Bridge Man, Beijing

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China’s ‘Bridge Man’ inspires Xi Jinping protest signs around the world

• By Frances Mao
• BBC News

18 October 2022

A rare one-man protest against Xi Jinping in Beijing has inspired solidarity protests around the world as China’s party congress sits this week.

Last Thursday, a man strung banners across a bridge in China’s capital that accused Mr Xi of being a dictator.

design by Cutty Sarc, October 2022

He was quickly detained but photos of his action spread around the world.

Since then similar signs and messages have appeared on several university campuses in the US, UK, Europe, Australia and elsewhere.

One handwritten sign at Colby College in the US state of Maine praised the Beijing man’s action and said: “We, people of China, want to spread this message that speaks our mind in places without censorship.”

Many replicate the messages displayed last week on the Sitong bridge in Beijing’s Haidian district.

Some posters also show anti-Xi messages like “Not My President” and “Goodbye JinPing”.

On Instagram and Twitter, several China activism accounts have urged followers to heed the Beijing protester’s rallying cry “to strike” and take action during the week of the Communist Party congress.

According to social media accounts, protest signs have been seen at Stanford, Emory, and Parsons School of Design in the US; Goldsmiths and Kings College in London; as well as universities in Hong Kong.

In some sites, they appeared to have been taken down shortly after they were put up. One sign, posted at the University of Toronto, attracted a rebuttal in the form of a letter defending Xi posted next to it on the noticeboard.

Similar signs have also purportedly appeared within China according to images shared by activist groups, with some referencing the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests – a taboo topic in China.

“The spirit of 8964 will never be snuffed out,” said one piece of graffiti apparently scrawled on a public bathroom stall in Sichuan, referring to the date of the crackdown.

Last week’s protest has sparked a swift crackdown online, with all footage, pictures and key words such as “Haidian”, “Beijing protester” and “Sitong bridge” scrubbed from Chinese social media platforms. Even more vaguely-linked words like “hero” and “bridge” returned restricted results.

There has been heightened security in Beijing in the days following the protest, with extra police and personnel stationed at bridges in the city.

Some WeChat users who shared the protest pictures online have had their accounts suspended, according to reports. One man was reportedly arrested after he shared pictures on Twitter, which can be accessed in China via a virtual private network.

The mystery protester, dubbed “Bridge Man”, has been compared to “Tank Man”, the unknown Chinese man who stood in front of a line of tanks during Tiananmen protests [not so; it was the day after the June 4th Massacre that crushed them – Cutty Sarc].

“Bridge Man” has been the subject of extensive online investigations into his identity. Internet sleuths have identified him as an academic and tracked down his social media profiles which are said to include two Twitter accounts.

Videos from the scene showed the man apprehended by police officers and bundled into a car. Chinese police have declined to respond to BBC queries about the incident.

“With everything to lose, you wait patiently for them to come, and follow them into their car. You walk into the machine,” one tribute on an activist account read. It added: “Your act is still reverberating around the world.”

The protest took place on the eve of the 20th Communist Party congress, which will run until the end of this week. Mr Xi is expected to be elected as party leader for a third term, cementing his grip on power.

The rock, the raws an the pink-grey tips

The rock, the raws an the pink-grey tips
(bi Tammas the Rhymester)

A’ll sing yuis a sang o th’ tips ae Strathbrock
The pink an the grey, the green an the black,
The auld an the aulder, the quick an the deid,
The wee wuid on Niddry, the Castle’s grey heid.
The Castle’s grey wame is ay spillin reid bluid,
The spile fae the ile aht an empire did build.
Spile fae the ile-shale fer guid an fer ill,
Wi wars tae be focht, an strangers tae kill.
Wars the Brox lads foucht in, did yours return?
Tae Greendykes or Halygait Raws bi Brox Burn?
Ow’r the coorse ae a century’s toil i the dark,
A century’s ile fer the great Empire’s spark.
The Green, Black an Grey tips, the powder-puff pink,
A legacy richer than aa the bards’ ink.

Circlin the toun the tips towered on high,
Colossus o Greendykes preserved nou fer ay,
Albyn’s went Alpine nou, Uphaa’s a wuid,
Hopetoun turned early, the ash is weil hid.
Community wuids shroud the Ile Works by Liggat,
Canal wynds aa roond buit nae barges are in it.
Nou ducks an swans swim lightly, coots flap an preen,
Nae roarin din fears thum, ‘r acid nip their een.
Fae Stewartfield, Halygait nae miners step,
Alang the towpaths at the dawin an sunset.
Nou th’ workers o East Mains aa hae motors fine,
In Stankards an Parklands nae raws wull ye find….
Broxburn, O Uphaa! green vale o the brock
The shale made yuis great, forbye bonnie an fine.

Sae cam aa ye tae sing o the tips ae Strathbrock,
The miners an raws, the faimlies, the Works,
The bairns at the gala, the lassies’ braw frocks,
The Beugh an the Caw flowin doon tae the Brox….

TMcC Broxburn 19 June 2021

Notes:

Strathbrock – this name may be older than those of Broxburn and Uphall. It referred to the lands first granted by King David I of Scots to Freskin the Fleming in the mid 12th century. Broxburn and Uphall were and are the main centres of population of Strathbrock. The name meaning large shallow valley (srath) [of the] badger (broc) in the Gaelic, the district is defined as the catchment of the Brox Burn. It is roughly coterminous with the former Parish of Uphall, but the latter did not include Dechmont in the far northwest or Burnside in the far southeast. Strathbrock includes the Beugh and Caw Burns and therefore Uphall Station and Pumpherston, but not Ecclesmachan and Winchburgh, because the Niddry Burn narrowly avoids being a tributary of the Broxburn by flowing into the River Almond 450 metres further downstream. Strictly speaking Niddry Castle Bing lies just outside Strathbrock across the Niddry Burn, while Hopetoun/Niddry/Faucheldean is on the very edge (as was the original Greendykes Farm before moving south to where Greendykes Steadings stands today).
spile = spoil: the shale bings of the area are formed of the residue from the shale oil extraction process of firing in huge furnaces named retorts. The oil was refined in the oil works and the spoil wheeled, at least partly by hand, truck after truck along tramlines, to be emptied at the top of the bing. Technically ash and spent shale, the flesh of the bings is colloquially known as ash. The same material is known elsewhere as slag or dross. The poet here prefers “spoil”.
Niddry = Niddry Bing, just northeast of the massive Greendykes (aka Broxburn Bing), an HES scheduled monument. Its official name during operation being Hopetoun Bing, it stands just north of the site of Hopetoun Oil Works (the land and shale belonged to the Hope Marquesses of Linlithgow, Hopetoun House). The habit of referring to this tip as Faucheldean Bing after the hamlet to its north may be relatively recent. It was evidently abandoned significantly earlier than most in the area, its return to nature as a thickly wooded, pink-soiled ridge being almost complete.
Castle – refers here to Niddry Castle Bing southeast of Winchburgh, not to the castle itself. This huge tip has been greatly reduced in height by excavation of shale spoil for engineering and industrial uses, sae theday it is actually heidless. Ongoing excavation results in the bing’s appearance today – a crater half a mile in diameter. From the outside the crater walls are mainly dark grey. Its busy innards are the same powder-puff pink as Greendykes.
Albyn – Albyn Bing along the north bank of the Union Canal is known locally as The Wee Bing. (Greendykes according to logic would be the Big Bing, but is usually referred to simply as The Tips.) The shale spoil forming the Albyn was extensively excavated as with many other tips, but at a certain point when this work ceased what was left behind was a spectacular “Alpine” landscape. Or that‘s the metaphor that seemed to fit the metrics of the poem anyway 😉. Perhaps ”Trossachs/Lake District in miniature” would be better comparators for the Wee Bing, with its dark rough benns, crags and scree, narrow glens and a few tiny lochs.
East Mains – the largest industrial estate in eastern West Lothian – lies between the lower reaches of the burnlet named Liggat Syke and the West Lothian/Edinburgh border. It occupies the land of the former East Mains farm, just as Greendykes Bing covers former Greendykes Farm fields. Similarly, before disappearing, Stankards Farm gave its name as an alternative to Uphall West Bing and later to one of the prettiest neighbourhoods in present-day Strathbrock.

The badger, the burn an the bings

The badger, the burn an the bings
(bi Tammas the Rhymester)

A’ll sing yuis a sang o th’ tips ae Strathbrock
The pink an the grey, the green an the black,
The auld an the aulder, the quick an the deid,
The wee wuid on Niddry, the Castle’s grey heid.
The Castle’s grey wame is ay spillin reid bluid,
The spile fae the ile that an empire did build.
Spile fae the ile-shale fer guid an fer ill,
Wi wars tae be focht, an strangers tae kill.
Wars the Brox lads foucht in, did yours return?
Tae Greendykes or Halygait Raws bi Brox Burn?
Ow’r the coorse ae a century’s toil i the dark,
A century’s ile fer the great Empire’s spark.
The Green, Black an Grey tips, the powder-puff pink,
A legacy richer than aa the bards’ ink.

Circlin the toun the tips towered on high,
Colossus o Greendykes preserved nou fer ay,
Albyn’s went Alpine nou, Uphaa’s a wuid,
Hopetoun turned early, the ash is weil hid.
Community wuids shroud the Ile Works by Liggat,
Canal wynds aa roond buit nae barges are in it.
Nou ducks an swans swim lightly, coots flap an preen,
Nae roarin din fears thum, ‘r acid nip their een.
Fae Stewartfield, Halygait nae miners step,
Alang the towpaths at the dawin an sunset.
Nou th’ workers o East Mains aa hae motors fine,
In Stankards an Parklands nae raws wull ye find….
Broxburn, O Uphaa! green vale o the brock
The shale made yuis great, forbye bonnie an fine.

Sae cam aa ye tae sing o the tips ae Strathbrock,
The miners an raws, the faimlies, the Works,
The bairns at the gala, the lassies’ braw frocks,
The Beugh an the Caw flowin doon tae the Brox….

TMcC Broxburn 19 June 2021

Notes:

Strathbrock – this name may be older than those of Broxburn and Uphall. It referred to the lands first granted by King David I of Scots to Freskin the Fleming in the mid 12th century. Broxburn and Uphall were and are the main centres of population of Strathbrock. The name meaning large shallow valley (srath) [of the] badger (broc) in the Gaelic, the district is defined as the catchment of the Brox Burn. It is roughly coterminous with the former Parish of Uphall, but the latter did not include Dechmont in the far northwest or Burnside in the far southeast. Strathbrock includes the Beugh and Caw Burns and therefore Uphall Station and Pumpherston, but not Ecclesmachan and Winchburgh, because the Niddry Burn narrowly avoids being a tributary of the Broxburn by flowing into the River Almond 450 metres further downstream. Strictly speaking Niddry Castle Bing lies just outside Strathbrock across the Niddry Burn, while Hopetoun/Niddry/Faucheldean is on the very edge (as was the original Greendykes Farm before moving south to where Greendykes Steadings stands today.
spile = spoil: the shale bings of the area are formed of the residue from the shale oil extraction process of firing in huge furnaces named retorts. The oil was refined in the oil works and the spoil wheeled, at least partly by hand, truck after truck along tramlines, to be emptied at the top of the bing. Technically ash and spent shale, the flesh of the bings is colloquially known as ash. The same material is known elsewhere as slag or dross. The poet here prefers “spoil”.
Niddry = Niddry Bing, just northeast of the massive Greendykes (aka Broxburn Bing), an HES scheduled monument. Its official name during operation being Hopetoun Bing, it stands just north of the site of Hopetoun Oil Works (the land and shale belongs to the Hope Marquesses of Linlithgow, Hopetoun House). The habit of referring to this tip as Faucheldean Bing after the hamlet to its north may be relatively recent. It was evidently abandoned significantly earlier than most in the area, its return to nature as a thickly wooded, pink-soiled ridge being almost complete.
Castle – refers here to Niddry Castle Bing southeast of Winchburgh, not to the castle itself. This huge tip has been greatly reduced in height by excavation of shale spoil for engineering and industrial uses. Ongoing excavation results in the bing’s resemblance today to a crater half a mile in diameter. From the outside the crater walls are mainly dark grey. Its busy innards are the same powder-puff pink as Greendykes.
Albyn – Albyn Bing along the north bank of the Union Canal is known locally as The Wee Bing. (Greendykes according to logic would be the Big Bing, but is usually referred to simply as The Tips.) The shale spoil forming the Albyn was extensively excavated as with many other tips, but at a certain point when this work ceased what was left behind was a spectacular “Alpine” landscape. Or that‘s the metaphor that seemed to fit the metrics of the poem. Perhaps ”Trossachs/Lake District in miniature” would be better comparators for the Wee Bing, with its dark rough benns, crags and scree, narrow glens and a few tiny lochs.
East Mains – the largest industrial estate in eastern West Lothian – lies between the lower reaches of the burnlet named Liggat Syke and the West Lothian/Edinburgh border. It occupies the land of the former East Mains farm, just as Greendykes Bing covers former Greendykes Farm fields. Similarly, old Stankards Farm gave its name as an alternative to Uphall West Bing and later to one of the prettiest neighbourhoods in present-day Strathbrock.

Say Hello for your Mental Health

Totally in agreement with my old friend Gemma on this. That hasn’t always been the case! 😱😩😨
We have had to work very hard at even remaining civil to each other at times. But I’ve always tried to force myself to avoid, through bad character, mischievousness, or recklessness, rubbing Gemma up the wrong way and she, I think, has been doing something the same.
Intelligent, caring, sensible friends like Gemma are worth working to keep, perhaps this kind of friendship is “worth fighting for”. It’s not the romantic love Sheryl née Tweedie was singing about, but isn’t it just as important? Like the caring social distancing Gemma writes of, the kind nod or smile in passing, the compassion and willingness to try to understand each other.
Just because we are often really radically different from one another should not be grounds for suspicion. Trust one another, give each other the bemefit of the doubt. Be slower to take offence, assume, accuse gossip (Facebookers!)
Perhaps we should try to walk “up to about an hour” (M Gove) in someone else’s shoes – every day. And maybe stop to talk to someone who looks lost.
Thank you, Gemma, for persevering with me at a distance! 😘

A Little Bit of it All

Lockdown has been a strange time.  In normal times I walk in and around my local area and we’re lucky to have such a beautiful area to walk around in.  Edinburgh is incredibly lucky that it has so many places of beauty all within a city.  We really don’t have to travel far to find peace and tranquility within our gorgeous and historically soaked city.

However, lockdown began about a thousand weeks ago and things changed.  Suddenly walking was a “right” and people got defensive about it.  People were walking around not looking at each other, seemingly ready for a bombardment from others about why they were out.

Sadly, some people thought that lockdown meant no one was allowed out and that people who were out were breaking the law.  It was, of course, untrue.  It led to arguments on everyone’s favourite argument site – Facebook.   People raged about…

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Big Bang Schmeory

Austin’s burnin, Austin’s burnin…

She burned in oh-nine too.

Smouldered, rather, at a hundred and four, but

somehow failed ever to burst,

explode, flare….

Comically (with fuckin hindsight!),

like the sky rocket

– the very fuckin biggest, barely legal

firework I could afford,

pinning such hopes, lighting the blue paper,

willing the sky to flower,

smiles to shine … for me! by me! me me me!

returning, more than once,

scared and ashamed, to the scene of the….

What? Damp matches?

What damned excuse…?

Self-accusing:

Was it some negligence, some lack of care…?

Painful, really, at that time….

But so … “nice” now,

To look back and know

That the main event was not the big bang,

But the smiles that were there –

smiles not of wonder

but smiles, however sly,

of “Hey you! There we were.

“That was notre skyrocket à nous,

“(à nous et à nous seuls)

“That dampish failure to launch was our very own.

“And we still own it. And we are glad.

“Nobody got hurt … or not maimed, surely…?

“And we’ll always have Austin.”

(Strathbrock, spring 2018;

thanks (and sorry) to G – Linton ’80, V – Leith ’87, Ll – Bruntsfield ’00, Ln – Sciennes ’09, Y – Istanbul ’12 (cyberspace ’14), …et al, but finally finally FINALLY! J – Ecclesmachan ’16-infinity: we have lift-off!….)

Taipei, 2009 (photo T M McClellan)

This moon that moon

3 March 2018 – activity on Instagram reminds me it is Chinese Lantern Festival today – first full moon of the lunar year. Having recently revivified my long-moribund blog, I remembered that last Moon Festival I posted on Facebook something I still rather like. Worthy of a would-be highfalutin blog?

 

5 October 2017 · Edinburgh · 

1. 影Moon俳Festival秋photo-haiga中 (2017)
cool clouds melt quick
silver flows
together

 

2. Sister moon (09/10/2017)

Chinese 中文:
月亮，這遠離的老朋友
不忘我，
天天晚上在她那裏
不管夜有多黑ˎ 雲有多厚，
一直想念我，
就像我也一直想著她。
她皺著眉頭探著她美麗的銀頭
在找我….。
看到了我，
她快樂而又不無些許遺憾地笑起來。
我也放心地對她笑著，
很高興知道她知道
我也永遠忘不了她；
其實我隔兩天兒也一定會到外面去
探著頭
找我的摯友….。

(English 英文:
My absent old friend the moon
forgets me not,
no matter how dark every night,
no matter how thick every cloud,
she’s thinking of me
as surely as I’m missing her.
Furrowing her bonnie silver brow she peers out,
seeking me….
And when she see me she smiles merrily, though wistfully.
Comforted, I smile back,
happy to know she knows
I’ll never forget her either;
Every few nights I’m sure to go outside
and peer up, craning my neck,
looking for a soulmate.)

[Scots 苏格兰话:
Ma absent auld frein the muin
forgets me na,
nae maitter hou black ilka nicht,
hou thaik ilka cloud,
she’s thinkin ae me
as suirly as A’m missin her.
Furrowin her braw siller brou she keeks oot,
seekin uis….
An whan she sees uis she lauchs blythely, nor a wheen wistfulike.
Comfortit, A’m lauchin an aa,
blythe tae ken aht she kens
A’ll ne’er forget her neither;
Aye, there’s no mony nichts A’ll no gang ootby
an peer up i the mirk luft
seekin oot ma hert sister….]
{for Bonnie (home in Sydney for years now  ), great generous friend and best boss in the world ever, and for all absent friends – even the lost, even the unlamented are unforgotten}

 

To keep, perchance to frame

To keep, perchance to frame

Though my bipolar diary of a so-called life
– full of busy entries, rarely consulted –
scoffs at the thought,

I must write

in an effort

to remember,

because
I have one of the forgetting illnesses

I have nine tablets per day;
easy to remember to take when well,
they do not keep me full well,
work just enough to avoid recurrence
of times … things I did or allowed …
best forgotten

Always the sickness returns and always remembers
(clever sickness)
that one of the first things to tell me is:
“your drugs don’t work, forget them”

Then it adds:
“And don’t work: you know it hurts,”
makes me forget the joy of weary, hard-won achievement,
the healthy pain of barrier breaking;

And “don’t play, it’s tiring, and nobody wants you on their team;
(nobody likes you much,
what are you worth?
stay at home,
don’t get up;
numb the pain,
break the ennui,
hide from the anxiety
in substances, and behaviours…

(What’s your poison?
take it
and fill up on emptiness,
or worse;
don’t think about the void, but keep filling it
like the mythic bird that fills the murdering ocean with twigs)”

It makes me forget:
there is coffee other than instant
and the slight delay heightens the gratification
in meditative sensual moments of beans rattling,
grinder grinding, pot gently steaming on stove,
cups warming, anticipation growing,
self and loved ones taking time
together
to enjoy
to live
not by brew alone

It makes me forget:
there are fifteen different teas in my cupboard,
oolong, Assam, green, red, white,
and in the choosing begins the active pleasure of my simple ceremony,
my worship of Camelia sinensis
(no fruit, herbal or medicinal – I may anarchise,
but proper tea is no theft,
rather a gift,
a kindness to self and others
in a world much in need)

This winter, not yet over,
has seemed specially long and dark,
– though milder like my lows now –
and in it I learned a new word:
anhedonia – incapacity for enjoyment of things properly enjoyed (when well), she explained
– it’s always been a major symptom.
Less acutely painful than anxiety or the deepest lows,
anhedonia subtly inflicts “mildly” crippling injury….

To forget (or fail to feel the knowledge of) what I enjoy,
to forget things I am good at
and the pleasure in doing them
Simply to forget to look up, look around
and see
and know
my myriad of reasons
to be grateful

Worst of all,
to forget, almost, that I am in love –
profoundly, wonderingly immersed in a love
that turns out to be the only true love I’ve ever known
or could ever exist, so unlikely to be known to any other “lovers”
To experience not-so-fleeting
shocking, brutal, soul-killing
doubt … whole spells of frightening dullness,
like a man of incontestible religious conviction,
certain in the proven knowledge of the Love and Goodness of God,
yet defenceless and agonised, near struck down
by a crisis of Faith

“What the bloody fuck is wrong with me?
“Surely I’m not falling out of love with her
in spite of everything that has been miraculously revealed
to me,
at last?”

My baffling, cunning, powerful
illness makes me forget
the tested proof of this pure true love
as surely as it persuades me to make do
with a mug of instant;
“don’t bother with the good stuff,
it’s not worth it (you’re not worth it),
it’s not real”

I need to remember the beans, touch their shape, feel and sniff the oil,
work with them a little,
work a little at making a small miracle,
a cup of coffee or tea
or a big wok of stew
to share with the beloved,
enjoy her enjoyment,
stop bending her,
for a while at least,
like an overworked crutch….

Before I get ill again,
I need the well-named Mr Moody,
prophylactically, strategically,
to w.r.a.p. me in Wellness,
point to Recovery,
suggest Action – in short,
he’s the man with a Plan
for me, contingent on my
willingness, my surrender

I try to remember my friend Alan says –
“Have you tried handing it over?”
– it’s in my silly-sounding, deadly-serious mantra.
Not much good remembering it now,
no good apprehending
the next resurgence of the clever one
either.

No good (not) washing now
because I know it will just keep me dirty later;
I must do what I can while I can;
but no good knowing now that when I’m ill again
to brush only the one dirtiest tooth even once a day
will be better than not brushing any tooth at all … for weeks
…I won’t remember
because I will have been told
I do not deserve
even one tooth
that bit cleaner…

I will have forgotten.

And I can frame this now,
but where can I hang it?
Where can I place these reminders where I will see them;
for when the time comes
I will forget to look up.

T M McClellan, February 2018

Alex and Charlie: Challenging Gender Stereotypes

Source: Alex and Charlie: Challenging Gender Stereotypes

A Real Football Hero: Father Edward Hannan in 1870s Edinburgh

More Than Mind Games

You get so used to false talk of heroism in football that you come to discount it. But occasionally, a real one comes to light, and when a real one comes to light it illuminates all the others. And heaven knows, at the end of the 1860s, Edinburgh’s impoverished and embattled Irish community were in need of a hero.

They’d needed one for some time. Scotland’s Irish came in two big waves, one after the 1798 “Rebellion” and the other after the famine. Most settled in the West or Glasgow. Their individual stories tell you why: poverty meant that, whichever port they arrived at, they were obliged to walk to their eventual homes. Which is why Edinburgh’s Irish community wasn’t of Glaswegian size:  Michael Whelalan, of whom more anon, came from one of the relatively few families who made it on foot from the West Coast to the Capital, and…

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WEEK FORTY-TWO – Arthur’s Seat/The Inaccessible Pinnacle

>> Arthur’s Seat The Inaccessible Pinnacle <<                        From a walk in the park to a serious climb, we reach new heights with this week’s themes. One of numerous loca…

Source: WEEK FORTY-TWO – Arthur’s Seat/The Inaccessible Pinnacle