In my mind and in my heart, I have been there. I saw Beijing in the ’60s in the Little Red Book that nurtured the young and the brave with fighting words that could shatter the three "isms" – feudalism, fascism, imperialism – with clenched fists in Plaza Miranda. I felt Beijing in the ’70s when it warmly embraced the political exiles of my generation driven away by a dictator. I heard Beijing in l989 when the cries of students fleeing from death in Tiananmen Square echoed throughout the world. And that was when I tasted the unsavory truth that even the icons of one’s youth may lead to unpalatable visions.
Too bad I was just another coward who never marched beyond Plaza Miranda and never left my comfort zone.
Otherwise, during this, my first real trip to Beijing, would I have felt differently? Would I have felt any deeper the ferment that drove many a nationalist to the countryside as I walked past a monument to Mao Tse-Tung? Would I have shed a tear as I marveled at the enormity of Tiananmen Square, a poignant epitaph indeed to a democratic ideal?
I could only look wide-eyed at all the marvelous palaces that took centuries to build. And gaze with awe and admiration at this most historic city that I have terribly missed.