A Tent | Thirty-three years

In early 2022, he received a gift, a tent.

The tent was wrapped in a white bag and quietly placed in the corner of the bedroom. Sooner or later he could see it, but he never opened it.

Until the gallery is about to open. One day in April, he opened it. "Wow" all of a sudden, the tent was propped up abruptly in front of him. He was stunned. It was so new, plump and wrinkle-free, light blue on top and dark blue below. 33 years later, it's so dusted up, it's exactly what it used to be.

No smoke, no shouting, no early summer's slightly hot wind, no blood, no tears, just a peaceful tent in front of me. At the last dawn, it was carefully wrapped by a couple of college students from Xi'an. In the darkness after the lights went out, before the boundary between life and death, I was brought out from the largest square in the world.

"This will be an eternal memorial." Maybe that's what the pair of young people who took it away thought so.

1

The gallery is downstairs, which is actually the basement of the house.

This is a house in New Jersey, New York. This May, cherry blossoms are falling all over the place, and blueberries are blooming like white lanterns. As summer gradually enters, mixed-color roses also appear, and a crimson petal jumps out of the pink petals. Bamboo becomes forest, fragrant grass grows. This is a rare moment of peace in life.

The homeland of the motherland is more than 10,000 kilometers away. At this time, at the foot of the Qinling Mountains, Mai Lang was in pieces. His hometown in the Chang'an countryside, the village on the Guanzhong Plain, has now been demolished and smoothed out, and replaced by a factory building and commercial housing.

In May 33 years ago, he was in the square in Beijing. One evening after the rain, the sky was like washing, the white goddess statue, flying in youth, proudly faced the huge hairy statue on the ancient city gate. That scene left an indelible impression on him. From then on, in his heart, freedom is pure white.

Every day, through the crowds of enthusiastic and surging people, the postman rides his bicycle, and the parcels are bulging, delivering countless letters and telegrams. Young people are heartless and do not know how to care. Still at the reminder of the postman, he wrote a postcard to his family. "The Chinese are finally free to express themselves. We don't have any fears," he said.

The mother at the foot of Qinling was worried, and she didn't know how many telegrams she sent to the school, "Mother is critically ill, come home soon." He didn't receive it. At that time, he was in the crowd in the square.

Later, he realized how frightened his relatives were when he tasted the taste of freedom.

Today, he is no longer young and has been in the country for 28 years. He has no nostalgia, nor does he show sadness. In the middle of life, the ideal of freedom did not die for a moment. The bright whiteness from the beginning has been branded into life. He has been doing things, in the difficult and complicated, spare no effort. The ideal is more rigid, but at the same time, deeper sympathy and understanding are also growing in my heart, but there is no obstacle to move forward.

2

The gallery is open. Those who were invited were all familiar friends. Every year at this time, every early summer, is the most special moment in this life. This year, in addition to a group of middle-aged people, there is also a young friend born after the millennium who is also a volunteer for the exhibition.

Pushing open the white door and entering, the first sight is this tent. Standing on the ground, just like in the square, all the memories were awakened at once.

This is one of more than 100 tents from the same year. On May 27, 33 years ago, it was sent to the square by HK supporters. For eight days before the last dawn, they were like a pale blue sea, surprising many citizens passing by on bicycles. At that time, such camping tents were still rare in China, where supplies were still scarce.

He also went into the tent and went to find his classmates, but he never rested in the tent. Back then, the 22-year-old was in command of the radio station and was one of the busiest.

At this moment, almost everyone will ask, how can this tent be so new?

Yes, it is new, and the history of 33 years ago is still new, those wounds are still bleeding. When the floodgates of memory are opened, everything will pour out. It's just that too many packages are shielded, so that too many people can't touch it at all.

Behind this tent, there is also a flag with the words "Shenzhen University" written on it. The blue flag has faded a bit and is covered with signatures. It's been too long, and the lower corner of the flag has become a little rotten, and some threads have been dropped.

He sorted it out and found more than 90 signatures. One of them was a reporter from Xinhua News Agency that year. In addition to the signature, he wrote four words: "The pen can't help it."

That year, the call for press freedom was the strongest voice. Just like a flyer he collected that he presided over the mimeograph in the past, it has become brittle and yellow, and the black handwriting has been blurred, but the title is still clear: "Why do we firmly support press freedom?"

At this time, with the faded flag, he remembered a name, "Luo Zhengqi". He was the president of Shenzhen University at that time. The only university president to be fired after that year.

He searched for news of Principal Luo on his mobile phone, only to know that the 89-year-old had died in Shenzhen on April 12, 2022. There was no media coverage of his death. There are some tribute articles, but none of them have a single word about that year.

3

More than tents and flags. In this May of 2022, nearly 20 "works" will be exhibited for the first time in his underground gallery, which is less than 40 square meters.

Suspended from the ceiling is a rough installation. Two large wooden boards with vicissitudes and mottled vicissitudes were nailed together tightly. In the middle, sealed together with thick iron wire, nails, and wooden strips, was a stack of newspapers back then.

The newspaper is old and yellow and crisp, and the dust of the years has drowned out the shouts and struggles it once recorded—all of which were reported by overseas newspapers back then.

Thirty-three years ago, after that sad dawn, the artist Luo Zhenliang in New York called on all artists in New York to create works as an eternal memorial. At that time, a number of works were born, and this installation without a title is one of them.

"Mom, please help me ask." It is an ink painting. In memory of the youngest deceased that year, 9-year-old primary school student Lu Peng. In the middle of the black picture, the bullet hole in the child's chest and the mother's broken heart each have a tinge of red.

There are a number of works created on the "door". A picture of an unnamed deceased occupies one of the "doors". He has stood in front of the photo many times, pondering and pondering. I have also searched everywhere, hoping to find the real name of the deceased, but in vain.

Those nameless people, in that black dawn, lost their lives and became the background of the times. who are they? Where are their relatives ? Will there be an answer to all this? Every time he thinks of this, his heart will fall into boundless pain.

4

For so many years, most of what he has done is to retain memory and fight against forgetting.

In November 2014, he went to Hong Kong. At that time, young people occupied the streets, and in Admiralty, he also lived in tents. As soon as I sat down, I was shoved into a rice ball in my hand, and the memory was vivid in an instant, as if returning to the crowd in the square back then.

In the early summer of each year, he frequently gives interviews, communicates with young people, travels around the east and west coasts, and helps fellows who are in difficult times today. There are too many things, but he can't care about burnout and exhaustion. The years have left marks on his face, but his heart is more determined. He gradually realized that freedom is to maintain the true self. It is to arouse people's awareness: I am a person, in any situation, I must live like a truly free man.

Nor is it without frustration and trauma. Walking through the hustle and bustle of the crowd, he also suspected that "the people do not need freedom."

Impressive is 2008. That year, the Olympic tide swept the world. At the torch relay site in San Francisco, he and several other compatriots who went to protest were violently besieged by their compatriots.

He still remembers that moment when a group of strangers surrounded him cursingly. Surrounded by red flags, they blocked everyone's view and started violent beatings. He was protecting his head, and in front of him was a blood-red banner. He was not injured because of his size, but another friend of his was beaten to the head and bleeding.

At that moment, he seemed to hear the sound of heartbreak. But it is also even more indignant: how can the originally free compatriots be enslaved and alienated to such a degree?

"I'm lucky," he said in an interview. At that time, due to the epidemic in New York, it was difficult for him to go out, and he lived in seclusion at home with long hair over his shoulders. In his spare time, he climbed to the top of the tree behind the house and looked into the distance. Enjoying the free wind, he could not forget the past. Also originally, in the life of a free man, past, present, and future, everything is closely connected.

" People without memory are, in essence, the wood and plank that have been cut off from the past life. The shape and object of their future are determined by the saw and the axe. " This May, he retweeted the writer Yan Lianke of a text.

On another day, he retweeted a Zelensky speech, one of which was: "Man dies, but freedom never ends ."

His name is Zhou Fengsuo . In order to let more people see this article, please forgive me for not mentioning his Chinese name.

You are welcome to forward this article on the wall in your own way, and let's start a small experiment of "refusing to forget" together.

Thank you to everyone who still remembers those things.