China, Facts and Fiction

Today, 20 years ago, The People’s Liberation Army of China brutally crushed pro-democracy supporters, killing hundreds of supporters, injuring another 10,000, and arresting hundreds of students and workers when performing the violent end of the Tiananmen Square Protest 1989.

One of the Historic moments of the world was filmed during the protest between April 15 and June 4 1989. See once more the video of the Unknown Rebel´s brave attempt to stop the tanks during this protest.

Tiananmen Square Protest 1989 and the Tank Man was of course in our mind when we visited Beijing in 1995, only six years after the massacre. Last week I also ended my reading of Henning Mankell´s novel Kineseren (the Chinese).The story took us back to Beijing, and we could follow Birgitta´s tours through the streets:

The plot in short:

A whole village. 19 people, pets and dogs, brutally murdered one early winter morning.
Detective Vivi Sundberg had never seen anything like that. The only track after the killer is a red silk ribbons.

The 19 dead had a common link, they are of the same family, married into the each other on cross roads through many years. The family has spread connections to the mysterious JA, which emigrated to USA in 1800-century.

One of the distant family members, judge Birgitta Roslin, travels to the village to see the place where some unknown old relatives were murdered. Contradictory to the police she became intrigued about the red ribbon in the snow.
It made her make a journey back in time and history, to the deep roots of the crime, to Beijing and the strange Chinese diaspora with strong Confucian beliefs, GUANXI.

Although the novel is fiction, I felt the connection to my China, Beijing and Tiananmen Square when reading. Read the book you too.

UPDATE:
If you want to find out more about peoples thoughts and meanings of the Tiananmen Square Protest see: New York Times