Events Mark First Anniversary of China Massacre : World Politics: Highlights of the weekend commemoration include essays, gospel music and a play written about the student demonstrations at Tien An Men Square.

California native Yau-Gene Chan wanted more than a lecture when asked to write a commemoration for the June, 1989, massacre of Chinese students at Tien An Men Square. He ended up penning a play to “put a human face” on the sweep of history during the days of democracy in Beijing.

Chula Vista high school junior Lara Mahal remembered the shudder of exhilaration she felt last year as she and her classmates at a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania followed the nonviolent protests of Chinese students and workers, and how crestfallen they were when army tanks rolled in to crush the movement. So Mahal wrote a prize-winning poem about her reaction, as a way to “be emotional and show my feelings and respect for what the students did.”

Ken Anderson selected “songs of trust, songs of faith and songs of hope” in preparing 135 members of his UC San Diego Gospel Choir to honor the fallen Chinese. For Anderson, gospel music--a tradition among African-Americans in the United States--speaks to all races in talking about happier times that he believes inevitably come, whether in this life or in the hereafter.

These unusual tributes highlight two days of events that begin in San Diego today to remember the 1989 events in China. Among those participating will be Chao Hwa Wang, a fiery student leader during the demonstrations who eluded the Chinese government’s dragnet after the June 4 military crackdown for 21 top student leaders. She surfaced in the West earlier this year.

Chan’s play developed from a request for a commemorative performance about Tien An Men, made by Voice of the Voiceless: The Institute on Human Rights and Social Justice at Santa Clara University, near San Jose. The institute was established to research issues raised by the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador in 1989.

“They said to stay away from a lecture-type of thing,” said the 25-year-old Chan, a sociology graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, now studying drama at Santa Clara. He already had strong feelings about the events in China, both from family ties and many visits to China, Hong King and Taiwan for study and work. In writing the play, he added insights from several months of research and talks with students who were involved.

The two-act play, which will be presented free at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the UCSD Price Center theater, features three major characters representing conflicting themes of conscience, tradition and action existing in both Chinese culture and the immediate issues surrounding the demonstrations and military crackdown.

“It comments much on the Chinese people, good and bad, the negative and positive traits of the culture,” Chan said. “In dialogue and in its humor, it’s geared toward American audiences.

“I try to put a ‘human face’ on what happened in Tien An Men,” he said. “In the U.S., I think, the demonstrations were seen as a sea of black hair, of protesters in the millions. What this play does is let the audience know a few of the students on a personal level, to understand how there could be such a coordinated yet peaceful effort.”

Chan’s cousin Wayne Chan, who works for the Union of Pacific Asian Communities group in San Diego, arranged for the play to be shown here.

“It’s really a way to try and make sure the memory of Tien An Men doesn’t fade, to keep a spirit of caring, of maintaining awareness and the (ability) to act on it,” Wayne Chan said.

The cast features 21 Asian-American students from Santa Clara. This summer, they will present the play at UCLA, UC Berkeley and San Jose State University.

Lara Mahal, a junior at Bonita Vista High School in Chula Vista, is one of two winners in an essay contest sponsored by local Chinese groups. Co-winner Jacob Avery, a junior from San Diego High School, was among 65 students countywide who entered poems and writings about the Tien An Men Square incident.

“I really wanted to win because in some way I want to honor the students, and I feel that it’s important that people recognize what they wanted to do with nonviolent protest,” Mahal said. “I tried a poem because I could express more of my feelings about what happened, how, although the students are now dead, they were brave and valiant and what they did seemed to change the world. . . . The changes in Eastern Europe were sparked by nonviolent protests” that seemed to gather strength from what happened in China.

Avery argued in his winning essay, originally written for history teacher Stan Murphy, that the U.S. government should have taken a stronger political stand against the Chinese government for its actions.

“I’m not saying that you have military action by the U.S. or break off relations, but I think (President) Bush could have done more than just say we as a nation don’t tolerate such things,” Avery said. “I would have liked to have seen a strong condemnation, or maybe economic sanctions.”

Although Avery said he believes a lot of American students feel bad for their Chinese counterparts, and that he would demonstrate should fundamental issues of freedom be questioned in America, he wanted “to get past the emotions in his essay and get a rational argument down.”

After the memorial service and essay presentations Sunday, Anderson’s gospel choir will participate along with the Chinese Choral Society in a musical presentation honoring the Chinese students.

“Gospel music speaks of deliverance, and, while traditionally (blacks) were speaking of already being delivered to God, they really weren’t delivered yet, but they nevertheless focused on the prize, on the future, and tried to put behind them the (turmoil) and problems,” Anderson said.

The choir is composed of UCSD undergraduate, many of whom had no previous training in music or choir before taking Anderson’s class.

“We represent every race on the planet,” Anderson said. “And, while regarding China, we may be politically restrained, our hearts and our prayers can be linked and we can help form a line of added strength, to express our love from neighbor to neighbor.”

COMMEMORATING THE CHINESE MASSACRE

Events today include:

* A multimedia reading at 1:30 p.m. at the UC San Diego Price Center theater, followed by a 3 p.m. panel discussion on what the Tien An Men Square incident means one year later.

Participants include Chao Hwa Wang; sociology professor Richard Madsen and political science professor Susan Shirk, both China experts at UCSD; Shizhong Chen, a Chinese graduate student at UCSD and San Diego representative for the Federation for a Democratic China, and Alice Tang, head of the San Diego-based Tien An Men Square Foundation, which is co-sponsoring the weekend activities.

* A $6-per-person, informal, no-host dinner at 6 p.m. with Wang at the UCSD Mountain View Lounge next to the University Extension complex on North Torrey Pines Road.

On Sunday, the planned events are:

* A free presentation of Yau-Gene Chan’s play “Tien An Men” at 1:30 p.m. in the UCSD Price Center theater.

* A 5 p.m. memorial service and concert at the Balboa Park Organ Pavilion, where Lara Mahal and Jacob Avery will be officially announced as winners of the student essay contest, followed by the “Songs of Liberty” concert featuring Anderson’s gospel choir.