Tiananmen Square kinda creeps me out. Not specifically because of what happened there eighteen years ago, though that does play a role. No, the square creeps me out more because of the massive security presence and the sense you have that you’re constantly being watched.
Well, you are being watched.
From the moment you step out of your cab or emerge from the Beijing subway steps, you are being sized-up and then guided in the proper direction by various uniformed police, security, and army personnel. Not that they’re impolite, but they ain’t smiling, either. And this is just to get you across the street. Once you alight on the square itself, there are cameras everywhere, of course, as well as public-address loudspeakers and all manner of police and security vehicles. Some security personnel are stationed strategically around the square at various points of interest, while others march around Tiananmen in roving platoons of two or three or four. Granted, the Chinese People’s Congress was in session this October (in the massive, Soviet-style building that abuts the west side of Tiananmen Square), so there was an expected uptick in number of security forces present. But there really weren’t that many more than in previous years that I’ve visited and that ‘Big Brother is Watching’ feeling was the same as always.
It’s fairly common knowledge that there are also numerous plainclothes security officers in the square at all times, and on this recent visit I believe I encountered one. Customarily, Beijing residents who have studied English to any significant degree, recognizing a foreigner, will attempt to strike up a conversation, both to practice their English and to fraternize with said foreigner. This is especially true in Tiananmen Square. But the “independent filmmaker” in his early twenties who, upon noticing me taking photographs around the square looking for all the world like a journalist with my vest and all my gear, approached me and began lamenting the current state of politics in China - well, this guy couldn’t have been more transparent. Under the pretext of being a naive local youngster wanting to commiserate with a Westerner, he asked me a laundry-list of questions relating to my opinions on various hot-button political topics in China - a big no-no anywhere in China, never mind in the middle of Tiananmen Square. By the time he told me how popular George W. Bush is among his Chinese comrades, I was pretty well and good convinced that I was being baited by an undercover government agent.
I played it cool by denying any interest in politics, Chinese or otherwise, explaining that I am just an amateur photographer wanting to photograph his country so as to share the beauty of it with my American comrades. Evidently, he didn’t believe me. He asked for my contact info. I gave him my e-mail address, which he dutifully wrote down on a little reporter’s notepad that he just happened to have in his pocket. The e-mail address I gave him was fake.
After telling me he’d “be in touch” (I should watch for an e-mail from “Tao”) he began to walk away. I shouted to him that he should be more careful about discussing politics with foreigners, or anyone else for that matter, in Tiananmen Square. I wouldn’t want any harm to come to him, I said. I wasn’t necessarily kidding. He chuckled and walked away.
I resumed my photography. It was time for the sunset flag-lowering ceremony at the north end of the square, across the street from Chairman Mao’s giant portrait.
There’s more photos of Tiananmen Square in this gallery.
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