***~~Prelude of ...
Games and Playfulness : Bodiless solidarity in Hong Kong and Mainland China
When I first encountered this short clip on June 4th 2020, I could not help re-playing it many times: a young man with glasses riding his bicycle, on his forehead marks the signature red headband. The short clip starts with the young man’s lucid, enthusiastic voice, proudly announcing his marching off to duty:
“…going to March. Tian’ An Men Square”.
“Why?” The reporter asks.
“What do you think?” The young man replies playfully, “it’s my duty.”
His hand performatively dances while he speaks. His eyes shine brightly. A proud smile emerges from his hopeful visage.
This anonymous figure in the clip teared my eyes. He reminds me of those young students in the 80s, the students who are like my father: the white collar shirt, the dark blue suit coat, the watch that he wears on his left wrist, the glasses, the bicycle bell, the enthusiasm of embracing his social responsibility, the innocence of not-knowing what would come after yet courageously venturing towards a situation where he believes that he can make a change with that bright, playful, hopeful smile — this is the performative prelude before the massacre happened on June 4th 1989.
And this is the start of the article which I have been developing with Kenzo, with whom we used to drift among all those underground noise music spaces in the early 2000s in our early teens, sitting on the street around the drum tower in Beijing drinking beers from 7-11 after a night out. We call it “the good old days”. These nights disappeared with the disappearance of all these venues, and with the disappearance of the spaces where we could breathe, shout, jump out of the boundaries and the squares, even just a little bit.
It takes two years to publish this article with the risks of us being canceled, being blacklisted, being banned in any sorts.
But anyhow, we thought it was necessary to let the world hear us, even just a little bit, no matter the world gives a shit or not, regarding the disappearance, the struggles, the unspoken, and everything happened in da silenced spring.
Yes. We want to remember.
Abstract here: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/VDZ85RRRBFRPIWHFWGQJ/full?target=10.1080/13528165.2022.2155397
DM for PDF :)