Twenty-seven Days｜At Liangma Bridge

Text/Bufu

I saw people standing on every inch of the banks of the Liangma River. Everyone looked at each other in silence, holding up white papers and bright white mobile phones. There was silence. In a corner of the corridor along the river, a row of white candles was placed, and flowers were lying on the lawn. The white paper in front of the flowers read "Sorrow to the Victims of the 11.24 Fire in Urumqi". I could hear the camera shutter clicking intermittently, and Dreamcatcher was playing on the speakers, and for a few minutes everyone tried to sing along, but they couldn't remember the key, they couldn't remember the words.

I saw people on the outside trying to come in, but they were blocked by people in security uniforms with barricades. To come in, you have to break through the blocking zone and go back and forth with the security guards. But they left without saying a word. We walked along the river and prepared to go ashore. I saw that the other bank was still silent. Someone raised his mobile phone as a lamp and tried to shout. The two sides looked at each other silently.

On the bridge of Xinyuan Street, I saw boys and girls slowly moving forward holding white papers. People with mobile phones and cameras backed up behind their backs at the front of the line.

I heard people shouting "Don't nucleic acid, you want freedom", "Don't nucleic acid, you want food". I heard a new voice come out to lead every four or five sentences. The slogans chanted changed back and forth, as long as one person shouted, everyone would respond.

I heard hoarse, growling, timid, joking voices. I heard someone yelling "I want the constitution to protect me", others followed "I want the constitution to protect me", and then someone in the line laughed "The constitution has been amended".

I heard someone suddenly shouting "I want to work", "I want to eat", "I want to watch a movie", and then someone shouted "I want to make a movie". I heard someone shouting "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech".

In the queue, someone handed a blank sheet of paper. Not everyone held up a blank slate. For a while, there were more mobile phones than white papers.

I shuttled back and forth, from the end of the line to the head of the line. I saw people pushing bicycles, people leading big dogs, and foreign friends with children.

I saw a fat girl crying uncontrollably to her friend: "As a Xinjiang native, I feel so respected for the first time in Beijing."

I saw "a certain bureau" was called to his side by a higher-ranking leader, took off his mask and pressed it to his face, and assigned "a certain bureau" to find a way to disperse the crowd and avoid conflicts. I saw the police pointing at the line with a low-resolution walkie-talkie capable of recording.

I saw an old media person trying to mix in with the cadres to find out the news. I saw six or seven familiar feature reporter friends in the crowd arm in arm.

I saw a curly-haired girl wearing a black windbreaker and platform shoes, always holding her hands above her head, holding on to the white paper to prevent it from shaking.

I saw a bouquet of flowers being passed to the head of the line, and then the cameras all focused on her, and she kept explaining: "I didn't do anything, I just got the flowers. I didn't do anything." The flashes clicked, and the foreign reporters formed a semicircle, clicking, clicking, clicking.

I saw that the camera was always aimed at the three or four girls at the head of the team. Facing the camera, they pulled up their masks, lowered their heads, held the white paper in front of their chests, and kept moving forward.

People walked and walked, turned and walked on Xinyuan South Road. The police set up a human barrier at the intersection ahead, they held hands in white gloves, their shoulders were shoulder to shoulder, their faces were expressionless, and they didn't say a word. One floor, two floors, and three floors, they pulled three layers of human lines to separate us from the passers-by outside.

I saw the commander in front of them calling to report the position of the team. I saw a middle-aged foreign reporter walking quickly with a telephoto camera. A photographer who is seen climbing a tree three meters high. I saw a white anchor with a microphone in his hand reporting live to the camera, with a more dramatic tone than everyone present.

The team stopped five meters away from the blocking line pulled up by the police. Someone shouted "I can't get through", followed by "I can't get through". Then everyone turned around in place, turned around and walked back the way they came.

I saw a short-haired girl with a nose spike standing in the crowd and shouted: "Wait for the people behind, let's go together." I saw an older sister in her forties standing on the sidewalk passionately complaining about the government's oppression of the people, complaining This country accuses the party and accuses Baozi of letting Baozi step down. Immediately there was a louder male voice in the crowd telling her to "shut up and stop shouting". One minute people gathered around her and held up their phones, the next minute people farther away were whispering: "This is too dangerous."

I heard "Don't arrest people" coming from behind. Everyone who was originally loose rushed over at once, shouting "Don't arrest people" and "Don't hit people", and surrounded the police car. The surrounded policemen loudly explained to the crowd that they "didn't arrest anyone, didn't beat anyone, and they all dispersed."

I saw a U-turn and walked for a while, and some people in the crowd slowly left. The cyclists were the first to leave, with their backs to the crowd and away from the barrier line pulled up by the police. Then the people who were separated by the white fence also dispersed.

A few plainclothes policemen mixed in excitedly clapped their hands and shouted "go home" energetically, like a driver of a black car on the side of the road shouting "get in the car" while pulling a job, like a shepherd driving sheep back to the sheep pen. I saw my good friend was furious: "Are you herding sheep? If you want to go, go!"

I saw plainclothes policemen shouting in the crowd, and uniformed policemen shouting outside the crowd. The crowd dispersed slowly. People scattered in four directions: those who stopped at the same place to say goodbye to their friends, those who continued to walk towards Liangmaqiao Subway Station, and those who turned back and wandered the way they came from.

I saw how weak we are. Those voices that have been shouted countless times on the Internet suddenly sounded on the real streets, and we couldn't believe it; when some common sense about freedom was shouted out by others, we couldn't believe it.

This night, we tried to sing the Internationale together, but couldn't. We wanted to sing do you hear the people singing, but couldn't. We don't have Luo Dayou, Cui Jian, or Bob Dylan. We tried to shout "Sitong Bridge Declaration" together, and when we reached the fourth sentence, our voices weakened.

I see how clumsy we are. We haven't shouted together for so long that we almost forgot how to make a sound. We haven't sung together for so long that we almost forgot how to sing.

I saw the windows of the residential buildings in Xinyuanli were closed tightly, and I saw the darkness of the high-end office buildings in Liangmahe. I saw some cars blocked out and impassable. I saw a lot of police cars with lights flashing but not honking their horns. I saw the leader who appeared on the scene but did not dare to face us directly.

I saw a lot of familiar faces, they made appointments with friends, and they came together, and no one was alone.