At age six, Dan Southerland's son, Matthew, had heard enough to sympathize with the students protesting on the square. He drew dinosaurs representing the leadership and bird-like symbols of the students, easy prey to the much larger beasts.
On June 5, 1989 a lone man stood in front of a column of tanks and came to symbolize the Chinese people's resistance to the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. Hundreds of Chinese had been killed the day before, and, to this day, authorities would like them forgotten.
A soldier placed an army hat on a child's head, and the child happily saluted the crowd. No one knew what was coming, writes Dan Southerland, as he recalls the eve of a brutal crackdown in Beijing.
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In this video—never before released publicly—Muriel Southerland remembers life in Beijing during the historic events of May and June 1989. Watch larger version
