On the one hand, this trend of change was barely noticeable, but as April and May 1989 rolled around (and the students of Tiananmen were doing their large protests for hope, more freedoms, and democracy in their land), the Chinese students at the Bergische University were virtually bubbling with joy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/
NOTE: This opening in Spring 1989 for Chinese college students could be greatly contrasted with the secretiveness in 2000-2002 with which I found many students on Texas A & M University operating whenever references to reform in their homeland were made in the Political Science Department in the George Bush Building in College Station. Chinese students of that era were simply defensive and fully believed the party line when it came to any criticism of their own regime.
The Broken TELEPHONE EPISODE in MAY 1989 in MY DORMITORY
If one doesn't recall history in order of time on a continuum (or river) of history very well, let me remind you that the protests in Tiananmen Square began in the weeks just prior to a visit was planned and undertaken by the Soviet Union's leader, Mikhail Gorbachev in May 1989.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/19/world/gorbachev-ends-china-amity-talks.html
The purpose of those talks was to end 30 years of infighting or "estrangement" between the two large Communist behemoths of the Asian continent.
http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/sam89/1989html/s890504.htm
NOTE: Perhaps had the two sides buried the hatchet a decade earlier, world history would be greatly different. Quite possibly, the Soviet Union would have added a capitalist element to its economic development in time to possibly have slowed down the collapse of the Soviet system,i.e. which would follow two years later (after the Tiananmen Massacre.).
http://www.aparchive.com/Search.aspx?st=shwc&xslt=scssr&id=121867
By the time, Gorbachev arrived in mid- to late May, Chinese students had built a statue to Democracy--i.e. a Liberty Goddess of sorts--,and some had even begun hunger strikes demanding more freedom and choice in their futures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_of_Democracy
Because, throughout May, the confused Chinese Communist controlled leadership had not struck down the protests, Chinese youthful pride, vigor and hopefulness was flowing everywhere that spring.
Then a sort-of-pre internet technological miracle occurred in my West German dormitory.
