What Would Xiu Xiu Do?

I finally received my copy of Xiu Xiu the Sent Down Girl.  I thought it was a good film, if ultimately very sad.  I might need a good French farce after all this heavy foreign fare.

Imagine that you are the daughter of one of Xiu Xiu’s female compatriots at the village where they started out. You were born in 1975 in Beijing, and you have grown up there hearing the story of Xiu Xiu from your mother and her friends and acquaintances. When the Tiananmen Square protests begin in 1989, you are thirteen. Do you take part in the protests? Why or why not? What are your thoughts about the protests against the backdrop of what you know of China’s past, especially the Cultural Revolution and Xiu Xiu’s experience?

All my life, my parents have told me the story of Xiu Xiu.  My mother, in particular, speaks of Xiu Xiu’s courage.  She was a girl who did as she was told until she could not bear it, at which point she begged her mentor to shoot her.  I ask my mother why she thinks Xiu Xiu was courageous, and my smiles and looks into her tea.  “Xiu Xiu did not stay,” she says.

Over in Tiananmen, college kids are protesting.  The government is corrupt, they say, and China needs to be a democracy.  They say they want a “dialogue” with the government but instead are ignored.  They want all of us to join them. 

My father would die of mortification if I went to Tiananmen.  I love him.  I respect him.  How can I dishonor him by saying that our government is corrupt?  How can I say that the government my father admires is dishonest? 

My mother – I do not know.  She admires Xiu Xiu for sacrificing herself.  But she also admires my father and she would not want me to bring him shame.  Which does she want more?

Or maybe I should not think about what my father wants or what my mother wants.  I am 13, and these students are standing up for me, aren’t they?  For my China? My China may not be my parents’ China. So do I watch them from the alleys? Do I overhear conversations about what is happening and what they are doing?  Or do I go?

There is part of me that will die of shame if I stay here and watch.  I must go.  I must be like Xiu Xiu, who did not stay.