Remembering the Students of the Tiananmen Square Massacre

On June 4, 1989, the demonstrations ended. Not by choice, but by force. Students in China had been gathering in Tiananmen Square for the past few weeks. They even built a replica of “Statute of Liberty” out of Styrofoam. They wanted democracy; even though they weren’t sure what democracy was. What they knew was it had to better than the government that was in power. Like the Mao and the communists 40 years before, they started their own revolution.
I read about the Chinese students protesting in either Time or Newsweek, whichever magazine I was subscribing to at the time. At the time I was a recent college graduate and I had attended classes with several students from China. Most of them were sponsored by their government, except for Grace. Her family, if I remember right, was paying for her education. From what I read in The Salt Lake Tribune, Grace was helping with demonstrations in China, even though still a student on the campus at University of Utah.
This weekend on Facebook, my cousin, Gary Oba, posted a picture of a sunset in China. He wrote “On June 4, 1989, Chinese soldiers, acting on orders from top leaders, attacked pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square leaving hundreds dead.” His words reminded me of what happen 22 years ago in China. I responded to his post with the words, “I remember reading about that and the hope and sadness I had. I like the picture you posted.” The hope was for the courage the students took in their attempt to change their world and to make a difference. The sadness was when People’s Liberation Army brought in tanks and such. The students were massacred. The demonstrations were over and the hope of democracy in China was gone. I still remember the picture of a young man standing bravely in front of a tank crawling toward him. He must have known he would die.
Then last night before I crawled into bed, I read on my Nook, the Daybook blog by Steve King. It was titled “Remembering Tiananmen”. Mr. King wrote about the massacre. When I finished reading the article, I found myself wondering if I had attended school with any of the students who were massacred at Tiananmen Square. After 22 years, I still find myself asking China “Why?”