I went to university with a guy who hung out and demonstrated in Tiananmen Square. He'd gone there to get a student visa to come to Canada, and thought it seemed kind of exciting so he hung out for a day and a night. He left Beijing the next day to go to Canada.2 days later the tanks and the troops rolled in and made dead people and put them all about the ground. Then they put the dead people away so the live people wouldn't be able to say 'hey look at all the dead people - this is wrong'. Some dead people weren't taken away. Then they starting taking some of the live people away who said making dead people was wrong, and indeed saying that they'd - the troops - taken away the dead people and that that was wrong.
I found him in the woods once deep in the valley surrounding the campus. It was night time and I'd gone for a walk after leaving a party in one of the residences. I heard sobbing and walked through a swampy area and found him leaning on a tree trunk with a bottle of Remy-Martin cognac. He said he was sad and had drunk most of a bottle of cognac. So I told him we'd go back and drink more cognac and beer and make beef and rice. And we did and it was funny because he was 6'4", and scary looking like a Van Damme movie character and came from a very rich family and maybe that's why he listened only to opera and drank Remy-Martin cognac. His plan was to go back to China and take over his dad's company and get married to his high-school sweetheart. I hope he did.
Later that same night a Korean guy who lived next door who's name I've forgotten got stuck in the tree outside the house because he was hopelessly drunk and because he'd never really drunk much before and was really in love with Wendy (I think was her name) the girl who lived next door to us who he thought didn't know this but she did and thought he was nice - which he was. Wendy had to be awoken during the middle of the drunken night to convince him to leave the tree. Which he did. They later became friends.
So when I read an article about the tanks and the troops again, it kinda brings me back and I feel sad.
Stupid tanks and troops.
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