In Memoriam – The 20th Anniversary Of The Tiananmen Massacre

Translated by Michelle Yeh

1.
So far away
only broken pieces of paper flying
So close by
right underneath the feet
It’s always the same moment
Ever since that night
all has lost its meaning
the giant city drifts away like smoke
Ever since that moment
all have gathered around at a certain place
to gaze up at the deceased
waiting for them to speak

2.
Silence, more silence
All words
have turned to nil
The blood after death
has become harder with time
The living with their guilt
have grown old and feeble
no longer can they hope for that day
The continuous tracks of power
still occupy the wounds
They leave the hurt to the mothers
letting them
cry as they please in the putrid ruins

READ AN EXCERPT FROM YI PING’S BOOK,
The Speech of Pebbles published by Vista Periodista

READ THE 2003 ITHACA COLLEGE QUARTERLY ARTICLE.

Yi Ping was born in Beijing in 1952, he came of age during the Cultural Revolution. He was part of the demonstrations at Tiananmen Square and witnessed the government murder of protestors there. Soon after the 1989 demonstrations, he was relieved of his job at a Beijing university and forbidden to teach or publish. Even his previously published works were banned.

About his experience in Tiananmen Square, Yi Ping once wrote in the November 2001 issue of The Bookpress: I came, at that moment, to understand Tiananmen Square as an altar for the Chinese nation, its towering stone monument
a link between heaven and earth, between fresh blood and starlight. The murdered are our sacrifice for the future of China.

In 1991, Yi Ping and his wife, translator Lin Zhou, escaped to Poland before obtaining asylum from the United States government. A playwright, essayist, novelist and poet, Yi Ping edits the web magazine, Human Rights in China.
In 2001, he became the first persecuted writer to be sheltered at the Ithaca City of Asylum.

When asked to reflect twenty years after the bloody protests at Tiananmen Square, Yi Ping was moved to poetry:

LISTEN TO YI PING READ “IN MEMORIAM—ON THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TIANANMEN MASSACRE” (IN CHINESE)

Read Yi Ping’s bio.