June 4, 1989 

A massacre took place in the capital city of the People’s Republic of China. The size of it shocked the world. Nobody knows precisely how many innocent people lost their lives. The government put the number of “collateral deaths” at two hundred or less. But many Chinese believe that it was more like three thousand innocent students and residents who were slain. 

 

My birthday falls on June 16, which on the Chinese lunar calendar is an auspicious date. It was the date when Guan Yin, the bodhisattva who possessed the power to relieve the masses of their sufferings, became enlightened. Things didn’t quite turn out to be auspicious for me.