It is an iconic photo of courage and defiance. A lone man holding his shopping standing in front of tanks unsure of what was going to happen next. That photo conveyed so much. It was 1989. It was the year I graduated high school and entered university.
I remember that day well. A friend was a throwing a party. We are all there having a good time. For some reason the TV was on. And the channel was CNN. We watched Tiananmen Square unfold real-time. Being a group of mostly internationals, we were glued to CNN amazed at what we were seeing. What was happening was big. We knew it, but we didn’t quite know what it meant.
Fast forward a few months. I’m sitting in my dorm during my first semester of Freshman year with the TV turned to CNN. I watched the Berlin Wall come down while sitting on the most uncomfortable couch ever. I was gobsmacked at what I was seeing.
The year 1989 was a year of profound change for the world. The Iron Curtain was beginning to rust and cracks were appearing. The Cold War thawed. The world order got turned upside down.
Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall happened 25 years ago this year. Over two decades have passed and the world has changed dramatically. Yet I can still remember the details of those events. They have been woven into my memory attached to milestones for me.
Do you remember what you were doing when you learned about Tiananmen Square or the Berlin Wall?
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