`We saw humanity`: a Chinese student on the day Bob Hawke wept over Tiananmen
(The Guardian China)

Ai Ling Zhou was 25 when Hawke allowed her and thousands of other Chinese students to stay in Australia after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. On the day after Hawke´s death, her son Naaman Zhou asked her to look backo The typical Australian who enjoyed extraordinary popularityo Hawke remembered fondly by Indigenous leaderso `Australians knew Bob loved them´: tributes paid to HawkeA lot of people wouldn´t be here if it wasn´t for Bob Hawke. They would be, like my mother was in 1989 as she watched the TV, somewhere unknown. Somewhere between unmoored and trapped, feeling sick to the stomach.Like many Chinese-Australians, Ai Ling Zhou was here on a student visa when the soldiers went into Tiananmen Square. She had friends in the crowd, and assumed they had died. She had been here for two years, and had been feeling a kind of hope. Not any more. On her visa, time was running out. Related: We`re not just mourning Bob Hawke - we`re mourning purposeful leadership and big ideas | Lenore Taylor Related: Greg Combet: Bob Hawke transformed Australia irrevocably and for the better Continue reading...