So this is how we talk about Tiananmen Square

I was just reading through a blog post from the Phoenix TV reporter Lvqiu Luwei (闾丘露薇) writes about the changes that occurred in Beijing as a result of the Olympics. She hopes that the changes, whether it be better signs and transportation to more polite people and better service attitude, will become permanent. Fair enough. Then there’s a paragraph where she mentions the issue of foreign media broadcasting live from Tiananmen Square during the Olympics. It seems they are allowed to as long as they submit and receive approval. She says that perhaps some Chinese people will not understand why it’s such a big deal that they be able to broadcast from the Square. Her answer: because no skyline, however magnificent, could compare to the visual impact of the square, and broadcasting from there would make viewers understand that China has changed, become more open—because this place is a “complex” and a “symbol”.

I don’t know if there is anything really worth pointing about this. Of course, it’s more than just a symbol. It’s a place where history was made. It’s the unofficial national stage, where a great many national dramas are enacted. And it’s a place where people died. There’s almost no point in even writing this–what does one expect? There are clever ways of skirting the issue, and in any case, the blog post is not about the square per se. We can’t be clear about the real historical significance of the place and hence its value to western reporters who want to be able to broadcast live from the square. But to say that it’s a “complex” and a “symbol” is an accurate and fairly innocuous way of putting it. Here’s the original paragraph in Chinese:

虽然中国政府已经同意，经过申请的外国媒体可以在天安门广场进行直播，但是还是有不少的媒体在抱怨，限制太多，比如限制直播的时段，这样让和中国有时差的欧洲国家，没有可能利用天安门作为背景进行直播。也许很多人不明白，为何外国媒体如此执著于天安门广场，这是因为，再多的高楼大厦，再完美无缺的开幕仪式，都比不上外国记者，站在天安门，为自己国家的观众发回报道造成的视觉效果更加强烈，人们会因此而感受到中国变了，更加开放了的，因为这个地方，是一种情结和象征。