Chinese Netizens Defiantly Remember Tiananmen Square
To celebrate June 1 Children’s Day, Chinese portal site NetEase.com released a slideshow of nostalgic toy cars. “Do you remember these sweet toys in your awesome childhood?” the editors asked.
Readers didn’t expect the seemingly lighthearted sideshow to include a Lego recreation of the “Tank Man” blocking the People’s Liberation Army near Tiananmen, an iconic image from the 1989 protests in Beijing and subsequent crackdown that resulted in the deaths of hundreds.
“You are a brave editor,” someone commented.
“A great way to let our children remember our history,” another commenter said. “He was not run over by the tank that day. His name is Wang Weilin. No one knows what happened to him. They ‘evaporated’ him.”
By the end of the day, the photo was removed from the slideshow, but not before becoming a minor internet sensation.
The slideshow was published just three days before the 24th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, as many on China’s increasingly hard-to-censor social media plotted inventive ways to commemorate the June 4 victims.
Since early in May, many have been calling people to wear black shirts in silent protest on June 4, or light candles in their homes. Below are some of the online images and memes that have outrun, however briefly, the official censors’ gaze.
Link
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/ho...n-its-24th-ann