Without memories of 1989, young Chinese activists struggle for social change
BEIJING - Zoe Chen heard her dad talk about the Tiananmen Square uprising just once, and she wasn't supposed to be listening.
He was discussing it with her uncle, and she overheard him say he'd graduated from a university only two years before the 1989 protests that ended in government forces killing hundreds or perhaps thousands of young activists in the heart of China's capital.
To Chen, who was born in 1994, five years after the protests that have since been scrubbed from Chinese media and history, her father would repeat only one phrase: "Wu tan guo shi" - "Don't talk about national affairs."
"His only hope for me is that I won't get into politics," Chen said.
That hasn't stopped the 25-year-old, who wears a black T-shirt with "This is what a feminist looks like" printed in English and Chinese, from throwing herself into advocacy for women's rights.
"I tell him it's not politics, it's social activism," Chen said. "So he thinks it's two things. But everything is related to politics."
Thirty years after China sent armed troops to crush pro-democracy protests in the central Beijing square, the party-state is cracking down on a new batch of young
