Experience in China
In the spring of 1989 Taft was travelling in China leading a dinosaur fossil expedition. It was here that he witnessed the pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square and the brutal suppression of students by the Chinese government.
When asked later, Taft said; “There were thousands of them.... It felt like Woodstock, as if someone had taken the chains off these students.... There was a sense of revolution.”
The response came weeks later in early June, when the military was called in and, in a night of bloodshed and chaos, killed — depending on reports — hundreds to thousands of protesters. Taft said, "It was like springtime and then the depths of winter."
Read more about this topic: Kevin Taft
Famous quotes containing the words experience and/or china:
“... whatever men do or know or experience can make sense only to the extent that it can be spoken about. There may be truths beyond speech, and they may be of great relevance to man in the singular, that is, to man in so far as he is not a political being, whatever else he may be. Men in the plural, that is, men in so far as they live and move and act in this world, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and to themselves.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve, I’ve dreamed of havin’ my own things about me. My spinet over there and a table here. My own chairs to rest upon and a dresser over there in that corner, and my own china and pewter shinin’ about me.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)