On my way home, as I walked I passed by Mr. Lee?s fish market and it dawned on me, Jing Yee?s bai friend worked for Mr. Lee! I quickly ran inside and saw him cutting away at the fish. My nose was not use to the smell of raw fish and Jeff could tell, “Smell like roses don?t they Mei Ling?”
I smiled before I came out and said, “Where is Jing Yee? She ran away from home yesterday.”
Jeff looked up and then looked back down, saying, “Well, you know where she is don?t you?”
I definitely knew, but wanted confirmation “Is she at ? is she at Tiananmen?”
“Yes, she is, and she is being so stubborn.” He stopped cutting, then motioned me to the side of the counter “I?m so worried about her, she is hunger striking and, I have heard rumors that the government will not tolerate this protest.”
My heart broke, why was she doing this, I still could not understand. I touched Jeff on the shoulder “Don?t worry, she will be fine I am sure, can you just tell her that I love her and just keep me updated on her.”
“I will Mei Ling, I?ll tell her.”
After that day, I visited Jeff often at the fish market and talked about je je and how she was doing. “She?s doing fine.” I?d always hear. Just another one of the protestors showing the officials that they could not be pushed around.
On the news and in the newspapers the stories were constantly conflicting, some said that the students? demands for change were too unrealistic and others said the government was listening and were going to comply with the student?s wishes. The only reliable source of information for me was Jeff, we went on for months and months, I started to write je je letters. She would write me back with information on how things were going. She said the effort was becoming larger, and more people were joining. More and more progress was being made, until the day it happened; the day of the massacre. It was June 4th 1989, 2 days after my birthday, one of China?s darkest days in history.
The Chinese Communist Party was getting fed up with the protestors. Most of them pledged allegiance to the cause for further democracy and freedom and were willing to die for it. At 9 am, a warm breeze swept through Tiananmen Square, hundred?s of thousands of protestors awaited their demise, but they would not go without a fight. Deng Xiao Ping was finally fed up and ordered a full military attack on all of the protestors, the students were brutally beaten to death, shot beyond submission and were ran over by tanks. The whole world was watching as China crushed its children. It would not be until one week after the massacre that I would find out about Jing Yee. It was hot that day and the smell of the fish was intoxicating, but I would go through anything to find out about the well being of my sister. As I walked into the store I could tell by Jeff?s red swollen eyes that the outlook was not good. As my heart ruptured into pieces, my eyes began to stream out tears of anger against the government; I walked slowly to Jeff and sat down beside him on a stack of rice bags and cried and cried. I did not want to stay too long and I wanted to be alone in my state of sadness. When I left, Jeff told me, “Look under Jing Yee?s mattress”
When I got home, I went straight to the kitchen and told my parents the news. Mamma went into loud bawls of agony and shed tears of love for her lost daughter. As for Baba, he kept a stiff upper lip and put on his typical Chinese father exterior, continuing to read his paper; according to him, he only had one daughter.
I locked myself into my room for days crying and contemplating how I would go on with my life. One night as I slept, I remembered what Jeff had told me and I shot up out of my bed. I went to my je je?s dusty side of the room. I looked under her mattress and found the book that she gave to me the day that she walked out of my life. I picked it up, it was a book of poetry and Je je had marked one in particular and left a note, I read “Bye now my mei mei, I am gone and you are probably wondering why, read these and you will find the key to our country’s pain.” I sat on her bed and opened up the marked poem and read it
The Internationale
Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we’ll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They’ll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We’ll shoot the generals on our own side.
No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E’er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we’ll strike while the iron is hot.
I cried, this is what they were fighting for; they were fighting so that we could have a future, so that we would be able to read beautiful literature such as this and have a voice in our own destinies.
Works Consulted
Nixon, Bob. Tiananmen Square. British Colombia: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd, 1989.
“The Internationale” [http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/int/internationale.html], April 2000.
“Tiananmen Square Facts” [http://kizuna.cwru.edu/asia110/projects/Qing/what.html], April 2000.
“Tiananmen Square Site” [http://www.schoolpapers.com/china2345/tsquare.html], April 2000.
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