Chinese students apprehensive about returning home
Gathering on the steps of Suzzallo Library, Chinese students showed support for their fellow students in
Beijing last May, two weeks before the Tiananmen Square massacre. (Photo by Mary Levin.)
Students from the People’s Republic of China studying at the UW were living in limbo long before the Chinese government’s June 4 crackdown in Beijing. Now they live in fear as well.
At first they feared that they might be forced to return to China once their student visas expired. President George Bush’s executive order automatically extending visas was welcomed relief and Congress is working on a permanent solution to their status. “The fact that students wouldn’t be forced to go back if they ran out of time removed a lot of anxiety for them,” said Gary Ausman, director of the UW International Student Office.
Although less apprehensive about an unwelcomed return home, Chinese students at the UW and other U.S. institutions face the anguish of an uncertain future. According to Fengming Liu, president of the UW Association of Chinese Students and Scholars, “Students fear that they may be forced to keep quiet about what they learned about law and democracy in the United States.”
Liu explained that while students may not be jailed if they return to China, the Chinese government might place them in secluded, undeveloped areas where they will never be heard from again. “To intellectuals,” said Liu, “this is the scariest thing of all.”
Students fear for the safety of their families in China if they don’t return; they fear for their own safety and future if they do. The Chinese government has promised not to prosecute returning students. “But,” said Liu, “the government also said, ‘We won’t use a gun against the students (in Tiananmen Square).’ Students can’t go back to serve their country if all they have to return to is fear.”
During the 1988-89 academic year, the University of Washington hosted 220 students and 130 visiting scholars and faculty from China. Another 50 Chinese students and scholars were scheduled to arrive this fall. “We won’t know until the last minute if they have problems getting exit visas,” explains Ausman. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
The adjustment to American culture can be difficult, says Fred Brandauer, professor of Asian languages and literature. He and his wife, Maire Materi, operate Grace House, home to several visiting Chinese students, scholars and faculty who want to participate in a crosscultural exchange.
The couple says that before the massacre, Chinese visitors had to adjust to the culture shock of VCRs, CDs and microwaves. But those who have arrived since the Beijing bloodbath have had to deal with an even greater shock: learning what really happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4.
This summer Materi watched two new Grace House residents view a news video about Beijing. “From the look on their faces, it seemed they didn’t know this had happened. They looked like they felt they shouldn’t be here, watching American propaganda.”
While the Chinese government has tried to distort the facts about the massacre, Brandauer reports that the word has filtered through Chinese society. After the crackdown, he received a letter from one former resident who wrote: “Something has happened. I can’t talk about that ‘something.’ My English is too poor.” “On the contrary,” says Brandauer, “his English is excellent.” That sentence was a way to refer to the massacre without tipping off government censors, who often read mail sent to the United States.
Those in exile face tremendous stress, including the constant worry that one of their friends may turn out to be an informer. “Some keep everything inside, but most deal with it by talking to each other,” said Materi. “They use English to communicate facts, but they use their native language to speak from the heart.”
Most agree that life as a Chinese student at the UW has changed. The Chinese student association was originally a social club drawing barely 25 students per meeting. The group now attracts over 200 Chinese on campus for organized projects such as the June 4 Foundation.
Liu, a Ph.D. candidate in the UW law school, has seen his own dreams put on hold. Already a qualified lawyer in China, Liu had planned to return to Beijing in the spring of 1990 to open a firm specializing in international law. Despite his love for his country, until things change, he and 40,000 other Chinese students and scholars won’t be going home.