China Two

The Great Train Trip of 2011 will begin in Bulgaria and end in the capital city of China, Beijing. 

I have been there before, but that was a different me.  That was the woman that had never been to China, or the Middle East.  That was the me that hadn’t worked in the Australian Outback.

It’s different now.  I’m different.  My questions are different. 

When I arrived in Beijing in 1996 (I think it was?) I knew very little about Chinese history.  I had heard of Mao, but didn’t know or care much about the Communist movement, the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution.  But I had heard of Tiananmen Square. 

On June 4^th, 1989 I was still living in Jaffray, but the news of what the Chinese government was doing to it’s own people hit televisions everywhere.  The People’s Liberation Army rolled into central Beijing to crush a pro-democracy demonstration that had been going on for weeks.  This time they didn’t bring their sticks and stink bombs, but instead had tanks and guns.  Hundreds, some people say thousands of people were killed that day. 

Most of the violence did not happen right in the world’s largest square, but on the streets surrounding it, including the Avenue of Eternal Peace, which runs east/west on the south end of the square.  It was on this modern road that we saw images of a man standing up to a row of tanks. 

He was eventually pulled out of the way and while we are still not sure by whom: secret police or concerned citizens, that image has stayed in my memory.

When I actually saw the square I was surprised by how huge and empty it really was: 44,000 square meters.  The Tiananmen Gate to the Forbidden City had an enormous picture of Mao, it still is the political center of China as it has been for more than 500 years! 

I bought a couple of lighters that played the national anthem from people selling trinkets and souvenirs in the hot sun.  

The Tiananmen and Qianmen gates were built in 1400's, with Qianmen standing guard to the south. The space between the two was at one time a totally walled city with a much smaller square.

On the west side is the Great Hall and to the east is the National Museum of China.  The square is bare.. no trees or benches: only a cement Monument to the People’s Hero’s and Mao’s Tomb to break up the huge expanse. Mao Zedong tore down a lot of the old buildings and expanded it in 1958 to the size it is today.

And when Mao Zedong came into power, he didn’t live in the Forbidden Palace but he did reside nearby, doing most of his ‘work’ poolside or from bed.

When you speak with people today there are still mixed reviews about this guy: I imagine mainly because they're still a little frightened.  He may have been a great leader, but he was responsible for a huge amount of human suffering! 

After he came to power in ’49, Mao put in land reforms that were responsible for more than 1,000,000 Chinese deaths. Landowners were beaten or killed just for owning property, and their land was divided up among the poor, who didn’t know how to make it work. 

But he had another policy to suppress counter revolutionaries, and decided he could fix up the agriculture problem by taking people who were ‘suspect’ out of the cities and have them try and work the farms. 

They didn’t do very well and as a result there were another 800,000 deaths. 

He gathered the workers from cities and small towns by running ‘struggle sessions’ that turned families against one another.  People lived in absolute terror.

And then there was a policy to get people to commit suicide. In Shanghai it was dangerous to walk on the sidewalk under a sky scraper because of the number of people that were jumping out the windows.   

He had a First Five Year Plan, which attempted to get people to turn to industrialization and get them off food production… which caused vast numbers of people to starve, (1953 – 1958) then he instigated The Great Leap Forward, which further stripped the country of anything green.  Everything went into fires to make steel. The result of this rape of the land is believed to be the largest famine in history: 45,000,000 deaths!   

Then there was the 100 Flowers Campaign.  He said it was to get some new ideas on how to do things, but people now believe it was just another way to flush out dangerous ideas.

And then of course the Cultural Revolution.. which went from about 1966 through until 1976.. and was an attempt to ‘purge Capitalist Thoughts’.  During this period there were great ‘educational reforms’ which translated into putting an end to education as it allowed people to think.. and the Red Guards.. basically children willing to turn in their own parents or grandparents for ‘crimes’ such as reading a book. 

I discovered a lot of this history on that first visit to China.  But as I said, that was a long time ago and I have changed since then. 


And I bet China has too.


When I was there people would shake my hand and say 'I love China'.  


I wonder if they won't have a lot more to say this time.