20 years ago, I was but a lad of 16, yet I remember watching the TV. I remember seeing the video. I remember the crack down.

Watching CNN, I watched as a college student played chicken with a tank:

Then I watched in horror as sporadic and chaotic video emerged of screaming, running and gunfire once the Chinese government had enough.

19 years later, my wife and I would stand in Tiananmen Square:

It was hard for me to imagine what it must have been like. I whispered to our guide, asking him if this was the spot where it all happened. All he did was nod his head. There I was. It happened right where I was standing.

I love freedom. I believe it is something that is inside every human, the urge to be free, to express themselves, to live their lives free from fear and intimidation. Yet there are 1.5 billion Chinese people who do not know true freedom.

I can’t wait to go back to China in 8 years. See, we have decided that if Mei wants to, we will go back to China when she is 10 years old. This time we will be able to take our time and plan our journey through the vast expanse of China. My hope and desire is that real freedom will continue to come to the Chinese people. That their leaders will throw off the chains of fear and embrace all that is good about Chinese culture.

It is only 8 years away, yet I hope the change will be evident.

Unfortunately, today, the Chinese government is up to it’s old tricks again:

Chinese police aggressively deterred dissent on Thursday’s 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square…
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The extraordinary security moves come after government censors shut down social networking and image-sharing Web sites such as Twitter and Flickr, and blacked out CNN and other foreign news channels each time they aired stories about Tiananmen.

Dissidents and families of crackdown victims were confined to their homes or forced to leave Beijing, part of sweeping efforts to prevent online debate or organized commemorations of the anniversary.