GEORGE JOCHNOWITZ
49
the people who sat in Tiananmen Square for six weeks in
1989 .
And the
two strangers who told the mathematician not to rock the boat are the
apparent majority of the citizens of China.
When I taught at Hebei University in Baoding, Hebei Province, in
1989,
everyone seemed to be pro-student. I remember going to Beijing
from Baoding with my daughter Miriam on Friday, May
19, 1989.
From the train window, we saw homemade signs made of sheets
attached to houses in farming villages: "We love students"-except that
instead of the Chinese character
ai
meaning "love" there was a red
heart. When we got off the train in Beijing, there was a group of people
sitting in front of the station with a sign saying "Workers love stu–
dents." And when we got to Tiananmen Square, there was a sign saying
Gongchangdang yuan ai xuesheng:
"Communist Party members love
students !"
Ambulances were going back and forth through the streets of Beijing,
carrying unconscious hunger strikers to the hospital. The demonstrators
had assumed the almost impossible job of directing traffic, in order to
keep lanes open for the ambulances, and were succeeding beyond any–
one's wildest expectations .
We went to Tiananmen Square to see if we could recognize anyone
from Hebei University. First we saw a banner with Chinese characters
saying "Baoding" then another saying "Hebei University." Our students
recognized us, app lauded, shook our hands, offered us soft-drinks, and
gave us headbands announcing our support for the hunger strikers.
One of my students-I will call him Ai Heshui-came to visit us in
our hotel room . He said he would be bicycling downtown where he
would spend the night. He gave me various documents he was carrying,
saying he was afraid of losing them. I was afraid he might not succeed
in getting back to the hotel Sunday morning since there was already no
public transportation and the traffic situation might get worse, but he
answered that if that happened, I should take his papers to Baoding
with me and he would pick them up in my apartment. I didn't put two
and two together. That night, the army entered the city. A crowd of stu–
dents and local people blocked the street and persuaded the army to
turn back. (Two weeks later, on June 4th, different army units would
enter the city and would run over the people who tried to block their
path.) From my hotel window, I could hear chanting, then what
sounded like shots, and finally a great deal of traffic. Miriam slept
through the whole thing. I didn't know who had won until Ai Heshui
called at six
A.M.
and said he was one of the many people who had faced
the army down.
