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| The South Gate at Beijing University |
BEIJING UNIVERSITY
A retrospective tour of the haunts and hideouts of the Tiananmen student uprising would not be complete without a visit to Beijing University, known simply as Beida. Arguably the most prestigious university in China, Beida has long been home to creative thinkers and intellectual ferment ever since the day a young Mao Zedong worked in its associated library and literati such as Hu Shih and Lu Xun graced its grounds.
In 1989 it was the fount of discussion and discontent that spread to other campuses. Other liberal arts schools, such as Beijing Normal University got on board right away, while top-tier tech schools, including Beida's neighbor, Tsinghua University, were slower to join the protest train. Thirty years ago I discussed the different dynamics among Beijing's elite and competitive colleges schools with a Tsinghua University graduate student with the surname Chen who joined me for the day-long bicycle protest of May 10, 1989.
Beida has long had a peaceful facade--the walled-in campus was originally a large imperial garden--but the bucolic tranquility belies a long history of intellectual ferment. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the democracy salons led by astrophysicist turned dissident Fang Lizhi in the early months of 1989 taking place anywhere else. When Fang was ejected from his provincial academic home at the University of Science and Technology in Anhui province for similar agitation, Beida’s august tradition offered sufficient cover for him to continue his efforts there, but at least initially. His freedom to engage students on the topic of democracy didn’t last long, but his fledgling efforts took on a greater salience when Fang was invited to, and unceremoniously ejected from a Great Wall Hotel banquet hosted by visiting US president, George W. Bush.
Student discontent first took wing at Beijing University’s leafy, isolated campus, but the complaints about limited job prospects, bossy party authorities and glaring cases of official corruption were shared by students across the city and country. The youthful Wang Dan, thanks in part to the tutelage of Fang Lizhi, emerged as an early student spokesman, later joined in a leadership triumvirate that included Chai Ling and Wuer Kaixi at Beijing Normal University.
My July 2019 attempt to visit Beida was thwarted by vigilant guards at every entry point. I was turned away from the busy gate on Haidian Road on the south side of campus, perhaps the most heavily-surveilled of all, but three subsequent attempts to enter side gates did not succeed, either. I had been forewarned by journalists that the campus was hard to get into, supposedly due to an informal lockdown that went into effect with the first reports of big demonstrations in Hong Kong, though curiously I had noticed no upswing in surveillance in the Shida campus which I still visited daily, for coffee in the morning among other things.
I gave up on the front gate and decided to search for a "back door" to campus. I had no luck at the first minor gate I tried, and then entered a hotel astride the gate, thinking indirect entry might be possible via the back door of the hotel, as is the case at the East Gate of Shida, but that didn't work either. "Stop business please do not enter" warned a sign in the lobby.
At yet another gate, getting tired of being summarily denied entry with a brusque upraised hand, I asked the guards why. Two uniformed men, barely out of their teens, glared at me, seemingly stunned by the question. They stammered, offering conflicting explanations, but finally an elder colleague gently explained that entry could be gained if someone residing on campus came to meet me at the gate. Pondering who I might contact on short notice, I continued my circumnavigation of the walled campus, pausing to rest in the shade near an old gate that no longer serves as a gate but small historic relic.
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| Haidian Road walkway along campus wall |
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| "Stop business please do not enter" |
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| Ancient imperial gate across from West Gate, now a fenced-in landmark |
Beijing University, like Harvard in the US or Oxford in England, is an icon and iconic properties attract visitors. Add to that the exquisite garden setting of the Beida campus, with its time-worn pagoda and scenic lake, and it could be easily over-run by tourists if a modicum of gate-keeping wasn’t in effect. I’m not sure that justifies the blanket refusal of visitors without campus ID, but I don’t think the vigilant gate-keeping was necessarily a measure taken in reaction to events in Hong Kong either.
I was trying to understand the rhymes and reasons of people being turned away while watching the half dozen guards doing their thing under the colorfully painted traditional arches at West Gate. I didn’t see any other foreigners seeking entry, but plenty of Chinese were being turned away.
Cyclists had to dismount and the guards stopped each person who sought entry, demanding to inspect their ID or directing them to the wicket of the metallic toll gate where card-holders could enter with a security swipe.
Built in 1926, the picturesque West Gate has been allowed to keep its looks, with fewer metal bars and jazzed up technology than other gates. It was a bit of a throwback to the old days, with a half dozen eagle-eyed gatekeepers busy making sure student cyclists dismounted their bikes and exhibited ID. Like guards and cops everywhere, a few of them no doubt enjoyed the arbitrary and petty exercise of power, but most of them looked like decent working class boys just trying to get through the day, as bored by their job as toll collectors.
I counted six uniformed guards standing between me and my goal of getting on campus when I decided to saunter over to the gate one more time to try my luck, perhaps talk my way in. As I approached the vermillion gate, a guard took off his hat and left his post. He paused to wave to his colleagues, three of whom were busy questioning an older man.
I got a curious side-glance from the guard who had just been relieved of duty, but wasn't stopped. I walked and walked and walked right in. It's not that I wasn't noticed, I certainly stood out, in a big, hulking, indelibly foreign way, but it was as if I was hiding in plain sight. I kept on walking until I was well beyond the gate, entrance secured by chance and the confusion of the moment.
WEST GATE
I surely had not escaped the unblinking gaze of the various cameras mounted on the gate, nor did my escapade escape the gaze of my travel companion, who had duly recorded my unauthorized entry on video in the full expectation that I would be turned away.
Once inside a walled compound, there is a sense by which one gains a tacit authority, if only by dint of location, and presumed permission to be inside. On the insider, one becomes an insider. By crossing the threshold, I underwent a self-transformation from gate-crasher to a person inside looking out.
The default assumption upon being seen inside the premises is that one presumably has the right to be there. What's more, given the relatively low-stakes game of getting onto a campus, where at least some foreigners had a right of entry, I was able to use my authority of being on the inside to bring someone from the outside in. My "cameraman" gained entry that way, a reminder that as strict as things get in China, there are often ways around some obstacles and pockets of lassitude as well.
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| The old Shao Yuan dorm on the "foreign" side of campus |
The old Shao Yuan dorm where I had stayed briefly in the early 1980’s looked basically unchanged at first glance, but the cafeteria where foreign students hungry to practice Chinese at meal time vied to chat with the harried service staff was now a no-frills Chinese student cafeteria and offices occupied some of the former dorm space. A relatively new foreign student facility next door housed better rooms and higher end dining options. The only luxury that interested me was being able to pay in cash, all other transactions being automatically recorded and subject to monitoring. But seeing a Chinese person borrow a card from a stranger to purchase food in the Chinese cafeteria, I did the same. In 1989, the de facto split between Chinese food halls and food halls for foreigners was maintained by the use of different meal tickets distributed to different campus constituencies. It wasn't exactly racialApartheid, and you could get around it with a bit of conniving, but the chit system represented the university administrator's vision of separate (and unequal) facilities.
Thirty years on, the chit system is gone and strictures have loosened somewhat, but foreign students still tend to eat and reside in purpose-built facilities for foreigners. It used to be that foreigners had more money than Chinese, and were thus economically entitled to better dorms, two to a room, or even singles, with air-conditioning, and even private bathrooms. The tired old assumption of rich foreigner/poor Chinese doesn't hold up any more but informal segregation of facilities remains the norm. At Beishida, I could only eat in the Chinese food halls with the requisite card, but the Japanese and other "foreign" food options could be purchased with cash.
Presumably one historical reason for the segregated facilities was fear of foreign influences and espionage, however overblown those concerns were. Things on campus are set up for surveillance, from the moment one enters the gate.
Today cameras take the place of the plainclothes minders who had a role to play on campus in the old days, but it's a toss up as to whether it's preferable to be watched on camera or in person.
Either way, one could not entirely escape the sense of being watched, though perhaps I was more acutely aware of this because of my long-standing resentment of surveillance and various run-ins with the law since 1983 when I got arrested for taking a train from Shanghai to Xian without permission and was ratted on by a university spy.
Nowadays, there are still plenty of vigilant neighborhood aunties and busybodies, but technology plays an increasingly important role in keeping things under wraps. It is not uncommon in public places to see monitors, such as the Beida dining hall scene shown below, a not-so-subtle reminder that very little activity takes place without witness, electronic or otherwise.
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| Dining hall monitor screen at Beijing University |
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| The old foreign cafeteria is now a no-frills, card-only eatery |
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One of several dining options by the new foreign dorm |
Complaints about unequal treatment of foreigners and locals were never far from the surface in 1989 so it was interesting to see the playing field had been levelled a bit. Foreign students were still being charged more, and Chinese dorms remained tightly packed, often eight to a room, compared to the foreign dorms on both campuses, where singles and doubles were available.
The historic hunger strike famously started on this campus, a brilliant stroke of strategy which transformed the grumpy demands of non-conforming but generally well-off students into a higher calling that people in all walks of life could sympathize and relate to. It was in a small dining hall, the sort of place noodles were served and the "last supper" staged on campus, while plentiful on 1989 terms was simple fare, and inexpensive compared to options on offer today.
I took a seat in the "foreign" cafe, but eschewed the "GREAM FRUIT CAKE" being promoted at every table. The price of the cream cake per slice was hard to determine, but running as high as 79 RMB per pound, it was not cheap.
I'm sure it was delicious, but seeing as it was sold by the pound and I had come to remember the hunger strike, I settled for a glass of hot water and a few curious stares.
I'm sure it was delicious, but seeing as it was sold by the pound and I had come to remember the hunger strike, I settled for a glass of hot water and a few curious stares.
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| A cafe where it is possible to pay in cash |
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| Coffee and cake for those with foreign tastes; the cake is sold by the pound |
From Shao Yuan I walked to the center of campus, past the basketball and tennis courts to the dorm closest to the traditional campus meeting spot, a small, hemmed in intersection known as the Triangle, where big character posters charting the evolution of student demands were once hung. I had spent time studying those posters with university friends and had later hung-out there with Chai Ling and other student leaders during moments of clandestine meetings and cat-and-mouse intrigue between authorities looking for black-listed students and student leaders during the protests.
The dorm overlooking the Triangle had been remodeled, which was probably just as well as it was shabby even then. What made nondescript dorm buildings crackle with intrigue was the conspiratorial conversation, the incessant noise of the jerry-rigged student speaker system and sometimes combative mood of the moment that allowed unadorned dorm rooms to function as a hidden HQ for student planning.
The dorm overlooking the Triangle had been remodeled, which was probably just as well as it was shabby even then. What made nondescript dorm buildings crackle with intrigue was the conspiratorial conversation, the incessant noise of the jerry-rigged student speaker system and sometimes combative mood of the moment that allowed unadorned dorm rooms to function as a hidden HQ for student planning.
The Triangle, which I had revisited over the years, bore almost no resemblance to its humble origins as a crack in the campus fabric where ideas could be readily exchanged. The demolition of the low-rise brick building along the hypotenuse altered it’s fabled narrow contours, and needless to say, what signage there can be seen today is a far cry from the free-for-all free expression that flourished in 1989. Instead, a long, sterile neon-lit locked signboard controlled by university authorities.
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| Activist-comandeered signboard at the Triangle announcing plans for student strike in 1989 |
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| Wall posters in 1989 |
I meandered south on Wusi road, trying to recall the dangerous joy of forbidden messaging on the campus "democracy wall." The hand-made posters had enough portent at the time to encourage rocker Cui Jian to join me for a midnight visit to campus to read the latest "news."
As I made my way down the tree-lined road free of cars, songs of eighties echoed in my mind. There was Theresa Teng's tender love songs and Cui Jian's gruff ballads, all evocative of a place and time lost in the past. Some of the old dorms were rather derelict, weed grown and boarded up, but the modest brick buildings that served as faculty housing, and from the balconies of which young faculty cheered on student protesters were just as I remembered.
Retracing the steps I took with Miss Chen and thousands of other anxious demonstrators, I sallied up to the South Gate of campus which had served as the staging ground for the big May 10, 1989 demonstration.
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| The campus staging ground for the epic May 10, 1989 rally |
Dubbed the demonstration of “ten-thousand bicycles” (not much of an exaggeration, the line of cyclers riding four or five abreast stretched as far as the eye could see) offered a fleeting tour of Beijing at a time of unrest and fears of a crackdown.
The procession began at Beijing University, exiting the south gate to cheers from faculty and student supporters, and boldly swept east down the street, a contingent of perhaps a thousand until new recruits were picked up along the way, passing Renmin University, Zhengfa University and finally, last, and most significantly, Beijing Normal University, the campus closest to Tiananmen Square, where the contingent was big and the bicycle traffic jammed up as far as the eye could see.
The May 10, 1989 rally was a long, tiring and winding but it had its thrilling and exhilarating moments, when greeted enthusiastically by townspeople lined up on both sides of the road along the way, and most especially when racing across Tiananmen Square against police orders.
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Pondering continuity and change, I now stand at Beijing University’s south gate, gazing at the modern high-rises in the distance, somehow reassured to see that Beijing's premier campus was still in keeping with its past. Bicycles were still a thing, but now there were motorcycles and electric bikes as well.
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Pondering continuity and change, I now stand at Beijing University’s south gate, gazing at the modern high-rises in the distance, somehow reassured to see that Beijing's premier campus was still in keeping with its past. Bicycles were still a thing, but now there were motorcycles and electric bikes as well.
It felt good to be on campus communing with the past. Needless to say that the same guards who fiercely turned me away just hours before paid me scant heed now that I was on the inside looking out.
Standing beyond the thick growth of trees and the traditional rooftops of the idyllic, sequestered campus, stands the spanking new skyline of Haidian, dubbed China's Silicon Valley. It's a short distance away, located just across the cavernous motorway of the Fourth Ring Road, but might as well be another world.
