The Tienmen Square Massacre

It was May 1989 when I together with 5 other PAEC scientists went to Beijing as State Guests of Peoples Republic of China (PRC) to work with our counterpart Chinese scientists at the Beijing Institute of Nuclear Engineering (BINE). Three of us were Reactor Physicists, Two dealt with Reactor Thermal Hydraulics and one specialized in Reactor Control Engineering. Naturally we all were very excited even before embarking on that trip. To us it was a trip not less than going to the moon. The excitement was mainly for two reasons. Firstly, we were the first ever group of scientists to be visiting China about which we all invariably knew a lot without having ever been there and secondly we would be the first ever from the whole world outside the iron curtain (Soviet Union and Eastern Europe) countries to be interacting with the Chinese Scientists who, we were told could only converse in Chinese or Russian at best. We departed early in the morning by a PIA flight on 14 May 1989 from Karachi and arrived in Beijing in late afternoon. The airport building was a dreary shed apparently setup up in an airplane hangar. Our railway stations in Karachi or Lahore in my opinion fared much better in comparison. It was our first jolting shock. In those days not many airlines other than PIA flew to Beijing and we were the only foreigners arriving there at least at that time of the day. There was only one person at the immigration counter and a couple of others at the customs desk. We got very quickly through and out we went to step into mysterious Communist China. There were no taxis but a couple of representatives of BINE who came to pick us up on two very old model cars perhaps of Russian make. The drive from the airport to our hotel was long, passing through agriculture land. We could see peasants working in the fields using the age old equipment, covering their heads with large straw hats. It was green but a bit gloomy.

The hotel to which we were taken was in the outskirts of Beijing. A translator was assigned to us on a permanent basis. We discovered later that he was to be with us at all times except of course at night. He was an agreeable, laughing all the time sort of person. We quickly adapted to his Chinese English, which he spoke, often than not, without any pause. In the first few exchanges of pleasantries, he told us that BINE was nearby and at a walking distance from the hotel. I remember we had to wait a long time at the reception desk for the assigning of rooms. The clerks mostly middle aged men, having no knowledge of English apparently found it difficult to comprehend, pronounce and write our names (computers were still not common even in the Western World). Listening very intently to such names as Muhammad Shrafat ullah Siddiqui, jerkingly Pronouncing bit by bit and laughing incessantly in between and then writing it in the Chinese with repeated tries made it very difficult for them to proceed.   Noting down particulars from our respective passports was an even more difficult ordeal for them. Without the help of our translator, it sure would have been an exercise in futility. The wait was boring and excessively tiring. 

After a couple of hours of waiting, we ultimately were assigned rooms, all on the same floor. We found the rooms centrally air conditioned and the attached bathrooms clean and tidy. Soon the girls came with towels and thermos flask jugs, containing hot water. It was hot and sultry and we couldn’t possibly drink hot water, so we requested a maid to replace the jugs with cold water. She bowed her head several times, took the flask back and returned a little later with another set of jugs. To our horror, the jugs had even hotter water in them. The Chinese in those days only used hot water for drinking. Cold or chilled water simply didn’t exist. The room however had a refrigerator, which we soon learned to use to quench our often excessively demanding thirst for cold water.

Even though the day had shortened by three hours for us, it being summer time, the sun had not set yet. At dusk time we all together stepped out of the hotel to stroll around. In spite of the posh hotel that it was, we found the street outside unpaved, nonmetalled and dusty. The place we were in was quite clearly part of greater Beijing but still rural in character. There were no cars but only long carts like the one pulled by camels in parts of Karachi with a difference however that those were being pulled by men. These cart taxis were used by people to travel from place to place. There were street hawkers squatting on road sides and street corners selling water melon and other small time items. There was a barber, like the one we have in our villages. He had a make shift type of setup with a rickety high chair and a mirror supported and held in position by some kind of temporary arrangement. I remember having seeing a woman squatting on the road side with a carving knife and a meat cutting board placed on a pedestal before her. As we watched even though very casually, we noticed another woman approaching her. There was quick and sharp exchange of words between them. We gathered she was a customer, inquiring about the merchandise; she so eagerly wanted to purchase. After some argument about the price, the seller woman to our amazement and also horror pulled out a snake from the pouch under her thighs. After virtually nailing the snake on the cutting board, she sliced it along the length, pulled out the meat and removed the skin quite expertly. She repeated the exercise with 2-3 more snakes, which she took out from the pouch one by one. The customer woman watched scrutinizingly but quite clearly with half open watery mouth. We watched all this from a distance and neither of the two women nor the passersby’s took note of us.. We were hungry and wished to buy dinner for ourselves during this brief outing but our hunger had altogether vanished. Some of us even felt like vomiting. Aweful! we kept repeating as we slowly traced back our way to the hotel. Our first introduction to China had mercifully concluded. Quite unaware of the historical events soon to be unfolded during our stay in Beijing, we went to bed soon.

The reader might appreciate the details being described here later when we actually would talk about the Tienmen Square Massacre. It might not be possible to understand the depth of the events soon to unfold without actually coming into to grips with the state of China, its people, its economic condition and the totalitarian government that existed there before the happenings of the Tienmen. The buildup to the events would necessarily therefore be slow but quite informative at the same time for those who do not know the China that it was at that time. Mind it was only 25 years ago!

Next day our translator and official companion arrived at about 08:00 in the morning to pick us up. He took us first to the hotel dining room for breakfast, which only he ate as we found it comprising of tasteless rice and other things totally unpalatable to our taste and liking. After seeing the slaughtering of snake none of us had the stomach to take meals the previous night and now we found the breakfast, the sort of which our even empty stomachs refused to accept. We were the State Guests of the Chinese Government. Although we all took it sportingly, our translator was visibly upset. He thought it strange that we didn’t take the breakfast, even though in his opinion it was the best, that he could arrange and that too in one of the better Hotels of Beijing.

Later when I had several more opportunities of going to Beijing, I found absolutely marvelous breakfast arrangements with what ever one would like to help himself with. But the time I’m talking about is 1989 and the Chinese at that time did not even know what chilled or cold water meant. Later when I went there gain in 2004 as a State Guest, we were served with bottles of chilled water just after arriving in the limosine that was sent to pick us up from the airport.)                

He told us that our lunch arrangements were made at our BINE work place, where the food would be prepared by muslim Chef and cooks from the Chinese Uigar region. He told us we could have our breakfast there too. The BINE was at a walking distance and we happily walked with him, passing through alleys and lanes on either side of which were housing apartments. Even from outside, we could have our first glimpse of their living ways and style. The balconies all invariably had a bird cage hanging with singing bird perhaps a canary besides a washing line with spread out washed clothes. The balconies were quite clearly also used as a storing place to dump house items that probably were not in routine use. People mostly middle aged women looked at us interestingly but in visible bewilderment. On arrival at BINE, we were taken to a reception hall with sofas arranged in a semicircle. No one received us but soon the Director Mr Lou Goming entered with a group of 5-6 deputies and/or heads of departments and greeted us most graciously.