If you were too young to remember Tiananmen Square, read this article posted by camarillobrillo.

Regarding her students, the author writes:

Two things stood out in what they shared: They were far more disappointed than hopeful, and they were fed up with feeling that way. Their frustration was compounded by material want, to be sure, but their yearning for a better life extended beyond the mere desire for personal advancement. Beneath their many complaints lingered the shadow of idealism—a sense that the political situation in their country should, and even might, change for the better. In retrospect, I know their simmering restlessness was shared by students and professors across Beijing’s campuses, and it would soon come to a boil.

and then:

It was a massacre. Most of the carnage occurred not in the Square or right around it, but in the western-approaching streets that led to the Square. I viewed the videotapes of bloody bodies that came in with camera crews, and I made phone calls to local hospitals and to the Chinese Red Cross. We kept a running tally of the number of dead, which had reached 2,600 before everyone was ordered to stop talking to us.

Recently I read that the events of Tiananmen Square are mostly wiped from history and not part of the consciousness of students today.

Do you remember the Kent State Shootings, when the National Guard shot four students? Imagine that horrible event multiplied by 100 or 1000. No one knows how many were actually killed.