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Shanghai - A Day in May
Saturday, May 20th 1989
VOA announced that the government has declared martial law in
Beijing, starting 10 o'clock today. We had huge demonstrations here
in Shanghai through the last few days and it will be interesting to
see how the people will react to these news.
I'm staying in a comfortable 10-bed dormitory at the Pujiang Hotel,
a classic hotel in the stile of the early twenties. The Pujiang
is now part of the Shanghai Mansions across the street and it seems
that the Pujiang is nowadays used for the training of the Mansions'
staff.
At the breakfast table I'm reading the English-language China Daily,
which I got for free at the desk of the Mansions. The second page is
mostly pictures with captions like 'Students and soldiers singing
patriotic songs' and 'Our editors bringing food to the heroic
students on Tian An Men Square' - not bad for a state-owned
newspaper...
I'm going for a walk along the Bund, the waterfront, to pick up my
boat ticket for the trip on the Yangtze River. Along the way I
realize that the city is uncommonly quiet. There's little traffic on
the Bund and only a few pedestrians are visible. Shanghai is usually
a very crowded place and especially during the demonstrations of the
last few days there was not a squarefoot left to stand on.
On the way back north I see a bunch of people with a huge banner in
front of city hall. Further up the Bund there's people lining the
street. There's also a couple of policemen around, but they look
about as bored as humanly possible.
As I approach the ancient Garden Bridge which spans the murky Suzhou
Creek, there's the head of a demonstration coming up on the other
side.
It's the same technique that I've seen during the last few days.
The demonstrators march along in a very orderly fashion, lightyears
away of our western street-fighter-like kind of demonstrations. The
persons on the outer edges even carry ropes to fence off the row of
marchers from the onlookers.
I'm now on the bridge and it seems to be impossible to cross to the
other side for a while, there's just too many people either watching
or marching. The crowd is cheerful, laughing out loud when they
discover a banner with a fitting slogan, clapping their hands,
discussing the more controversial banners or simply chanting along
with the demonstrators.
It's a beautiful experience to just stand in the middle of this
crowd, enjoying their cheerfulness. They are obviously expressing
themselves openly for the first time in their life and everything is
still experimental and without any previous planning. It's a very
euphoric atmosphere.
The worm of marching people slowly moves along the Bund, turns
right into the city and then criss-crosses through the narrow streets
of the downtown area, effectively shutting down Shanghai.
I slowly work my way across the bridge, actually exchanging places
with onlookers again and again.
Just off the bridge a young man
grabs my arm. 'Are you from VOA?' - I've heard that question a couple
of times here in Shanghai and I shake my head almost apologizing.
Virtually everybody seems to be listening to VOA and they've heard
the journalists report directly from China - they are stars here in
China now.
I'm on the Mansion's side of the street and since there's no way to
cross the street I enter the hotel. The Shanghai Mansions is also a
colonial hotel, built in the early thirties with a then breathtaking
20 floors. A couple of days ago I discovered a nice terrace on the
18th floor and there's probably a good view of the demonstration
from up there.
There's a sprinkle of white mixed with the mass of people down near
the bridge. It takes a few seconds before I realize who those men
clad in white are - American sailors. Yesterday three US Navy
warships arrived in Shanghai as part of some bilateral friendship
thing and the ships are moored only a couple of hundred yards
downriver of the Pujiang. For the first time in more than 40 years
there's now some 1600 US-sailors loose in Shanghai.
Since the demonstration is much more fun while being near to it I
go down again and mingle with the crowd. It's interesting to see
the Chinese experiencing sensory overcharge, now that in addition
to the demonstrators there's hundreds of uniformed Americans to
stare at.
The demonstration is lead by the students, but this one is so huge,
that it's obvious that there are people of all walks of life marching
along. For more than an hour a neverending stream of people has been
marching across the old Garden Bridge. Students, children, workers,
teachers, professors... there was even the staff of a hospital, all
with their white clothes and a banner with a huge red cross on it.
Finally I manage to get across the street and I go up to the
dormitory in the hotel, the second floor is maybe still near enough
to get some of the action.
Only a few seconds after I step to the window of the dormitory
there's a group of students marching onto the bridge with a statue
on their shoulders. It's a model of the Statue of Liberty, about
10 feet tall, painted white. I jump for my daypack, rip out the
camera and back to the window - almost too late... I hope I got a
picture of The Lady before she vanished behind the Soviet Embassy...
This travelogue is (c) by Thomas Sturm.
The author allows non-commercial publication of this text in electronic form,
as long as this paragraph is added to the end of the text.
For publication in any other form, please
write to: t_sturm@pacbell.net
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