Beijing celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre with umbrellas.
This weirdness came about as plainclothes policemen were trying to interfere with foreign television crews by blocking cameras with open umbrellas:
Umbrellas in Beijing
Whatever reason they have for doing this, it is strikingly pointless. Thanks in part to the tireless efforts of Chinese police, there are no mass demonstrations on Tiananmen Square, no protests, no silent vigils. Journalists who went there would be coming back with boring shots of a square that looks just like it looks on any other day… were it not for the umbrellas.
So why the umbrellas? Why not just round up and haul away foreign journalists? Is this a regime with a (guilty) conscience? When that happened in Hungary, when members of Hungary’s communist Politburo began relabeling the “counterrevolution” of 1956 as a (popular) uprising, the end was not far down the line: within a couple of years, the country opened its borders to East Germans fleeing to the West, transformed itself into a multi-party democracy, and arguably began the chain reaction that led to the collapse of the Soviet empire.
I think we should officially declare June 4 from now on Umbrella Day. (Hey, if we can have a Towel Day…)