Sketches in Winter: A Beijing Postscript

F. Quei Quo is a political science professor at Simon Fraser University.

Foran’s experience of China from 1988 to 1990, a period in which he
taught English in Beijing, could have resulted in an ESL manual or
travel guide had it not been interrupted by the Tiananmen Square
massacre on June 4, 1989. The volume under review is a record of
conversations between the author (often with his wife) and his Chinese
friends, colleagues, and students. Foran conveys to his readers the
agony felt by Chinese intellectuals in the post-Tiananmen days, and at
the same time gives his readers a glimpse of Chinese philosophy and
culture.

The old Chinese saying that “intellectuals never succeed in
revolution” was proved true again. “A hatred of politics was the
most striking common feature among our friends,” concludes Foran. As
for the legacy of Tiananmen Square, “even if citizens were ... offered
a heartfelt apology, an explanation, shown records of what happened, who
died, who killed them, and even if senior government leaders personally
laid commemorative wreaths for the massacred, ordered memorials ... even
then, the square would remain a desolate place. Like the Forbidden City,
like the grotesque buildings surrounding the site, Tiananmen was a
rectangular hole in the heart of Beijing, something best driven around,
best forgotten.”

I shared with Foran and his friends feelings of betrayal, helplessness,
and emptiness, though my audience with the hated President Yang on July
3, 1989, gave me different insights. As Foran’s favorite
conversationalist, Cui Jian, put it, “It’s not that I don’t
understand. The world just changes too fast.” Foran should be invited
back to China to put together a follow-up volume—only of sketches in
the spring this time around.