I know what you did last summer!

This was of course taken in Tiananmen, when on 4 June 1989, images of unarmed students being rolled over by tanks captured the attention of the international media. What started as a sit-in by thousands of students at the Square for Hu Yaobang's memorial service, eventually escalated to a demostration for freedom and democracy, as well as against corruption and price reforms. 17 years later, China has continued to maintain the communist form of democratic centralism that is essentially a power play of checks and balances between the Peoples' Congress and the Party's Congress, guided and controlled by the General Secretary of the Standing Committee. Personally, I don't think China is ready for any form of western democracy, partly because of the fact that the Chinese do not understand the meaning of democracy, but mainly due to the complex juxtaposition of other factors - corruption, agrarian mindset, populist politics against the peasants etc etc - which I am not too interested to explain in this blog. Ha.. I suck in comparative politics.

Anyway, over the next few days, I'll upload more photos of my summer holidays in Tioman, China, Thailand and Europe. My way of saying thank you to all the folks who made my holiday a really memorable and enjoyable one. =)