Pomfret on Post May 35th, 1989 China

A friend told me that during the time around the recent twentieth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen incident, Chinese netizens used "May 35th" to refer to June 4th in order to avoid online censors. John Pomfret's article in last Sunday's Washington Post answers the question that many have wondered about, namely how has China managed to turn the tides of angst that were washing over the country in 1989. Having had opportunity over the past twenty years to personally witness the changes Pomfret discusses has been fascinating.

I still feel emotional when I listen to Cui Jian's "Nothing to My Name" (Yi wu suo you 一无所有). Sometime I'll write about seeing him play live in early 1990 on a concert tour that was cancelled just weeks after I saw him. I need to figure out how to digitize my bootleg of that concert...

In the meantime, here is a video of a more recent performance of arguably one of the most important songs in twentieth-century China.