Ten years ago today I was stuck in my apartment complex, or 小区, alone and hungry, and lucky to be in, not out. Because the authorities had locked down everything within a few blocks of Tian’anmen Square and Chang’an Avenue for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Today’s the 70th, and though we’ve now left China, from all accounts this lockdown is even heavier than the last. For all the wonderful memories I have of China, there are many like this, too: the raw display of power over people; the infinite urge to control.
Yon had just left for a prolonged stay in India, the first of many she would do in coming years. I was on my own; planning on spending the time buffing up my Chinese and working in the photographic darkroom I’d set up in a tumbledown room I rented in a decaying courtyard home behind the “Egg”, or National Center for Performing Arts, then just-opened. In the lead-up, Tian’anmen Square had been a lively place, though crawling with security in uniform and plain clothes.
I came out on 30 September to head into the streets again, only to be stopped in my tracks on our street by a police tape line right down it, sealing us off from the outside world. Uniformed police and soldiers (unarmed) lined the street too. I made a few feeble protestations but it was quite clear I wasn’t going anywhere. Until when, I asked? Don’t know, he said.
 Holy Tibetan mountain |
 Buddhist Kashmir |
 Tibetan Horse Festival |
A woman came towards our 小区 from the outside, clearly headed inside. Some soldiers – really just young guys in ill-fitting uniforms – moved to stop her. An unholy row erupted as she responded to their instruction to turn around with, let’s say, extreme disdain. Yelling, along the lines of “who do you think you are to keep me out of my own house”, was quickly followed by some slapping, too. I was frankly pretty impressed at her courage. After a while of getting nowhere she headed down the street a bit then made a break for it under the tape towards our place. No such luck – some more experienced looking police bundled her up and took her away. I think it must have been resolved with her getting home somehow, but it was unpleasant to watch.
The next day was October first – shiyi (ten one or 十一). Fortunately I hadn’t starved the night before because our 小区 had a little restaurant in it, as many do. So I tuned in to China Central Television to work out what was happening, and then went outside to try to catch the flypast. Before long I could already hear the low rumble of trucks and armoured vehicles on Chang’an Avenue, just one block to the north. And then came the jets; wave after wave of various combat jets, support jets, transport jets and even China’s new AWACs aircraft. The line of flight was directly overhead, giving me a stunning view of that big display of …power.
It took a long time for all those tanks and troops to make their way down Chang’an Avenue from Guo Mao to Xidan. There were a lot of aircraft in the flypast, too. Many were actually prototypes – the Z-10 gunships were not yet in normal service, for example, and the KJ-2000 AWACs plane seen in the formation above was one of just a few in existence. But like the infamous 1955 Soviet airshow that gave rise to the mythical “bomber gap“, appearances count for a lot. It was an impressive display even to people who knew their planes.
Once the parade was over, we were quickly allowed out of our 小区. I headed straight to Xidan, the area at the end of the central part of Chang’an Avenue. Long lines of coaches were waiting to bus out all the students who’d been bussed in to provide a reliable rent-a-crowd to line the avenue for TV coverage of the parade. The whole thing was stage managed to the last detail for the vast remote audience across China who could no doubt only marvel at what they saw. China is coming? For many, it probably felt like China had arrived.
