Preserving ‘the truth’

To find the world’s only museum chronicling the brutal crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen protests, look for the skinny office building wedged between a Tibetan-themed pub and a sports bar on a side street on the edge of a Hong Kong tourist district.

No external clue shows that the building houses the June 4th Museum, dedicated to preserving the memory of one of the darkest periods in China’s recent past through photographs, artifacts, videos and written histories of the events.

Yet a steady stream of visitors, many from mainland China, has been trickling in since it was opened in April.

The interest shows that though authorities have deleted the events from China’s official record, their memory endures 25 years on in Hong Kong.

The protests remain a taboo topic in mainland China. But in Hong Kong, the memorial to them is one of many reminders of how the city’s differences with China continue to widen 17 years after it ceased to be a British colony.

“The world memory of it is fading and the younger generation doesn’t know of it in China, where it’s also banned,” said Lee Cheuk Yan, chairman of the Labour Party and head of the prodemocracy group that operates the museum. “So we think it’s very important for us to preserve this historical truth.”

The 75sq m museum is on the fifth floor of the nondescript Foo Hoo Centre in Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui district.

Staffers say they see about 200 visitors a day on weekdays and 500 on weekends. About half are mainland Chinese.