20 years later, are we just fine?

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“To whoever reads this: Hello. You will be fine.”

Taken on June 4th, 2009. 20 years after the Tiananmen Incident.

I was on my way to an photography exhibition ‘zero’ at Christopher Henry Gallery by Khiang, who by then I only met a few days ago in a networking meeting organised by Asian American Arts Alliance (a4).

(The exhibition shook me. I was terrified by what happened, portrayed powerfully by Khiang’s photographs and most of all, the cloth banner which he picked up during the incident which now hung across the plain white wall of the gallery. The anger in the written words silently greeted gallery visitors, and sent a chill down my spine.)

On my way to the exhibition, I was hanging out in the bookshop nearby in the Soho area of NYC. I opened one of the journals on sale on the shelf, and saw this note.

20 years after the tragedy, are we just fine (like me), or are we still deeply influenced by the forgotten history (like Khiang)?