Forbidden City

Alex wakes up early in the morning, while Eddie and Ted are still sleeping, with a vague sense of dread. He makes himself some tea and looks out the window. He watches the city humming outside and thinks about the student protesters. It was dangerous, what they were doing, yet they persisted. Alex remembers stories from his father about Ted’s days of student protesting as well, demonstrating against apartheid and environmental degradation. Alex starts to question his own life and choices: “What had I do so far? Watch TV, listened to the radio, gone to school. Played with toy soldiers” (85).

While he is thinking these thoughts, he notices out the window that the life of the city has begun to pick up. Movement is intensifying in plain view. Another round of protests has begun. He can see the banners being carried along, demanding democracy, student rights, and the end of party corruption. As the protesters walk past, people on the street join into the crowd. Alex wakes up Ted and Eddie, who grab their cameras, ready to film.

With the help of Lao Xu’s translation, the reporters listen to the state’s response to the growing demonstrations. Lao Xu translates the Party’s reaction to the protests, which is broadcast over the Party radio station. Lao Xu is terrified and stops speaking at one point, and the reporters have to coax information out of him. He tells them, distraught, that the state has pronounced all the protesters to be counter-revolutionaries. This means if they don’t disband, they will be shot on sight.

Rumors engulf the city and are hard to sort out. The reporters look for the truth in the situation. One thing is for sure—the army has the city surrounded. Alex draws on his fascination and study of military history to offer a conjecture of where the troops are stationed. Then on his bike, he goes out to check whether or not he is correct. It turns out that he is, that just beyond the railway station there are “thousands of soldiers sitting outside” (89). As for students, some have gone home and a couple thousand still remain.

There are rumors of tanks infiltrating the city, but Eddie says not to report it until they can confirm it. It seems unlikely, even dumb, to Alex. But Eddie reminds him that “there’s something going on that’s a lot bigger than student demonstrations” (90).

Alex and his father return to the square expecting to find it cleared out. But what they find is exactly the opposite. Students are beginning to trickle back in. The crowd is going again. This occurs despite the fact that the presence of tanks in the city has now been confirmed.

The square is packed again. Students have returned in droves. Alex notes that they have created a Statue of Liberty type effigy in the middle of their protests, “except that she’s using two hands, not one, to hold up the torch” (92). What is interesting, Alex thinks, is the placement of this statue, called the “Goddess of Democracy.” She is positioning in the square so that she is “staring at the picture of Mao right in the face” (93).