CHINA IN TURMOIL : Travelers Tell of Chaos, Close Calls : Americans Return From China: ‘Like Nothing I’ve Seen’

As Americans continued to return home from China on Wednesday, a groundswell of support for pro-democracy activists who have fought and died in Beijing and Shanghai surfaced at emotional rallies, demonstrations and memorial services held throughout Southern California.

Travelers arriving at Los Angeles International Airport told of narrow escapes and of a desperate people whipped by violence, confusion and pandemonium in their homeland.

“Shanghai was like nothing I’ve seen in my life,” said Sheila Burke, 37, of Washington, who was among a delegation of 37 lawyers visiting China. “From our hotel window we could see roads blocked by huge buses with deflated tires and large groups of people quietly standing on railroad tracks to stop trains.”

An equally eerie scene occurred at Shanghai International Airport, where Burke waited with dozens of other Americans who had packed hastily for a flight out of the country Tuesday.

‘Crowded and Hot’

“It was very crowded and hot. Children were crying. People were swigging from water bottles,” she said. “When we finally saw the shiny red tail of an American airliner, the Americans screamed and cheered.”

Also disembarking from the plane with Burke were 16 Rotary Club members from Milwaukee who told of hearing gunfire and watching army convoys roll through the streets of Beijing.

“These are down-home type folks, and they were amazingly calm,” said Robert Spitzer, 67, of his fellow Rotary Club members, who spent three days in a Beijing hotel over the weekend. “When you see these roadblocks and trains being stopped, well, it scares the devil out of you.”

At the airport, Marilyn Butterman, of Janesville, Wis., could hardly contain her joy when she spotted her 27-year-old son, Christopher, rounding a corner and looking fatigued.

“There he is!” Butterman shouted, rushing forward to hug the son she hadn’t seen since August, when he left for China to teach economics at the Electronics Industry Management College in Beijing. “I’m so thankful you’re safe.”

Heavy on Christopher’s mind were the students he’d left behind in China.

“I can remember saying, ‘Thank you for being super students and good friends,’ ” he said. “Then we shook hands goodby. But it was so frantic we didn’t have time to embrace.”

Jian Li Yang, 26, a Chinese citizen and student at UC Berkeley, witnessed the shooting of students at Tian An Men Square on Saturday.

“The troops moved into the square and shot all the way,” Jian said, adding that Chinese soldiers fired rounds in front and behind them. As terrified students and supporters sought cover, some of them were run over by tanks, Jian said, adding: “It was like a nightmare. I couldn’t believe it, even though I saw it.”

In Southern California, weeping Chinese-Americans wore black armbands and white carnations at memorial services held at UC Irvine and at Sun Yat-Sen Square in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, where 1,000 people cheered when a Chinese flag was burned.

They angrily shouted “Down with communism! An eye for an eye! Long live China!” when two men set fire to the large red flag with cigarette lighters and burning bundles of wadded Chinese-language newspapers. A few minutes earlier, they had recited Christian and Buddhist prayers.

“I can’t understand why the Chinese government would kill its own people,” said Lytton Wu, 74, of Los Angeles, who came to the United States 20 years ago.

Tears and Prayers

Nearby, Tong Mei Kian, 73, and Yam Fong Ay, 75, clutched white flowers and dabbed their eyes with tissue as they muttered prayers with heads bowed.

“Those people who died are Chinese like us,” Tong said.

“There were so many students killed, and they were so young,” Yam added.

Hu Li Ming, 60, a Chinese citizen living in the United States, displayed her discontent by ripping apart her passport.

“I hate that government!” Hu said. “Imagine the inhumanity of killing your own people.”

Among the business leaders and elected officials in attendance were City Councilman Michael Woo, the first Chinese-American elected to the City Council, and Mayor Tom Bradley.

At UC Irvine, Asian and Anglo students shouted their outrage and called for the overthrow of China’s hard-line leaders.

Hundreds of students and faculty members overflowed Gateway Plaza at the university, which has the highest percentage of Asian students of any UC campus. Most wore black armbands, and many shed tears for the protesters.

The families of 16 Cal State Northridge students traveling in China have set up their own information relay network to pass along messages on the students’ whereabouts. The students began their journey after completing a semester at Shaanxi Teachers University in Xian, about 600 miles southwest of Beijing.

Rita Holland reported to the group Wednesday that her daughter, Joanne Nesti, had gotten a call through from Shanghai, saying she was with four of the other students. She said they planned to take a boat to Bangkok, a four-day voyage, because they feared that traveling by train through Chinese territory to Hong Kong would be too dangerous.

The whereabouts of three students were uncertain, but Northridge officials said two may be heading west in an attempt to reach Tibet. Eight others are presumed by university officials to be in Beijing.

Students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where 50 students and teachers held a quiet daylong demonstration, produced a five-minute videotape to be transmitted via satellite to Beijing, spokeswoman Diane Reed said. In the videotape, students were shown painting, printing and drawing “messages of support for freedom and democracy.”

Meanwhile, Paul Young, a 36-year-old Los Angeles stockbroker, has launched an effort to have Americans nationwide turn on their automobile headlights all day July 4 “to give symbolic support for the struggle for democracy in China.”

“I’m calling it the China July 4 Democracy Day Project,” Young said. “I think it will heighten awareness of the freedom we enjoy in the United States.”

Rachel Reiley, 25, who arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday, would agree.

“I was almost crying on the plane as we crossed land over Los Angeles, thinking about the numbers of people in China who may die in the next few weeks,” Reiley said.

Times staff writers Jean Davidson and Valarie Basheda contributed to this story.