Thread by @DanielDumbrill

On this anniversary day of the Tiananmen Square protests, I remember the young soldiers, police & protesters who lost their lives 31 years ago.

In '89, you can consider yourself lucky to have been living in a country that had already found it's way, but China wasn't one of them,

I listen to stories of what older generations went through, or even just my wife's generation, and how just like most other Chinese at the time, how little they had

I always remember when my father-in-law watched "To Live", a movie portraying old campaigns of the Communist govt,

despite being a pretty unemotional guy, he stopped watching it with us half way through, because he said it was too real for him.

What his generation & his parents generation went through is something very few people outside of China can empathise with, particularly in the West,

Equally so, most are unable to empathise with the many Chinese who are now happy with their country, who now support their same government that ruled China during times of suffering. China has finally found it's way, and the lives of it's people have improved so much, so quickly,

Yet many people with this limited ability to empathise with the suffering & sacrifices made over the past 100 years, who have no idea what it's government and people have done to build this country up into what it is today, want the Chinese people to throw it away and start over,

China of course is far from perfect, and there's still a lot of work to do, but the change I've witnessed, from the cities to the villages, over even just the past 12 years of living here, gives me a lot of hope about what accomplishments & improvements China can look forward to,

So today I remember the people who lost their lives during times of struggle, those who devoted their lives to building this country, and recognise those now responsible to make sure China continues to move in the right direction and make sure it doesn't ever lose it's way again.