As I said, Jim is one of the best. And in talking to him, I find that our views on China are pretty similar. In this case, we saw slightly different things, as sometimes happens even when two observers are viewing the same thing.

That said, I didn’t mention Jim’s piece in my original post because I found his observations to be much more balanced than the rather alarmist language and imagery used in the wire service reports.

Here is a commentary that I posted on the NY Times website after that.. (Seemed pretty similar, except it was kind of cold that early in the morning.)

Thanks for your blog!

Last night I visited Tiananmen Square. I came along with a couple of friends. We had candles and much curiosity to see what it feels like to be standing on the place of tragedy exactly 19 years after the first shot that night. That was on June 3rd 10:30 pm. It did not occur to us that the square closes for visitors every night after the flag is taken down. Yet, there were quite a few people standing close to the square, mostly posing for photographs next to the shiny light up of Forbidden City with taking only a few glances behind them.

I visited Tianamen Square again this morning at 4:30 am, in order to witness the daily flag raising ceremony. There were a couple of hundred people crowding on the designated space for observers. I couldn’t tell whether it was more or less than usually, perhaps about the same. The perfectly synchronized peace keepers marched in at 4:45 and gave their honor to the flag. A storm of camera clicks followed. Once the flag was flapping in the air, the tourists walked back to their buses and the regular life around the mausoleum resumed. I noticed a couple of people who looked different others, perhaps they were civil rights activists or concerned citizens. They could have been from the secret police too. Or maybe I am just making it up, because I was looking around too eagerly. Many people were weaving their own small Chinese flags, breakfasting, buying souvenirs. Early rising seniors came to wind off their kites.

I did not regret getting up to see the ceremony. I knew it would have been unreasonable to expect a great spectacle or civil disobedience. However, I was hoping that I would catch a hint of unusual piety. Nineteen years after the massacre, it remains a taboo. There are no apparent marks of the event on the ground and the flag is raised all the way to the top of the flagpole. Does the lack of tangible demonstrations of grief signify that they have forgotten?

The square remains, even today, The Gate of Heavenly Peace.

“No outside (non-Chinese) lecturers to be allowed to speak on campus at this sensitive time, it seems.”

FFS!

“The square often feels a bit ’sinister,’ … yesterday was more a factor of degree rather than a significant qualitative difference.”

That’s the way I remember it, too. And I wasn’t, as I just explained at PD, trying to sound disappointed that there wasn’t more evil in the air. It was just that JF offered a different take – and alluded, mysteriously, to something more.

I was supposed to be giving a lecture today at a business college that operates under the aegis of one of the capital’s leading universities. It was cancelled at less than 24 hours’ notice – apparently in response to a recent instruction from the Ministry of Education. No outside (non-Chinese) lecturers to be allowed to speak on campus at this sensitive time, it seems.

They quaintly call this a ‘quarantine’! No, it has nothing at all to do with A/H1N1; it’s about the control of ideas. You foreigners and your dangerous free-thinking! Don’t come infecting us with any of that!

I saw that post. I like Jim a lot as a person and respect him immensely as a journalist, but I think his account was a bit overblown based on my own observations. I go through the square two or three times a month and yesterday was very similar to every other time, EXCEPT there was a lot more of the usual. There are always screeners, bag checkers, metal detectors, plainclothes and uniformed cops, security vehicles, etc. There were just A LOT more of them yesterday. The square often feels a bit ’sinister,’ my opinion is that yesterday was more a factor of degree rather than a significant qualitative difference.