Loading...Editor's note: On November 24, 2022, while China was under a pandemic lockdown, a fire broke out in Jixiang Community in Urumqi. Officials declared 10 people were killed. In the following days, protests broke out as people in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and other cities spontaneously gathered to pay homage to the deceased and express their dissatisfaction with the COVID-19 eradication policy and to make other political demands. The author of this article, Lin Xuxu, was at the scene of the protest. She used this autobiographical essay to recall her memories from a year ago. In reality, I don't really want to write a letter to you, I just need to imagine you sitting across from me so I can feel a little more at ease and then speak out fearlessly. Recalling that night is painful. I thought many times that I wanted to write it down, but I didn’t dare to write it at first, and now my memories have faded. I miss the photos and words I was forced to delete out of fear at the time. 1 That evening, we had dinner at your house. One thing that sticks out in my memory is that the meal that day was terrible. Beijing continued to be under lockdown. We could no longer tell which restaurants were still open, we couldn’t order takeout, and we had to wait for an hour or two for delivery. We had no choice but to ask our friend Y who was still out on the streets to grab some food to bring over if he could find a restaurant that was open. In the end, he brought two large boxes of Sha county steamed dumplings. When it was served, everyone laughed. Of course, our gathering that day was not just to share a meal. The night before, large-scale protests had broken out from Nanjing to Shanghai. Students from Nanjing University of Communication stood up holding white paper to observe a moment of silence for their compatriots in Xinjiang. From those video fragments, we saw students negotiating with the principal and demanding that "no one should be held accountable afterwards." Some media veterans said that if these students are harmed because of this, they hoped that everyone will help them when they are looking for jobs in the future. I wanted to cry when I heard this sentence. I used to be a student and I experienced that kind of awful life: fear of being reported, being called in for a talk, fear of not being able to graduate, fear of losing the opportunity to enter this industry. I am no longer a student, and I don’t have any weaknesses to be targeted anymore. But in the end, it was the students who had nothing who stood up first. That night, Y posted a location on WeChat Moments: Urumqi Office in Beijing, saying he would show up there. I must confess that I was undecided whether to go to the site from the beginning. A month before this, I had just made a new life plan, hoping that I could live a good life. I must admit that there were some moments when I kept convincing myself, "It's just a walk, nothing will happen." "If I meet the police, I'm just passing by, so what can they do to me?" 2 Did we talk about anything else that night? I don’t remember. Then I went out. Before I went out, I picked up a down jacket from your house. We arrived very early and first went near the Lebanese Embassy, only to find a police car parked there. We were so frightened that we quickly asked the driver to keep driving forward. The weather was very cold, and there were very few people walking along the Liangma River, but soon I found some young people pacing back and forth like us. I made eye contact with a group of them, and then asked: "Are you here for a walk?" The other party said yes, and we started walking by the river together. We used to take many walks along the river. It was still 2021, and the section of the Liangma River in the Embassy District had just been repaired. The officials were trying to make it a beautiful and accessible business district. We spent the Mid-Autumn Festival that year drinking under a white shed. By 2022, the place suddenly became popular. People who had nowhere to go due to the lockdown came to the river to paddleboard, swim and walk. Around eight o'clock that evening, a few young people held flowers and placed them on a public bench. Immediately, two men in uniform came over and said that gatherings were not allowed here. We went to the other side of the river again. In front of a very magnificent hotel, we stopped along the river and put down flowers and candles, and then the hotel security came and said we were not allowed to light candles. By that time, all the people were already crowded on this narrow riverside trail. I don't need to tell you as you already know what happened next. The police in this country always arrive as soon as possible. A young policeman tried to get us to disperse, for no other reason than gatherings are not allowed due to the epidemic. Someone said, "Then it’s just like we’re doing a COVID PCR test, standing one meter apart, but we’re lining up to mourn." Someone started to maintain order in the field spontaneously. People stood in three rows and kept their distance from one another. In fact, we were all very well aware that it didn’t matter what the arrangement was. It was true that we weren’t allowed to gather together. The policeman kept saying that he understood our feelings, but still couldn't let us be there. Many people were obviously suppressing a lot of anger. Someone asked the same young policeman: "Do you know why we are gathering here?" and "Do you know what happened in Xinjiang?" The policeman said that he didn’t know. Incredulous voices came from the crowd, "He doesn't know!" But I really didn't want to see that scene play out, and I didn't want another ordinary citizen to bear the brunt of our anger. Later, there were more and more people, and there were more and more police cars and policemen. They surrounded both ends of the river. That was the most "relaxed" period of the whole night. To mourn, we sang songs. Someone suggested singing a song for the deceased compatriots, so we sang "Farewell." Later, the "Internationale" and "national anthem" were sung one after another. I sang very loudly. I hadn’t been able to sing karaoke for a long time, so I sang on the street. We also tried chanting loudly. As expected, we were shut down: We couldn’t shout extreme words. I don’t know who took the lead, but we did the opposite. We shouted, “Good, good, good, good, good;” “The Chinese people are the happiest people in the world;” and “I want to do a PCR test.” Absurdity dissolves a lot of sadness. A female voice from the other side came from far away. She said, “I am from Xinjiang, thank you. I think in my heart, we are the ones who have failed the Xinjiang people.” There was also a man standing on the other side of the river shouting: “You make me feel that there is hope for Beijing.” I later saw some photos taken by the media from the other side of the river. The reflections of the crowds and mobile phone lights in the river were very beautiful. 3 A friend who was with us was photographed by the police and had to leave first. She and I walked away from the river and returned to the bridge, where we found that there were already police cars parked there. Should I have left with her? There were so many "stay or go" moments that night. I decided to remain at the site. More and more people were coming out from along the river. Police on the bridge constantly reminded the crowd not to gather on the bridge. At that moment, I felt compelled to shout: “Since we are not allowed to stay here, let’s start walking.” Then another female voice was heard, "Is anyone coming with me?" So, the crowd gathered together again. We started walking. That was the beginning of the march that night. Foreign reporters flocked around us, carrying cameras and interviewing people on the streets. A female reporter stopped me, and her translator asked why we were taking to the streets and what our demands were. What did I answer? I don't remember at all. I didn’t know how to express my demands. For people living here, “demand” is a word that is too unfamiliar and too dangerous. It doesn’t appear at the dinner table, in classroom discussions, in street signs or in public media. So, I didn’t know what my demand was. I also didn’t dare to say what my demands were. I felt very embarrassed and ashamed in front of the camera. On the one hand, we were standing on the street but didn’t know how to express our demands. That was ridiculous. I thought of the youth in Hong Kong and the youth in Thailand. Among the protesters in all regions, I was afraid we were the most useless group. On the other hand, I had never asked such a direct question in my own career. I’ve also never been faced with such direct media. Then I ran away from the camera. I escaped from the first row back through the second row, then deliberately walked slowly and fled a little further. A girl next to me noticed my nervousness. She comforted me, saying: “It doesn't matter.” After walking a few steps, the crowd stopped and started shouting slogans. Were those slogans considered our demands? "The compatriots in Xinjiang should not be forgotten!" "The compatriots in Guizhou should not be forgotten!" A young girl brought up the Sitong Bridge slogan and took the lead in shouting: "No PRC testing. We want freedom. No dictatorship. We want democracy..." A month ago, when the Sitong Bridge protest had just happened, many friends said at the gathering, the most desperate thing about today's environment is that things like this on the bridge have no meaning except giving up one’s life. I nodded in agreement at that time. But on this night a month later, when the slogans on the Sitong Bridge were shouted out by so many people, they floated in the Beijing night. I understood this is the meaning. Everything will have repercussions. 4 We walked from Xinyuan Street to Xinyuan South Road. A foreign photographer climbed up a telephone pole to take a picture of us. A colleague standing in the crowd said "Chinese reporters will sacrifice themselves and let foreign reporters win the World Press Photo Award" and we all laughed. Why aren't we on telephone poles? Why can we only stand in the crowd? This seems to be our situation this year. We are no longer bystanders, and the professional experience we gained in the past was not very effective. We need to detach ourselves and not get too close to the interviewees. But how do you separate yourself, living here when everyone shares the same pain? This year I have done more personal writing than ever before. Occasionally, when I think about it, I feel ashamed. Why did I start writing about myself? But every time the article is published, I find that these small pains that were originally private have gained so much resonance in the comment section. If we had the choice, we'd definitely want to climb that pole ourselves. That night, the police had set up cordons at every intersection, and then we lifted the cordons with our hands and continued walking under them. There were more and more people, and the slogans grew increasingly loud, so much so that residents of the community along the street came downstairs to watch. An elderly aunt gave a speech on the street. She said, "Everyone is a victim, and the dictator is also a victim of this era.” Behind her, someone started shouting, “Release Peng Zaizhou!” Later, there were more and more police officers. To be more accurate, they were plainclothes officers, easily identifiable as they all wore N95 masks. At a certain intersection, they forced everyone to make a U-turn. At all intersections, they forced people to make a choice: Do you want to exit at this intersection or stay in the march? Accounts of the previous night’s experience in Shanghai had been circulating on the Internet, and everyone told each other not to get separated and to go home together. But I thought with great despair that at the march, there must be someone who stayed until the end, and there must be someone who went home last. On that stretch of road, someone around me almost got into a confrontation with the police. A policeman put his arm around the young man’s shoulder and said, “Let’s go chat.” Everyone gathered around and wanted to stand with the guy, but I sensed another meaning from the policeman’s expression, he didn't want the conflict to intensify and things to become irreversible. Later, for some unknown reason, people at the scene walked back while shouting "Peoples’ police protect the people." The people who shouted those words at that time probably did not expect that not long after, everyone would once again stand in complete opposition to these "servants of the people." After that section of road, friends kept sending me messages saying they were on their way. Since my friend who was accompanying me had bad legs and feet, she had to go home first. At that moment, I was once again faced with "should I stay or go." In fact, my best choice was to go with her. I didn't have a valid PCR certificate and couldn't take any transportation. I might not be able to return home. But I stayed. To be honest, I just didn’t want to leave. After sending my friends off to the bus, I walked aimlessly by myself, wanting to go to a place with more people. Then I saw many empty buses approaching. Our experience in Shanghai the night before had already told us that they were police cars. I took a detour and walked back to Liangma Bridge. When I was almost there, I heard the voices of many people again. It turned out that the young people coming from behind staged a second wave of protests on the bridge, but they had been separated and divided by the road. Vehicles came and went, and an orange car drove past several times. The car stereo played the "Internationale" very loudly, and passing vehicles also kept honking their horns. The police had cordoned off the scene and no one else was allowed to join. 5 I didn’t know what time it was, but there were new messages on my phone. One of them was “Tear gas and police are heading towards the Third Ring Road.” In fact, this news doesn’t seem like much now, but that night, I was so scared that I finally decided to leave. I scanned a share bicycle and walked in the wrong direction. A policeman asked me where I was going and pointed for me to go in a direction and appeared to move his cordon. I heard him say, "Go quickly," and then I left. I finally decided to go back to your house. When I opened the door, you sat alone in the living room in silence. I didn't know what you were thinking. Out of fear, I stayed connected with another friend that was with me along the way. After we got home, we only said a few words and I fell asleep on the sofa at your house. Is this matter over? The next day, I left your house and when I was approaching the subway station, I saw a piece of paper that someone had taped on the ground. On it were the names of many global cities and "We stand with the Chinese activists." I felt excited. My life didn’t seem to change after that. I still relied on the screenshots of Health Kit to get on the subway. For several years, I had been paying attention to disappearing singers and disappearing articles each day, and I was angry at the inability to speak in public spaces. I imagined that one day, people will be expelled from the collective just because they expressed different opinions. For example, they will not be able to enjoy public resources, take the high-speed rail, or be recruited for jobs. They will be excluded from the social order. At that moment before the Spring Festival, it suddenly dawned on me that aren’t we now living a life of being expelled? It’s not even because of something you did that you now can’t freely take public transportation or go to public places. And then we got those calls. Calls from police stations in various jurisdictions: Where were you on the night of the 27th? Who were you with? What did you do? Were you at the site? Almost every few hours, I exchanged news with friends who had been to the site of the march. We tried to string together a fake story, but we were really bad at lying. We were accustomed to remembering every detail from a scene. When I first became a reporter, a senior taught me to turn myself into a video recorder and record everything I saw at a site. I also had to open up all my senses — to smell a scene, to listen to its sounds. We went over it for a long time, but couldn't come up with a bogus story to deal with the police. Then we reached a consensus that we should not say each other's names, and we could make up the rest for ourselves. My call came late at night on the third day. (I later learned that the police had come to look for me two days earlier, but I wasn’t at home that day.) I didn’t answer the phone and watched it ring until it stopped and a new number appeared. Although I felt I was prepared to face the police, I wasn’t and I could hear my heart beating very fast. I decided to delete a few photos on my phone first, as well as many videos saved in other places, and deleted a lot of chat history. I then started deleting friends altogether. It was actually very late at that time, so I forced myself to fall asleep and face the police again the next day. I woke up very early the next morning. I saw the police making another call, but I still didn’t answer it. I wasn’t avoiding it. Do you know what I was thinking? I just wanted to have enough sleep. I thought about those friends that were going in and not coming back out for a long time. I thought that if it gets to that point, it will be very painful to not be able to sleep, so I wanted to get enough sleep. I later saw the widely circulated "Letter from Tehran Prison." The author said that she had just gone shopping for a few records before going to jail, and she couldn't let go of her soft, comfortable life. I very much feel the same way. I think I am really squeamish now. I need fresh milk and fruit. If I really end up in a detention center, I would give up all hope. I slept until noon, not sure how I could have slept at all, and only then was I finally ready to get up and face it all. Sure enough, I received another call not long after, and the party on the other end asked me to go to a certain police station. It was very cold that day. I transferred my work to someone else before heading out. I didn’t have a navigation system and thought I could find the police station, but I took a wrong turn and ended up walking for more than half an hour. I felt a little tired and wanted to find something to eat on the street. But I didn’t have a PCR test certificate, and Beijing hadn’t yet lifted the ban on dine-in restaurants. I wasn’t able to eat before going to the police station. I'd been delaying it for so long, but I never expected that because the "zero COVID" mandate was still enforced throughout the system at that time, I couldn’t enter the police station without a mask and a PCR test certificate. The police brought out a chair and jotted down some notes from me at the entrance of the alley. Then the matter was suspended for the time being. 6 The issue seemed to be dropped, right? Miraculously, they actually let it go. Suddenly there was no need to do PCR tests. People everywhere were forwarding photos of PCR test kiosks being torn down. Suddenly, it was as if I didn’t know who to direct the past three years of my depression and anger towards. What have we been doing these past three years? We lock people up when we say we want to lock them up, and let them go when we say we want to release them. The whole city was deathly quiet again, this time completely lifeless. People were either lying in bed or rushing to the hospital. I lay in bed every day and didn't go out for a week. I looked out the window and there was not a single car on the usually congested ring road. Occasionally, a few ambulances whizzed by. The bad news came just before Christmas. Journalists in Beijing were being arrested. But it's strange that in our industry, there was no sound at all. I even heard that when some colleagues asked to follow the story, other colleagues jumped out and said, "Is it possible that not paying attention is the protection?" Is this really our logic? When reporting, don’t we always shout that attention is power? How come when reporters were being arrested, it became “not paying attention is protection.” I don’t mean to criticize anyone, and I knew that at that point, many people subconsciously remained silent. I was really afraid that people who were arrested would be forgotten again. In other words, I projected my own consciousness, and I was afraid that if I had been arrested, my friends would forget about me. We talked about it that night, and you said that you had thought about it before. If you go away one day, you hope that your friends will continue to have happy lives, such as going to your favorite restaurant to eat together. I imagined that it would be possible for everyone to stand up and support our colleagues again. I also imagined that if everyone who had been to the march site confessed, it would be equivalent to everyone being innocent. But I also knew that these things were impossible. Most people were preparing to get their lives back on track, and they weren’t willing to come back to stand up for anyone. And a night like that only comes once. The friends I have met over the years can be divided into two categories. One category is those with a civic spirit. They are kind, brave, have things they love, truly care about what is happening in our society and will fight for freedom and equality in many small ways. Then there is another type of friend that you will recognize from your first meeting. They are so determined that they may one day sacrifice themselves for the sake of freedom. We all know that none of the young people arrested in Beijing wanted to actually sacrifice their lives. I was a little hysterical during that time. On the one hand, I was not sure whether I was safe. On the other hand, I always felt that they were "scapegoats" who were bearing the punishment for everyone who had been to the site, even if the crime and punishment were both unjustified. Later, more and more news came out. Some people said that they followed a group outside the border and arrested them, while others said that they were arrested just because they were photographed by foreign media. I became more and more like a frightened bird. Phone calls with unknown numbers made me nervous for a long time. I kept thinking about what I had done. My face and voice were clearly identifiable on so many foreign media broadcasts. What could I do? Well, there was also that damn street interview. I wondered if it would be broadcast. There was a period in which no more arrests were made, and you kept telling me that everything was probably fine. I actually knew that they likely wouldn’t find me. But my body was still very tense, and I started vomiting again for no reason. I had no choice but to dig out the sedatives prescribed by the doctor in the first half of the year. I knew that I should delete all the records, those photos and those videos, but I really wanted to write it all down. In fact, I was more afraid that there would be no records left at all. Usually, we care so much about hearing the voices of those who have experienced things firsthand. This time, we also should write down for ourselves exactly what happened. During that time, I even started to seek out answers to some very strange questions, such as, can people choose where to go to jail? Can people with criminal records still travel or study abroad, and can they apply for a visa? The answer was that it is no problem to go to most countries, and I felt relieved again. Later, I alternated between fear and resignation. I thought the days outside were so difficult, it wouldn’t be so bad to wait for my friends to give me a few books every time they visited me. When Chinese New Year was rapidly approaching, because one of my close friends was arrested, friends kept telling me, "Go away, get out of here." Everyone urged me to go. A cantankerous senior who had troubles back in the day called me almost every few days. She said, you know I don't like you very much, but I hope you are safe. At that time, even when I went out to buy sugar cane, I would carry my computer and passport with me. I didn’t know what use it would be. If the police really came to my door at that time, would I have the courage to run away with my computer and passport? I’m afraid not. But being a "fugitive" had unconsciously turned into my state of being. This reoccurred many times, such as at Xianzi's court hearing, when walking under the Sitong Bridge, or when sneaking into a demolished village. Another example was taking a bus with a fake PCR test certificate. 7 Nothing "happened" to me in the end. Now I am sitting peacefully in a cafe near the southern hemisphere. It seems like I finally don’t have to worry anymore. There are big bright windows that I like, big wooden tables, countless ferns, and countless plants with thick and huge leaves. This is an ideal space. In Beijing, I found many similar spaces. Last spring, when I was looking forward to the warmer weather, I would feel the wind, bask in the sun, and write on the rooftops of Beijing cafes. But what happened next was disappointing. The comfortable weather in the north was short-lived. The short window from spring to summer in 2022 was spent under lockdown. I should be happy to be sitting in this environment now, but in fact, I keep feeling something tugging at me, pulling me back to that night. It is difficult to write such a letter. My throat hurts every time I write a paragraph. I keep taking deep breaths. I don’t know if there will be any unexpected changes after sending this letter, but this is the only thing I can do. I can’t leave any real reports in the public domain. Such a private letter can be considered as doing my part to piece together the fragments of history. My impression of this country is from last winter when the lockdown had just been lifted. I wonder if my friends are happier now? Feeling a little freer? The pub we used to go to closed down. But the good news is that several friends left. This gives me a little peace of mind. You know I like riding electric bikes very much. I rode very slowly at first, and then rode faster and faster. Then I unlocked the speed limit and always turned the handle all the way. Sooner or later, I will drive very, very fast, to the point where I can push an electric bike to its limit. In fact, it is the same when it comes to fighting for freedom and expression. I know that sooner or later, I will go all the way. This is not to brag or appear brave, but rather a kind of helplessness, an instinct that cannot make rational decisions. There should be a better ending. But let’s stop here first. (WhyNot’s columns, comments, and analytic articles are the opinions of the author of the article and do not represent the position of this website.)