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AnonymousWow, thank you for the link, I missed that episode of This American Life. One episode I have used is the one when the young Chinese girls exchanges letters with the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. If you haven't heard that one you should seek it, it's a very useful point of discussion and quite funny in parts. I got Ms. Lim's book for Christmas and will start reading it soon.
edited by sochoa on 12/28/2015
AnonymousFrom Professor Lim’s presentation, I am impressed by the extensive effort by the Chinese government to prevent people from remembering. As Professor Lim stated in her lecture, she said, “It is not convenient to remember . . . and there is no benefit to remember.” I believe she said it sarcastically, because she wrote the book, but this statement prompted the thought that silence is harmful for those who have experienced the event, because it is isolating. This makes me think of the importance of remembering in the process of healing, and therefore, I wonder how people heal who have experience these crimes in China? And because of the lack of discussion around this, does it distance people?
AnonymousBy far this was my favorite session of the quarter. What an honor to get a lecture from Louisa Lim, I felt so star struck upon seeing her. Her voice so familiar from her work on NPR. I remember hearing the press conferences regarding her book and was so thrilled to be able to hear her speak about her book and her research in person. I knew very little about Tienanmen before her lecture, how lucky for my to learn about it all from someone with her relationship to the event. Having left the class I immediately purchased her book and am very excited for the opportunity to actually read it! I was so shocked by the way that the government has pushed this event out of the memories of all of the people living in China. I am also shocked by the amount of effort that gets put into keeping those that do remember quite. I was interested by some of the stories she told in which one student seemed to know what she was talking about but said he "did not know and it was a sensitive topic" or something like that. It seems obvious that this student did know exactly what Lim was referring to and someone had told him about it, but who? Are some Chinese parents making the choice to tell their children about the events that they remember from that day/time or do the majority of Chinese parents choose to "'protect" their children from this information?
AnonymousLooking back at my notes, and adding to what skroop had mentioned previously, it was quite shocking that when Professor Lim asked students about the infamous Tank Man picture, that only 15% knew where was it was taken!! This is crazy! While the Professor did mention it was hard to tell if they weren't lying, this still is a shocking number. This just shows what an impact the Chinese government has on its people, and what type of fear they instill in them. My question is if this fear is still instilled today with other events that are currently happening, or if this is a notion more of the past? Another notion that was interesting and add to this government censorship is the fact that textbooks in China don't have much on this event either. My wondering is if anyone has questioned this, or again, if the fear is instill too greatly to say something.
AnonymousRe: Awareness of tank man Picture in China
Jennifer, great question! I also found the 15% statistic shocking. I recently read an article recently about this very same statistic and if I remember correctly, there was very little the way of informing people of what happened. Additionally, I also think that excluding this event from history books has a lot to do with the fact that most people in China do not know what happened. As I read about these figures, I wondered about the United States and wether there is an event in our history that the rest of the world is aware of that we are not aware of. There are certainly many forgotten narratives in our history that we have not bothered to include in our textbooks, and that has certainly impacted the consciousness and understandings of people in the US.
edited by nramon on 1/12/2016
AnonymousLike KHumphreys, I was really impacted by the talks from both speakers. I think Mike Chinoy's documentary is excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it. He has created a vehicle to share the message of those events that so many in the world are ignorant about. Louisa Lim was a very engaging speaker and had many powerful stories to share. I admired how she patiently interviewed those affected by the tragedy, and how they risked their safety to tell their stories. I couldn't believe how secretive and suppressed this still is, even now, in China. I remember how Louisa Lim shared how university students would either have appear very clueless or visibly uncomfortable about talking about Tienanmen. I feel I have an understanding of something so significant, so important that I was previously very unaware of. What an incredible privilege to have been a part of this class!
edited by rcorona on 1/13/2016
AnonymousThanks so much for sharing that episode of this American Life. I also did not see that episode. I am definitely sharing this with my students!
AnonymousI also found this to be my favorite session of the seminar this Fall! I really enjoyed the documentary and the speakers that were present to comment on their experience of Tiananmen Square. I left the session so informed and knowledgeable about Tiananmen Square events and eager to develop lessons to share with my students. I think what struck me the most was the numbers you posted and that they shared that said that 85% of Chinese could not identify the Tank Man picture. I was also amazed by the level of secrecy and the extent that the Chinese government will go to hide the historical events of that day. For example, the blocking of key terms on their internet so Chinese citizens cannot search for Tiananmen Square.
AnonymousI just read this article and they even mentioned Louisa Lim's book. Thank you for sharing it, I could actually modify my lesson plan a bit and add this as a sub-topic. I can have my students compare the government prohibitions and threats to the desperate mothers of Tiananmen Square victims to those of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and the ones in Mexico City.
About the article, I can say that these governments don't stop surprising me. They kill, disappear corpses and now ask families to forget about the "incident". Where are human rights organizations? After all these years is unbelievable that no one is to be blamed for those killings and that the government officials have the audacity to threaten the ones affected by their atrocities. This topic is going to create a great class discussion among my senior and juniors.
AnonymousThe work that Louisa Lim has conducted to write her book is as inspiring as it is shocking to learn how much effort is being put forth toward silencing voices of the past into submission. If what happened doesn't fit our current narrative, it must be expunged. It made me wonder how much information in this era of instantaneous google searching am I missing? I feel as if great big huge chunks of humanity's narrative has been buried so deep I really have no idea what is truth and what is lie.
Rob_Hugo@PortNWWhat an interesting and revealing lecture about the Tianamen Square events and how the Chinese government deals with history. What struck me the most is how uninformed the Chinese people are about the events of Tianamen Square. It was especially prevalent in the numbers that Louisa Lim shared:
-Only 15% knew Tank Man picture was taken in Beijing in 1989.
-85% could not identify the Tank Man Picture.
-19% believed it was a military parade.
It was especially interesting to hear that in the United States, and that even within our own class, the majority had seen the Tank Man picture and it is seen as an iconic image; it definitely makes me want to get a poster to put up in my classroom wall for students to view.
I will definitely be purchasing the book and see what excerpts or chapters I might be able to use with students!
Book Review Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/books/review/the-peoples-republic-of-amnesia-and-age-of-ambition.html
Amazon Poster ($5.99): http://www.amazon.com/Tiananmen-Square-Photography-Poster-36-Inch/dp/B000Y3H12S
AnonymousThinking back on Luisa Lim's lecture, what was on my mind through out the lecture was how courageous she was in writing this book. Knowing all the consequences that would happened to her if the Chinese government found out what she was doing. I think that I personally wouldn't have risked so much, but at the same time I feel inspire by Ms. Lim because she had the courage to go through with her objectives to give a voice to the forgotten from Tiananmen.