On the evening of June 3, 1989, I
was working the overnight shift at WQBK-1300 AM. At the time, the station was
located on an isolated hill outside Albany, New York. The networks were buzzing
with news of the violent crackdown on the pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen
Square. The teletype clacked away every few minutes with the latest reports. In
the days before the World Wide Web, there was little to do but wait for the
next report to come through.
Looking for more news beyond our
network feed, I began to surf the frequencies on the satellite dish.
Eventually, I picked up an audio feed of an English-speaking announcer for
Radio Beijing who reported the news of the massacre at Tiananmen Square. I’m
not sure if this was a part of a network news feed or just a stray signal I
caught, but I felt an immediate connection to my fellow broadcaster. It was
also obvious to anyone who followed the news that the Communist Chinese government’s
response would fall harshly on those who broke the wall of silence. I wondered
if I would have the same courage had I been in his place.
The audio I recorded from the broadcast is available below. To
view some rare photographs from the massacre, click here for an age-restricted version on YouTube I produced in conjunction with
my research on this event.
Knowing the historical
significance of the broadcast, I transferred it from reel-to-reel tape to a cart (see Fig. 1).
Carts look like 8-track cartridges and come in varying lengths. They were used for playing everything from station IDs and bumpers, to
commercials, public service announcements, interviews, and music. Looking back
at the state of radio news gathering in 1989, with no computers or Internet, and only
antiquated relics like teletype, carts, and reel-to-reel, I still
marvel at how we got any work done.
Fig. 1: The cart I recorded the Radio Beijing announcement onto on June 4, 1989.
Producing History
I produced my first report on this broadcast in
2000 while taking a course in Producing Historical Documentaries for Radiowith Professor Gerald Zahavi at the
University at Albany while working on my master’s degree. The web page for the
course, at the time of this writing, is still available at the above link. There, you can find my original short audio documentary, “The Lost Voice of Radio Beijing,” which I converted and uploaded to YouTube, below:
Professor Zahavi also broadcast my
report on his Talking History
program on WRPI-90.9 FM, the radio station for the Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, in 2000 and 2001.
Transcription of Original Radio Beijing Broadcast - June 3, 1989:
This is Radio Beijing. Please
remember June the third, 1989. The most tragic event happened in the Chinese
capital, Beijing.
Thousands of people, most of them
innocent civilians, were killed by fully armed soldiers when they forced their
way into the city. Among the killed are our colleagues at Radio Beijing.
The soldiers were riding on
armored vehicles and used machine guns against thousands of local residents and
students who tried to block their way. When the army convoys made a
breakthrough, soldiers continued to spray their bullets indiscriminately at
crowds in the street.
Eyewitnesses say some armored
vehicles even crushed foot soldiers who hesitated in front of the resisting
civilians.
Radio Beijing English Department
deeply mourns those died in the tragic incident and appeals to all its
listeners to join our protest for the gross violation of human rights and the
most barbarous suppression of the people.
Because of this abnormal
situation here in Beijing, there is no other news we could bring you. We
sincerely ask for your understanding and thank you for joining us at this most
tragic moment.
While working on the report for
the class, I contacted Radio Free Asia in Washington D.C. in the hope that
someone there might have some information about the announcer. Through an
interpreter, I was able to speak with a former Radio Beijing reporter who was
actually at Tiananmen Square the evening of June 3, 1989. She didn’t know who
the announcer was, but said she would look into it and let me know if she found
out anything.
Fig. 2: FCC Restricted Radio Telephone Operator Permit: Issued January 31, 1986.
About six months later, well
after the course had ended, I received an e-mail from my contact at Radio Free
Asia who informed me of that the announcer’s name is Yuan Neng (a mistranslation of Chen Yuanneng) and he was
transferred from his job for broadcasting the report. The script was by Wu
Xiaoyong, Deputy Director of the English Language Service at Radio Beijing. His
father, Wu Xueqian, at the time was a Senior Council Vice-President. According to my contact, after the
broadcast, Wu was put under house arrest for two to three years and later moved to Hong Kong. His
father’s connections likely played a part in his release.
China is seeking a balance
between its capitalist ambitions and cultural traditions; however, one wonders
if the threat the Chinese Communist government perceived in 1989 was not so much a fear
of revolution per se, but rather that the moral imperative through which all
governments derive their power, the consent of the people, would vanish in the
face of true competition in the marketplace of ideas.
UPDATE June 4, 2015: Through various
sources, including a reader of Aeolus 13 Umbra and a Canadian film
documentarian, it has been reported that Yuan Neng is alive and living in the
United States, but does not wish to discuss the events of June 3-4, 1989, at
this time.
UPDATE February 2019: The Lost Voice
of Radio Beijing announcer’s full name is reported as Chen Yuanneng (see
comments, below). My previous reporting of Yuan
Neng (see above) is attributed to mistranslations in my communications with Radio Free Asia personnel in late 2000.
UPDATE May 2019: Photos of Chen
Yuanneng and Wu Xiaoyong posted by 881903.com, the official website of
Commercial Radio Hong Kong (thank you Aeolus 13 Umbra reader Lu butsch for the link).
Chen Yuanneng is reported by 881903.com to have been working in the "high-tech industry" in Los Angeles" at the time of the publication of the article, May 13, 2014.
In 1988, my mother, an inveterate book collector, gave me a
couple boxes of old books – odds and ends she had picked up while living in
Delhi, New York. A housekeeper in a rural community, she accepted payment in a
variety of ways, including eggs, hay, and old books, among many other things.
I didn’t have the shelf space, but being a lover of books
myself, I figured one day I would get through them. I put the box in a
closet and promptly forgot about them.
A couple years later I finally went through the collection.
While flipping through an old copy of The
Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham, a letter fell out of the pages. Over
a hundred years old, and written in a firm, strong cursive, it is a letter from a woman in Scotland to her American sibling, informing her of the recent passing of their
mother:
Page 2 Page 1
Page 4 Page 3
I have transcribed the letter below, retaining original spelling and grammar:
56 High Street
Hawick
May 31, 1888
Dear Sister
I am very sorry to inform you
that Mothers dead she died within a few days illness, and Thank God she is in
Heaven among the Blest, She was 2 years with me and she was very helpless she
could not do nothing for herself.
She was saved and very happy She
said that she had hold of the Saviour[‘s] hand to take her to cross the cold
river of Death. Praise God she is not dead but sleepeth in the arms of Jesus
the world[‘]s redeemer. Bless him He died for all and some day or other I shall
meet her on the shining streets in the Heavenly City where we shall meet to
part no more. Thank God we are all well in body. And I pray that this letter
will find you all well in body and soul
I pray that you have found the
pearl of great Price. And ready to meet Mother when the Lord shall call you.
Their [sic] is coming on a Great Day of recking [sic] when every one of us will
recieve [sic] a just-reward, And if we have lived for Christ we shall reign
with Him for ever and if we have lived for ourselves we shall be eternally cast
out of his presence. Dear Sister I am sorry that I have not got mother
[incomprehensible], we could not get it taken because she was never able to go
out. Dear Sister I have not heard anything of Christiana for over 20 years and
we have not had any word from Astratia for over 4 years and I cannot say
anything about them. I hope you will write by return of Post to let us know how
you are getting on. No more at Present
no time
God Bless You
Your Sister
Rechel Miller
56 High Street
Hawick Rodburgh.
Scotland
56 High Street, Hawick, Scotland,
still exists:
56 High Street, Hawick, Scotland - Modern Day
You can access the street view on Google Maps by clicking here. Today, it is home to the shop of Robert Pringle, butcher,
on the first floor. It is in that building, on one of the upper floors, that
Rechel Miller took care of her ailing mother until she crossed "the cold
river of death."
The two women referred to in the letter – Christiana and Astratia, who have not been heard from in many years – are these Rechel's other sisters? One can only guess. The news that Christiana has not been heard from in over 20 years could mean that she emigrated herself to some far-distant land, succumbed to illness, or perhaps holds a deep-seated grudge that compelled her to leave Hawick all those years ago. One cannot resist a little speculation with such a historical fragment. There is so much written between the lines that will forever remain unknown, including the likely recipient of Rechel's letter in America.
With her mother recently passed, and two other likely family members gone without a word, I imagine Rechel Miller may have feltquite alone that May of 1888.
My research uncovered genealogy
forums in which I discovered that a Miller family from Hawick, Scotland
emigrated to the Catskill Mountains in New York State’s Delaware County, where
Delhi is located and where my mother was living when she obtained the book that contained the letter. Therefore, it seems logical
that Rechel Miller is likely related to that branch.
The surname Miller, however, is
quite common in Scotland and I found references to a Rachel Miller and a
Retchel Miller from around the same time period in Hawick, but alas nothing definitive
to connect Rechel Miller to any of them. It may simply be that more than one
Miller family, unrelated to each other, emigrated from Hawick to
Delaware County in the 19th Century and her family’s history is now lost to
time.
Rechel Miller’s letter does give
us a valuable look at the patterns of human migration and the burden left on the families
who remained in the country of their birth. What we can tell from her
handwriting is that she has a firm, strong hand, likely a woman in the prime of
life, and with a decidedly religious bent. Her cursive is very good, but marked by noticeable
grammatical and spelling errors, suggesting a formal, though limited education.
Rechel’s burden in caring for her
invalid mother must have been great indeed. Speaking from personal experience, taking
care of an infirmed parent is a challenge in the 21st Century and
one can only imagine the financial and emotional burden Rechel had to carry
alone, without the assistance of health insurance and social service or siblings to help share the load.
Emigration often leads to a better life for
the people who take the chance, but for those who remain, without the support
of those relatives who left, the impact would likely have increased financial
burdens and family responsibilities while reducing their personal wealth and
expectations of care and comfort in their own old age. At a time when senior services
were virtually unknown, the elderly generally remained with their children or
siblings, if they were lucky – and many were not. With her sisters gone and mother now deceased, who would take care of
Rechel in her own senior years must have weighed heavily on her mind at the
time she wrote this letter. Her reference to “we” in the letter suggests Rechel
was not alone, and I do hope she passed her years in the warmth and security of
the love only family can share.
dans son cabaret
it's quite unintentional
