renmin

a found poem

As I cycled back from the square
an icy wind blew in my face

The streetlights were dark
the moon pointed the way

As I approached the overpass
a wave of heat swept over me
it got hotter as I rode further

I heard a song drifting my way
saw lights in the distance

Thousands of people
were standing guard
on the bridge
and the approach roads
beneath

Singing under the night sky

With our flesh and blood
we will build a new great wall
Arise, arise, arise!

Unarmed
they stood steadfast
confident their bodies
could block soldiers
and tanks

Packed together
they gave off a blast of heat
as though every one
was a blazing torch

Found in China's Forgotten Revolution by Yu Hua in today's New York Times.

Yu Hua writes that few young Chinese know anything about the protests at Tiananmen because the story isn't told in China.

As I went digging for the image of the student who stood down the tanks I wondered what his name was. Turns out no one knows »

Says the Times of London: "Photographs of the face-off are banned in China and blocked on the internet by the Great Firewall of China. Few Chinese have ever seen the image that for the rest of the world symbolises the student movement of that spring in 1989."



"Renmin" means "The People."