Time of Rejoicing

The patriotic fervor and struggles to legitimize the movement that underpinned the April 27 demonstration at Hu's funeral were once again set in motion in the middle of May, culminating in a seven-day hunger strike involving three thousand people on Tiananmen Square. After commencing this "sacrifice of the living," there were no longer any doubts about the students' patriotism, innocence, or purity of motive. The spiritual symbol of the movement was the "Manifesto of the Hunger Strike Group of Beijing University," which was broadcast again and again to bolster the students' morale. The manifesto was coauthored by Chai Ling, a postgraduate student at Beijing Normal University, and the poet Bai Meng, a student of the writers' class at Beijing University.1

Aesthetics · Art · Beijing · China · Innocence · Manifesto · Media studies · Middle class · Movement (music) · Patriotism · Political science · Sacrifice · Sociology · Symbol (formal) · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies