Never before seen Tiananmen Square photos found in shoebox

It was a black film canister, rattling around the bottom of an old Naturalizer shoebox labeled “photos.” I opened it, wondering if it was a roll of unused film. Instead, I found a twist of white tissue paper wrapped around tightly rolled black-and-white negatives. I held them up to the light. At first I saw…legs.

Then, people with bicycles.

Wait, that looks like the Monument to the People’s Heroes. Is that Tiananmen Square? With banners?

Next, a white form rising above a crowd, holding…a torch?

Oh man, is this what I think it is?

On Sunday night, I was searching through my parents’ photos for a piece I was writing on Tiananmen Square and my father, when I stumbled across two rolls of negatives that appeared to be from the 1989 student democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. I was stunned. I had no idea where they were from, why my parents had them, or why they never said anything about them.

Since my parents died, I’ve become an archeologist of my own past, digging through documents of half-remembered events, looking at pictures of people whose names I’ll never now know. Finding something like this though, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of June 4, was unexpected.

I had the photos printed. There were two rolls of film: 30 photos of a march down Chang’an Avenue to Tiananmen Square, another set of 15 photos of the Goddess of Democracy presiding over the square. In the second roll, I found a picture of my uncle, who was an art student in Beijing during the protests. Mystery partially solved.

I knew from my parents that my uncle was in Beijing during the protests, that he had gone to the square, and that he was not in the square on the night of June 3. I had no idea he had taken pictures. He must have developed the photos himself. Did he mail them to my parents? Did he slip them to my mother when she went to China in 1993? There’s no way to ask, at least for now.

From some of the banners, it looks like the first set of photos must have been taken after the student hunger strike began on May 13, but before May 29. The second set must be from the five days between May 30,  when the Goddess of Democracy was unveiled, and June 3, when everything went to pieces.

When we talk about Tiananmen and June 4, we often speak of memory, and forgetting. These photos have waited 25 years to be seen. So let’s take a look, and remember.

Photos from the march (sometime between May 13-May 29, 1989)

She looks so hopeful and happy.

The girls’ banner says, “Wake up!”

The sash of the man holding hands says, “Only by speaking up can we have democracy.”

Lots of emphatic signs. One of them says “Don’t be a vase” (ie, something that’s just for show). Probably good advice.

Marching down West Chang’an Avenue in front of the Beijing Telegraph Building.

Lots of lighthearted people in the back. Sign says the workers of the People’s Educational Press Printing Center support the students.

 

I forget sometimes how many bikes there were.

Sign in the back pledges support from juniors at Beijing’s 35th high school.

I was surprised that there were five or six photos with children in them. I wonder if any of them remember it now. The sign in the back says “Can’t watch this anymore.”

Tourists show their support.

Waving at the tourist bus.

Tiananmen Square street fashion

These guys show up in several photos. Friends of my uncle? Or just guys with perfect looks of determination?

One of the signs on the monument says, “The People Will Not Forget 1989.”

Photos of the Goddess of Democracy on Tiananmen Square (sometime between May 30-June 3, 1989)

The Goddess of Democracy above the crowd

Parents take their daughter to see the Goddess of Democracy.

A close up of the statue. A little kid is eating tang hulu in the shade.

Reading the banner

Lots of people taking photos of the statue. Westerner looks like he could be a journalist. Notebook in front pocket.

Another Westerner in the square.

The Goddess of Democracy rising above the tents.