or going out to the street, especially while using flash cameras, is absolutely discouraged.”
Peter Gautschi, president of the Swiss-Belhotel Management Co,. which operates the Jianguo Hotel, put things in perspective when he was asked about the ability of the hotel to care for and feed its remaining guest, most of whom are journalists:
”Look, we`ve still got the best bar in China (Charlie`s) and several months` supply of good liquor and beer. What else do we need?”
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In a strange quirk of timing, the day Chinese troops rolled through Tiananmen Square, the China Tourism News was being delivered to hotel rooms with a front page story about the ”I Love Beijing” campaign geared to coincide with Communist China`s 40th birthday in October.
The campaign, sponsored by the Beijing Tourism Administration Bureau and 21 other agencies, was to introduce 40 new scenic spots in Beijing and its outskirts.
”Unfortunately, because of what has happened, I am sure most tourists who come to Beijing when things are calm again will want to go directly to Tiananmen Square,” said Chinese tour operator Wei Fuju. ”It will bring me no joy to take them there. It will be like accepting blood money.”
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On Jinguomenwei Avenue which is just beyond the city`s major tourist hotels and the unfinished Beijing World Trade Center, sits a T-59 tank-abandoned when it stalled not long after members of the 27th Army entered Beijing.
Curious Chinese can be seen crawling over it, inside it and generally inspecting it. It`s the biggest attraction in the neighborhood-even bigger than the 20-plus burned out and crumpled buses that litter the side of the road.
Several men, who know a profit when they see one, are dismantling salvageable bus seats and piling them into the back of a horse-drawn cart. ”I can sell these to people for their homes,” said one of the men. ”I can make a good profit.” Nearby a man sells chalky homemade popsicles which have the consistency of oatmeal on a stick and he too is doing a land-office business. ”I hope they never take the tank away,” the popsicle vendor says.
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Among the batch of American students was a young man from New York with a good smattering of Chinese and a burning ambition to report the events. His name was Jeremy and his blue backpack and fifties bicycle were always visible in the thick of the crowds.
He made copious notes and held lengthy discourses on why the West would never understand the East and how communism had forged permanent links between the Peoples Liberation Army and the man in the street.
”The army will never shoot the people. The people love the army and the army loves the people,” he kept repeating right to the moment when troops gunned their way into Tiananmen Square.
Jeremy was missing for nine hours. When he surfaced he looked shaken, not just physically but in the core of his beliefs.
”Some thugs, I think they were soldiers in civlian clothing, jumped me near the Square,” he recounted. ”They threw me on the ground, kicked me in the head, blindfolded me and took me to a room where I was interrogated for nine hours. They wanted my notebook and the names of all the people I had talked to. They had me so scared I think I gave them more than I should have.”
Jeremy left on the next flight out of China; more wise, less enthusiastic and very confused.
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”People sympathize with our movement, people right inside the army and the government. It`s bigger than you can imagine. It`s just that everyone is scared now by the guns,” explained a tiny girl in glasses who was running the campus communication center.
The student spy network of which she was part was, at times, uncanny. A campus loudspeaker last week announced at two o`clock in the afternoon that the army would seal off all access roads to the center of the city within two hours and that the capital would have a general strike next day.
Ninety minutes later the roads were blocked, and next day the capital was paralysed by a general strike though not a single word had been broadcast to the city`s 10 million people.
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In Nanheyan Street behind the Beijing Hotel an agitated crowd last Saturday cornered a contingent of young soldiers against a brick wall. The locals harranged the scared troops, pulled at their knapsacks and cursed them as ”traitors” and ”villains.”
An elderly woman had a soldier young enough to be her grandson by the lapel of his tunic. She shook him like a ragdoll.
”I ought to put you across my knees and spank you, young wimp,” the old lady cried.
”I didn`t shoot anybody,” the soldier finally protested. ”At least I could control myself.”
