Morbid curiosity

Quite clearly I remember May 5th, 2005.

Having arrived in China's capital city hours earlier and with the days chores accomplished I excitedly made my way down Wangfujing's shopping streets towards the grandiose monumnets, mapped out almost maniacally by The Chairman just over 50 years ago.

Not so much revelling in toursit-y mindset - more the indulgence of a morbid curiosity.
Having only been alive for 24 years and only politically aware for a portion of those, there aren't too many world changing events that I can lay claim to remembering and - indeed - will never forget.

But Tianenmen is definetely one of them.

And as my feet began to grace the bleak concrete expanse that makes up the People's Square, I sought to cast my mind back to the events of June 1989.
I imagined what it would have been like to have been present in the same spot 16 years previously.
To read the thoughts and hopes of those gathered; surely they couldn't have been that different to myself?

And as I stood there breathlessly in the middle, only a stones throw from MacDonalds franchises and Starbucks outlets, it would almost have been too difficult to conceive this actually happened were it not for the ominous stare looming large from the giant portrait adorning the entrance to The Forbidden City.
Mao was still watching; ever present, ever there.

There is still a long way to go for many.