Shocked Chinese in Mexico City

This is an account of a fantastic protest yesterday in Mexico City, organized by Exa Mendez, SFT’s Latin America Coordinator. You can find her blog at http://sftamericalatina.vox.com/.

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Protest for the countdown, Mexico City
5 August 2007

I am very happy to write this little “report” about the countdown action that happened in Mexico City. It turns out that China is celebrating its 35 years of diplomatic relations with Mexico and the Chinese embassy organised all these cultural events and shows related to Chinese culture. Today 5th of August was the last day of the events and we thought it would be a great opportunity to show up and surprise the CHinese, because of the media coverage, and the visit of mexican authorities, we decided it would be much better to have our action today instead of wednesday.

The mexican TSG isn’t too big as you all know but I was very happy that in the end more people than I had expected showed up, in total it were 15 of us plus one entire family who support us sporadically, today they showed up the two parents, the grandma and the three kids wearing “Free Tibet” signs on their shirts, it was great.

we had in total Three signs in mandarin, one of them, the one I was carrying read “Free Tibet” then there was this other one saying “human rights for Tibet” and one more saying “is China indeed a responsible country?” (the guy making these is still a student of mandarin so our options were limited!) The banners in spanish said “China get our of Tibet” and “China plays games with Human rights” of course we had the flag too. We had our TEam Tibet fliers, we had fliers stating the 10 basic points about Tibet, and we had these stickers the mexican TSG printed which have info on Tibet and the Olympics on the back of each sticker.

We entered the square wearing shirts that read “free Tibet” “China kills Tibetans”, “the game is over, free tibet” etc. we also wore the black armband to show our solidarity with the hunger strike in India, and we also stuck to our shirts the Team Tibet badge.

The Chinese event that was scheduled for today was called “Ethnic minorities in China and their traditional customs”. Important to mention is the fact that this show happened in the main and biggest square in Mexico City, the Zocalo.

We entered the square from the side where the stage was so every one could see us, we entered chanting “Free Tibet” , and every one turned and looked at us, the faces of the Chinese were frozen! I could see them thinking “What the f*****!!!!!!” they had no idea where we came from or any idea who we were, all the Chinese organizers and the crew from the show were simply shocked, I could not believe their faces!. We stayed there handing in the info and showing the banners for over two ours until the show was finished.

We placed ourselves right in front of the scenario where all the Chinese could see us. At some point I took my “Free Tibet” sign in mandarin and went all the way to the front where the public and the Chinese people from the embassy and the chinese crew could see me. I went as close as I could and they simply didn’t want to look at me. Some of them turned their head to the opposite side, others looked and turned away, others started telling every one about the sign, it was great!! slowly all chinese organizers and people from the embassy knew I was there in front of their faces holding a “free Tibet” sign. I could see all these Chinese reading my banner and being shocked, one chinese lady yelled at me “What the hell are you doing here”? I yelled back “helping Tibetans free their country” she started telling her colleagues that I was there and they all kept staring at me.

At some point one of the chinese from the embassy pocked my shoulder and told me “Get out of here, get out of here” I said “no, this is my country and this is my right” he kept pushing me harder and harder telling me to get out of there, I said “I will get out of here when China gets out of Tibet” and I don’t know how I looked at him that he simply left. I didn’t like the fact that he started pulling my arm to get out of there.

Then I had this other big, tall chinese guy telling me at any chance he could “you look stupid, you don’t know nothing” every time he passed in front of me he said something… he said we were ignorant and that we didn’t know anything, he didn’t leave us alone the whole time we were there.

Also one chinese from the staff approached me and asked me “so tell me if you know it all, how large is Tibet’s territory” he said we should “inform ourselves before going there to hold those banners”
he looked at me and left whispering as he was leaving “bunch of ignorants”

the whole group were all over there place handing in the info and fliers and explaining to people why we were there, all mexicans’ reaction was pretty good, they kept saying they had no idea and that it was good we were there, one of them stood in front of us and started clapping.

We stood there holding our banners in front of the stage for over two hours, in the end when the show was over we moved to the front where all chinese media, staff, embassy people, and dancers gathered in a big group and we started chanting “free Tibet” , they looked at us and turned away. They did their best to ignore us but that was pretty hard. We knew they knew. we had like 4 mexicans with us that were not in the group saying “China you suck” ( ha ha) and “china is cruel and it should be out of Tibet” so that was good because they were powerful voices ha ha…

I can only say one thing, the Chinese were PISSED, shocked and didn’t know what to do. I did my best to put my “free tibet” sign on their way wherever and whenever the Chinese media were taking pictures of the public, I know they got me in some of their shots. We had two journalists from the biggest and main radio stations asking for interview, so I
spoke to them and hopefully they will air it.

I can only say the TSG was very happy because we all saw the frozen, shocked Chinese faces and also we managed to inform more mexicans, whose reaction was overall good.

I know the embassy knows about what we did now, because every chinese person saw us, and I know they DID NOT LIKE IT AT ALL (sob sob! HA!) Overall the impact of our action was great, China now knows Free Tibet supporters are in Mexico, and they won’t be happy when we bombard the embassy this wednesday with faxes and calls. Uh Ha!

Mexico is officially part of the movement!

Free Tibet!

Exa and the mex. TSG.



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