Forgetting and remembering June 💭 | Following the Yuan

China’s economic development owes much to its authoritarian regime, and its problems stem from it as well.

This is a special month. After the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen protest on June 4, there followed June 9, when Hong Kong’s mass protest in 2019 broke out. In the era of digital advocacy, Chinese speakers flock to the likes of Instagram, Threads, and X, sharing diverse perspectives of collective memory. (Among these, I particularly appreciate WOMEN我们’s call for entries about memories from marginalized groups.)

As someone who grew up in the 90s in an economically developed region, I only learned about Tiananmen in college outside mainland China. And only when reading Louisa Lim’s “People's Republic of Amnesia” in my late 20s, I learned why that may be the case.

Remembering

My parents grew up in the Cultural Revolution era (1966-1976), but I’ve never heard them mention it. They would rather talk about how they hustled during the glorious days after Deng Xiaoping doubled down on economic reform in 1992 with a southern tour.

“When I visited Suzhou Industrial Park/Shanghai in the 90s, they were all like farmland,” my dad would often say at family meals. “If only we bought more properties then...” He would then list his good and bad investments one by one.

When I was a toddler, my mom would take me on the back of her bike during lunch break at her English teaching job, buy a few cigarette packs at wholesale prices to sell at the family side hustle — a DVD rental store, and then a snooker club. The shop’s annual revenue in mid-90s was around 60,000 RMB/year, she fondly recalls that my favorite activity at the shop was displaying bubblegum.

Most recently, when she watched Wong Kar-wai’s state-sponsored TV show “Blossoms” with me, she sighed: “It was a time when the land is full of opportunities, it’s something your generation would never experience.” The show was about how opportunists made their fortune in export and stock in the 90s, which is possibly her and my dad’s favorite years.

In one episode, the main characters wanted to bring more affordable polo shirts to the local consumers after the French fashion brand Montagut always sold out. After decades of material scarcity, Chinese consumers in the 90s were desperate to buy anything from anyone.

No one can deny China’s economic growth before the structural slowdown, however, it angers me if that’s someone’s sole focus. One time, I was asked during an editorial job interview by a media business owner: what are some young people still unhappy about? Their lives are so much better compared to those of their parents and grandparents’ generation. The underlying message is: why are some young people so ungrateful? Well, let me get to that later.

Forgetting

Forgetting generational traumas is easier than remembering them, as remembering comes with risks. Not passing it on to offspring is the ultimate protection.

Both of my grandmas (my grandpas passed away) only started talking more about their experiences in the Great Leap (1958-1962) and the Cultural Revolution during Covid, as it seemed to trigger their memories.

My maternal grandma said that my entrepreneur great-grandfather once bought a beautiful green bike in Britain while working on the docks in Shanghai. He rewarded it to my grandpa, who became the only person in the local town to own a bike. Days later, the bike was confiscated by local authorities as it was seen as a symbol of the bourgeoisie. My grandma later saw the official riding it himself.

This is perhaps one of the least harmful examples of my probing conversations, while other stories involve the lost lives of strangers, acquaintances and family members, and the worst side of mankind. 

It doesn’t serve offspring like me to remember, it only brings trouble because there may be official and unofficial informants everywhere. China’s surveillance capability has coupled with tech and manpower, extending at home and abroad. 

Moreover, the authorities remember who hasn’t forgotten. Those who participated in Tiananmen and White Paper movement, authorities go after them a year later or years after. The Tiananmen protestors have a history on record for life, barring them from important roles (unless, like former CCTV investigative journalist Wang Zhi’an’s ex-boss, they didn’t include it in their file).

There are some parallels as to how the worldwide public perceives Tiananmen and Shanghai lockdowns in 2022. In the latter case, lockdowns happened countrywide, and digital advocacy happened across the nation — people distributed information faster than censors, in conversation threads, posting on WeChat moments in droves, drawing lines on screenshots to confuse AI censors — but people outside China may only remember the one that occupies international headlines and the one in China’s largest commercial hub. 

Weeks ago, during the second anniversary of the Shanghai lockdown, I came across a lot of people saying “I can’t believe how little we talk and think about it”, the horror stories may not be passed on in full detail, but Chinese people already live in a momentum: we move on, we do not look back. 

Aftermath

The forgetting mindset has a profound impact on the social psychology of business leaders, a topic I’d want to explore further perhaps in another degree or a book.

To maximize profit during a certain time, both business owners and investors choose to align with national policies or official whispers. Those without connections/guanxi focus on short-term results to turn a quick buck. The older generation of entrepreneurs rarely share founder stories because their motivation wasn’t driven by personal interests but by opportunism, similar to those in “Blossoms.”

China’s development owes much to its authoritarian regime, and its problems stem from it as well. As I become more involved in the business world, I understand the challenges of balancing the pursuits of different social groups and creating regulations that clamp down on opportunists and rule-breakers without harming the innocent. 

Since the beginning of my career, I’ve wanted the world to understand China better, and it would make those like mine job so much easier if the government allowed the media to do its job and allow marginalized groups to have a voice. 

That day, when I heard the interviewer’s question about ‘ungrateful young people’, I was in shock, and was only able to find words later: we want the country to be even better. 🔚

Books that helped deepen my understanding about China and myself:

• “Party of One” (2023), Chun Han Wong

• “Among the Braves” (2023), Shibani Mahtani, Timothy McLaughlin

• “People's Republic of Amnesia” (2014) and “Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong” (2022), Louisa Lim

• “One Child Nation” (2019), Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang

• “The Discourse of Race in Modern China” (1992), Frank Dikötter

[Header image: Stella Zhang, Sealed Memory, 2019. Courtesy of Chinese Culture Center via Artsy].