TURMOIL IN CHINA : Reporter’s Notebook : For Youth of China, It’s a Little Like Woodstock

For the youth of China, the past month’s events in Tian An Men Square are certain to assume a mythic status exceeding even that of the famed Woodstock music festival for Americans who came of age in the 1960s.

Music has been secondary to politics in what will be known as the great 1989 democracy rallies of Tian An Men Square. But two songs have played important roles in protests that appear on the verge of toppling Premier Li Peng from office: China’s national anthem and the revolutionary socialist hymn, “The Internationale.” Both songs call for oppressed people to rise up in revolt, and the students sing them with gusto.

Softer tunes have been heard as well. One day, to entertain the crowd a guitarist stood and played atop a bus parked at the square. At night, people huddled in small groups and sang.

There has also been time for some romance during those long days and nights at the square.

A few days ago, a couple decided that they wanted to get married, and they and their friends put together an impromptu wedding ceremony.

In place of ribbons, red strips of cloth were knotted and pinned to the blouse of the bride and shirt of the groom, who stood in the midst of their friends for the brief event.

Someone wrote up a wedding certificate--lacking legal force but surely issued with love--and it was presented to the happy couple as the students around them cheered.

Motorbikes are relatively rare on China’s streets, but they do exist. During weeks filled with high political drama and extraordinary street scenes, one of the most gripping sights has been the Flying Tiger Team, consisting of about 500 young owners of motorbikes and light motorcycles and, in many cases, their girlfriends.

Two helmeted riders per bike, with those in the lead carrying streaming banners, the Flying Tiger Team has raced through the streets of Beijing in search of excitement.

“Block the army trucks!” screamed the riders as they roared toward the city’s outskirts one recent night to help blockade the advancing People’s Liberation Army.

The Flying Tigers are themselves a symbol of the new, uneven prosperity that senior leader Deng Xiaoping--himself a major target of the protests--has brought to China with market-oriented reforms over the past decade.

Motorbikes, in addition to being in short supply, are too expensive for most Chinese. It is primarily the class of prosperous private entrepreneurs who can afford them.

“It’s a little strange that they’ve been some of our strongest supporters,” said one student as he watched the Flying Tigers roar off into the darkness. “Students often complain about unfair distribution of money. The Flying Tiger Team, in some sense, represents all that.”

But he added that the students have welcomed the bikers’ support.

“We can all benefit from democracy,” he said.

One of the fascinating, and in a sense tragic, aspects of the current demonstrations is how so many people have turned against a leader, the 84-year-old Deng Xiaoping, who has done so much for them.

Deng has freed China from the irrationality and severe political controls of the Maoist era and set it on the path of economic reform and growing prosperity. But today’s protesting youth, and many of their elders, now view him as an aging emperor, unable to understand China’s current needs and clinging to power past his time.

“Xiaoping, the People of Sichuan Welcome You Home,” declared a hand-scrawled cardboard poster held by a man standing along the parade route during a recent demonstration.

With some pride, the protester displayed the opposite side of the sign.

“Long Live the Respected Xiaoping. Long Live! Long Live!” it declared.

Asked by several passers-by whether the two sides of his sign did not conflict, the man explained: “We want him to go back to Sichuan and pass good days, have an idle, very peaceful and quiet life, and live for a long time.”

A poster carried in another march captured the feelings of the vast majority of protesters:

“Deng Xiaoping--Thank You. Goodby.”