Do Go On - 521 - The Tiananmen Square Massacre

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Over nearly two months in 1989, student led protests erupted across China as people called for reforms. The centre of the movement was Tiananmen Square in Beijing where more than a million people gathered. On June 3rd the army was sent in to clear the protestors, ending with devastating consequences. This is the seventh most voted for topic for Block 2025.This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 09:08 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report)For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Jess Writes A Rom-Com: https://shows.acast.com/jess-writes-a-rom-comOur awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/timeline-tiananmen-square/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-27404764https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/11/the-cultural-revolution-50-years-on-all-you-need-to-know-about-chinas-political-convulsion https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/world/tiananmen-square-tank-man-cnnphotos/https://time.com/5600363/china-tiananmen-30-years-later/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-09/tiananmen-square-anniversary-shows-maos-legacy-lives-on/11185924https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/tiananmen-scholar-06072021030902.htmlhttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Tiananmen-Square Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big news about our 2025 world tour. Slash Australian New Zealand tour. That's the world, baby. That's our oyster. We have sold out a bunch of the shows. And if you've missed out in Perth or Brisbane, fear not, we've added some extra shows. So you can go to our website.

Do go onpod.com. And soon we'll be in Hobart, Canber, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland, Wellington and Brisbane. Can't wait. Hi, it's Morgan from Off the Shelf, and I'm here to tell you about Paramount Pictures' new movie Regretting You, a film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's best-selling book, Regretting You. If there's anything I love more than an adaptation, it's an adaptation that's going to make me feel something. And with Josh Boone, yes, the director of the Fultonar stars, at the helm, I'm ready.

Between the first loves, secret relationships, and second chances, I am prepared to be going through every single emotion. This film also has a stacked cast starring Alison Williams, Mechanic Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Fames, and so many more. Go see Regretting You only in Theater's October 24th. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnocky and as I'm here with Matt Stewart and just perfect. Hello! Hello, Dave.

Good to be here again. Happy block. Happy block. What was that? Matt, Matt, you've forgotten to put on your public-facing voice. Oh, yeah, all right, yeah. So, hey, how's it gotten? How's it going?

Good, eh? No. Oh, we're doing this 10 years. I think you could just slip into it now. I mean, hello. There it is. Hello. And Jess, you did start by sounding like a bit of a bird.

Thank you. I am the bird of the podcast. Hello! Hello! Great to have you here for what is a momentous occasion as we race towards the most popular topic of the year. We are at number seven in the block tober countdown. My favourite every year. Lucky seven.

You're like lucky seven. For every single year, we do a massive poll. Matt puts out thousands of people vote for a short list of 200 most popular. topics and then more than down to nine. Do you want to know how many voted for this? Yes. 27.11% out of 100%. That's more than one in four people who voted.

That's incredible. That's incredible. And just so the maths makes sense, you can pick more than one topic. Yes. I should say. Yes, that's right. So there were, I think, a couple hundred or something. There was quite a few options, less than last year, due to feedback.

They're like, I'm overwhelmed and fair. But yeah, so you could vote for as many as you like, but the winner, I can reveal the winner had 32%. So, you know, it was right up there, the pointy end. Exciting. Exciting to hear that the winner is almost one in three people, wanted to hear it. Yeah.

It's going to be big. So one of us will find it interesting because there's three of us. One in three people want this. Right, now the two will just have to fucking shut up and tolerate it. And unfortunately, for this topic, this is only interesting to one and four people, so all three of us will zone out. There is a, yeah, if you want to take the, you know, the glass half full approach, then, yeah, the majority of people did not want to hear this episode.

But we'll soldier off. That's not even taking into account the majority of the world that didn't even bother voting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, not quite the majority. I think just over half of the world did end up voting, so. No, it is very, very exciting and these topics are always interesting. I think at this point Sorry, the way you said interesting

They sound like they're not interested It's sort of when your mum says The show that you did was You look like you're having fun No, it was because I was going to say exciting But I remember this topic is probably not one you'd describe as exciting But it is an interesting historical event Exactly

I feel like at this point because we've been doing block for a while now The block topics we end up doing A sort of ones where people go They haven't done that already? Yes. You know, they're like they're big topics There's maybe well-known stories or very obscure ones And yeah, when it's the well-known ones

it's like, oh, I would have thought you would have done that by now. Oh, my goodness. And we're excited to have the chance to do them. And today, this is a famous story from history that you might not know the ins and outs of. So that's what I've dived into. Now, we always start with the question. We kind of know this is the only time of the year where we know what the other people are going to report on, though you might have forgotten because we did this up a few weeks ago.

And it's also, it's me we're talking about. Yes. He was pointing at me when he said, you might have forgotten. Yeah, well, he also just heard me say exactly how many people voted for it. I've got a fair idea. And Matt, he's obsessed with this. This poll. Were you refreshing every eight seconds you refresh the pole?

Block is, you know, I don't even know where I begin and block finishes. Yeah. We have become one. I think you really, I think your life began at Block. Yes, that's right. You know, some people say it begins at conception, not me. I say it begins first of October. You were alive for 400 years before you really existed.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. What are we, have we, what is this, the ninth block, eight, seventh block? I don't know. We did it pretty early on. Is this the first block? First block? Did we do it fairly early? I think so.

Maybe about the third year of the podcast. Wow. This could be... Six or seven? I'll find out in the next couple of weeks. Yeah. We will let you know. But the, yeah, if people don't know, it's basically we collate the most requested topics,

put it into a huge poll, and everyone can vote, and you can vote from as many topics as you like. I want you guys to stop saying huge poll. I know. You want us to? Yeah, I don't. Every time you say. and I want to laugh. Okay.

Permission? Well, to me, it's not funny. It's Block. There's nothing funny about Block. Yeah. Okay, let us get into the topic. So I've got a question that will lead to the topic, and that is you can buzz in,

and I think you'll be able to get this one. Even me. Yep. Probably, I mean, God, I don't want to raise a quick take. No, it's because it is geography base. That's why I'm a bit worried. And I think you've, you know, you've spent so much time with me that you, I've, I've,

I've endeared myself to you. So you like me. But I think that has blinded you to my stupidity. I want me to be better. Don't we all? I round you up in my mind. No, so this is a geography-based question. It simply is, what is the capital of China?

Beijing? Do you ask you one ever? I want to say it with as much confidence as Matt did. Beijing? Beijing is correct, Matthew. Well done. Good job. Were you similar to me like, probably, Beijing?

Yeah, I mean. Is this a trick question? Yeah, exactly. Because there are, like, it feels like it's 50-50. And there are countries. Australia's got an obscure capital. Totally. America bit obscure.

Like, probably people would think New York instinctively. I always get Canada and New Zealand. Like, I confuse them. And Ottawa? It's not, it is Wellington. Yes. But they're both sort of, again, not what you'd think it would be, Auckland and Toronto.

Not the biggest population cities. Whereas London is. London is the capital. Yeah, Paris. Yeah. So, geez. And yeah, we've got Canberra. Yeah.

Yeah, Beijing is what you kind of expect. But also, it wouldn't have been surprised if it was something else. Exactly. Well, you are correct. Because today we are talking about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Oh, cool. So much like the ninth block topic that had disaster in the title. This one has massacre in the title.

Yes. So that bodes well for the vibe. Yes. Unless, you know, there was a soccer game after that, you know, one team won by a lot. Yeah, and that's the kind of massacre. It was like 8-0. Oh, it was an absolute massacre, that was it, 80-0. 80-nil.

Oh, wow. Unheard of. Yeah. I mean, do the other team even turn up? No. There were results like that when Australia used to play in Oceania. You know, it would be Australia versus a little island nation, and you've got some hectic schools. People are like, oh, my God.

How do they do that with their feet? What are you like to grab the ball? That's just nice to be here. This one amazingly, so like Matt said, nearly one and four people, or just over one and four people, voted for it in the big countdown. But it's only been suggested by one person in the history of the show. And a big shout out to that person, Jacoby de Angel. Oh, Jacoby. From America.

Jacoby's made some great suggestions in the years. Really has. Really has. And this is one of those stories that, from history, it's obviously big. I'm sure we know the photos. No, maybe, yeah, like the images around it, but do you know much about the story of Tiananmen Square? Yeah, probably not, yeah. Over those days.

Well, I'm going to try and give it some context. Great. Australia beat American Samoa 310 in April 2001. In what sport? Soccer. Huh. And that was us. So, like, imagine if a really good team played them.

Yeah, geez. O'Shea. Okay. Hold on. When you said when Australia plays Oceania, I thought we were going to suck. No, you know, we're like, we were, like, the big giant in soccer in Oceania. But we moved to Asia and we're more like, we're still like a. We're okay.

An upper, you know, we're in the, we're in the, it made sense. The Australian men's team qualified for the World Cup. Is that right? Is that a done deal now? So now, New Zealand is like the big fish in Oceania, and they tend to qualify. So, yeah, two of the spots in this 32-team tournament are Australia and New Zealand for like four tournaments in a row, which doesn't seem exactly right. But, you know, FIFA is a well-run organisation.

I think we heard that on our previous episode. You never had any cloud hangover and ever. So we've got to go back a couple of decades or a decade earlier. On the 9th of September 1976, Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, the PRC, and the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party died at the age of 82. Now, this was a huge deal in China, where Mao had been the leader of the country for 27 years and leader of the Chinese Communist Party for four decades. And the country observed a week of mourning, and his embalmed body lay in the great hall of the people,

a state building situated to the west of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It's estimated that more than one million people, including diplomatic envoys, leaders of foreign communist parties and foreign nationals in China, filed past Mao to pay their final respects. A million. A million people walk past. How many do you reckon I'd get? Half a million?

Do you reckon? That's pretty good. Would you visit? I'd walk past. As in, you just walk in the dog? Yeah, yeah, I'd pop my head in. Like, when you go past and you go, oh, auction. I want to see inside this house.

I'll have a look, yeah. It's like everyone's at the same time. I'm not standing in a queue of half a million people. That's fair. I want a thing where you get a text saying five minutes, your spot's coming up. Yeah. Yeah, okay. That's what I do for you.

But I'm not lining up. No, that's fair enough. And I wouldn't want you to. I hate to queue. It just wouldn't be respectful to you. That's right. Thank you. You'd prefer me to sleep through my alarm.

I want you to be rested. Yeah. Oh, oh. She's in a better place. Yeah. I'll visit the grave. Maybe. Maybe. I'll get around to it. Over in Tiananmen Square itself, a giant painted portrait of Mao had hung since 1949.

And it was briefly replaced with a black and white portrait to commemorate his death. But the colour version of the painting went back up, and 13 years after this event, after his death, this portrait would witness thousands upon thousands of students and other citizens protesting against the very party that he had led, leading to a brutal crackdown. But how did we get here? Wow. Flashback. Yeah, flashback.

I flashed back. Then you flash forward. Now you're going back. Flacking back again. That was awesome. Thank you so much. Now, as you can imagine, upon the death of someone who had led the country for decades and who had famously purged many of his opponents during that time, there was a bit of a power vacuum and a lot of political maneuvering after the death of Mao. People wanted to get in there, be in charge.

Can we just, I know this is not really. the point of things we need to address that mousy dong is a funny name thank you for saying it because you i think the first time you mentioned his name on this podcast was in an early episode yeah and it just made me laugh yeah we had a really good time i don't think i'd heard his name before at least not or maybe i'd only ever seen it written down yeah or you heard mao you know you'd hear him is ma'am ma'am mao but mousy dong yeah is funny you know what if i'm like a dull pubed cop i'm definitely right it's a mousy hair mousy brown is that what you're picturing and a dong as well to me is you know it's quite a chop you know it's a solid piece of work

there goes the visa to china well i mean i i i'm saying it and i'm also like you know redact what you need to for visa purposes. What I was about to say was when I hear the name Mousy Dong, I kind of think of you now Matt, but after what you just said, that feels weird and perverted. When I think of Mousie Dong, I think of my friend Matt. That's really sweet. Mousy brown pubs on an absolute chop. An absolute job.

Yeah, a real weighty sort of honk, you know, they're kind of like when it comes Like you don't want to be anywhere near that I mean when it's coming out It's coming up with some force And I'm not saying that like that's To me that's nothing to know with him or anything like that It's just that's what the name evokes to me Correct correct

So I don't want to speak for Mousy Dong But I don't think he's the kind of person Who would police people's thoughts Or the things that they say Yeah So you know In his honour, I think he would actually really enjoy, you know, this sort of free speaking that I'm doing now.

I did also want a flag that I'm like... Red flag? Not getting that. I'm not very good at pronouncing a lot of these Chinese names. I have looked up pronunciations. I watched a professor on YouTube try to explain how to say because it's tonal languages they have in China. Yes. And I think I'm mousy toong.

I've heard mousy toong. Okay. Well, see, that's way less funny. Yeah, but even that I'm probably, I'm butchering. Right. Well, if you went with that, then, you know, you could have avoided all of this. My brain dump there that probably has lost us quite a few listeners. At some point in the future.

Yeah, maybe lost us a few regular listeners, but gained us a few listening in government headquarters. So, Mao, let's just call them Mao. Okay. That's probably best. But you know what I'm picturing now, though. Yeah, I know what you're picturing. Yeah. Fung.

Yes, that's the sound. so with him gone because he'd been in charge for a long time and at all so any he'd like I said perched a lot of opponents and people who had opposed him in any way wait hang on what he disappeared people did he yeah or demoted them sent people to prison or to just away from the party within a couple of years it was a messy time after male left yeah yeah but within a couple of years, Deng Xiaoping had emerged as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China. And he is widely regarded as, quote, the architect of modern China. Deng Xiaoping. I think I'm saying that right. Yeah, right. So more so than Mousie Dong,

he's this guy, this next guy. So he took what was already there and he made it what it is now, because it has changed quite a bit, I guess. Yes. And I'll talk about the differences between how he shaped the country versus what it was like when he took it over. So it wasn't a smooth ride to the leadership. Deng had been active in the Chinese Communist Party for decades and had key roles in the party but had twice been purged by Mao and was exiled to work in a tractor factory for four years. Wild, like the work ethic and just like the belief in climbing the ladder

to get purged twice. And work your way back up. Obviously, he wanted to, he sort of believed himself to be kingworthy or whatever. And, well, it must be a great political operator because he outmaneuvered his rivals, including a group called the Gang of Four, led by Mao's widow, Chang Ching, and Dang became the country's leader in 1978. So from 1966, just to go back a little bit more, until his death, Chairman Mao had been responsible for it is called the Cultural Revolution,

which the Guardian describes as, quote, a decade-long period of political and social chaos caused by Mao's bid to, use the Chinese masses to reassert his control over the Communist Party. Now, The Guardian continues, Mao saw his latest political campaign as a way of reinvigorating the communist revolution by strengthening ideology and weeding out opponents. There was a pretty tumultuous time in China, I must say schools and universities were closed. Churches, shrines, libraries, shops and private homes were ransacked or destroyed. Gangs of teenagers in red armbands and military fatigues roamed the streets of cities like Beijing

and Shanghai, setting upon those, quote, with bourgeois clothes or reactionary haircuts. Oh, wow. And quote... Oh, you'd be fucked. Dave, oh, I was thinking, Dave, that quiff. Do you think this is a reactionary? It does look like I'm shocked.

Yeah. That's a reaction. That's one of the reactions you can have. You can't have that. Hair down. Hair down. Jeez, that's a powerful government. Yeah.

They can command your hair down. Yes. Well, like, I think in North Korea, have an approved list of haircuts. And I don't know if the quiff or the long mullet that you often rock, Matt, are either on the list. So, I don't know, we'd have to pick something else. Well, that's why, I mean, I wear hats nearly all the time. So, who knows what's going on under here?

What are you hiding? What's in there? It's like my hair's quiffed into a middle finger. Yeah. Like, which is badass. You're such a bad boy. That is real tough stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. Some people have a tuft of hair. I have a tough of hair. You have to get wearing your hat because your hair's been too sexy lately. Yeah, that's true. It's looking too good. I've started shampooing and conditioning. Whoa, okay, fancy man.

Whoa. He's had a bit of the Hugh Grant foppishness to him lately, and I think the hat needs to stay on. I can't concentrate it. Well, I've started cutting my own hair again. So I think that's issue, Grant. Just like you. Just like you. So back to the Guardian, the cultural revolution crippled the economy,

ruined billions of lives, and thrust China into 10 years of turmoil, bloodshed, hunger, and stagnation. As many as 2 million people died. Wow. So things weren't going well for China. Jesus. Two million. So in the late 70s, the new leader, Deng Xiaoping,

proposed the idea of Boulan Fangxeng, which roughly translates as bringing order out of chaos to correct the mistakes of the cultural revolution. He launched a comprehensive program to reform and open up the Chinese economy. Within several years, the country's focus on ideological purity was replaced by a concerted attempt to achieve material prosperity. So they wanted to make the country rich. Which is quite different?

Is that a change before they were like pretty happy with just getting by? It's more like they wanted everything beforehand was focused on the party and the, like I said, ideological purity of the Communist Party. And that was a bit like, okay, let's just make some more money, get a stronger economy for our growing country. Let's loosen things up a bit. Yeah. And boy, did they materially prosper.

The speed of China's transformation in this period from one of the poorest countries to one of the world's largest economies is unmatched in history. Wow. They got very rich, very quickly. What do they do? They bought Bitcoin early or something. Yeah, that's right. It was like a cent of coin.

Poor. And now it's worth what, 10, 15 cents? As far as I know. Last time I checked, 1976. Deng's reforms aimed to decrease the state's role in the economy, and China's peasant farmers were given individual control over, and responsibility for their production and profits, a policy that resulted in greatly increased agriculture.

cultural production. It was deemed socialism with Chinese characteristics and a socialist market economy. So China also opened up to foreign investment and Deng strengthened China's trade and cultural ties with the West, which beforehand was very much off the cards. The Chinese government gradually dismantled the many distinctly Maoist policies associated with a cultural revolution and rehabilitated and welcomed back to society the millions of people who would have been targeted during its decade of turmoil. Wow. And it's quite interesting, so they reversed all of a lot of Mao's policies,

but he's still revered in the country. So they still, he's still a legend of the Communist Party that he very much took to power, but they also took a big step back from a lot of his own policies. Yeah, interesting. They're really separating the man from the policies. Yes. So he still has that cold of personality.

Like there's, like I said, that portrait. and Chenaman Square still hangs there. He's become like the mascot, sort of like the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy. He's like, they sort of sideline him a bit, but they love using his head. Not just sorry about his views, but God, he looks good in a suit. A great image.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So whilst the economy greatly improved overall and the reforms were generally well received by the public, concerns did grow over corruption and nepotism on the part of elite members of the party. In a market with chronic shortages, because it's opening up so quickly, it's hard to keep up with everything. Price fluctuation allowed people with powerful connections to buy goods at low prices and then sell them at market prices. And then these people got really rich really quickly.

For the common good? No, for their own good. Oh. Okay. It sort of seems against the spirit of things, but, hmm. There's got to be, there's something we're missing because we're not economists or something. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

I'm going to be rolling over in his grave right now. Would he? What would that sound like? Fonk. Every time. Fonk. Fonk. It's coming back again.

There it is. Are we putting our lives in danger? It's hard to know. We'll leave that up to age. I think he's more worldly than us. I think if we start to get death threats, if people see that this episode's been taken down, not long, it hasn't got well.

I'll also, I'll say, if anyone's listening, you know, from anywhere powerful or anything, we're just, we're talking, we're having fun mucking around. This is just, this is what it is. AJ is the one who decides what goes out. It's sort of up to him what gets edited out, what doesn't. And, yeah, let me. He's really the ringleader.

I can give you details of his whereabouts if you need. Where does actors? Yeah. Come on. He's the mastermind. Yeah. So there's this thing going on where some people are making great amounts of money by buying low, selling high. So this double standard, and like in the people that are making the money are very high up.

So this double standard in growing disparity, not surprisingly led to some growing discontent. This is from Wiki Now, which is a great website I found about the history of China. What was the name Wiki? I actually didn't translate that story. Oh, it's really, yeah, character-based thing. Cool. Yeah. Maybe, yeah.

Maybe it means like information or something. Yeah, I guess probably does. Gotcha, information.org. Yeah. Great. There was the Min Dynasty. Was it the Wic Dynasty? Mm-hmm.

Wiki. That sounds right. Wiki Dynasty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds right. Yeah, the information. I can't remember what year that was, but it rings about. No. Well, you remember what the other years were?

Yeah, of course. But Dave's in the middle of a report, so I hate to interrupt. Yeah, pretty cool. Don't worry, Matt will take a note. We'll circle back to this. So, from Wicke now, in 1988, the party leadership under Deng agreed to implement a transition to a market-based pricing system. News of the relaxation of price controls triggered waves of cash withdrawals, buying and hoarding all over China. The government panicked and rescinded the price reforms in less than two weeks, but there was a pronounced impact for much longer.

Inflation soared. Official indices reported that the consumer price index increased by 30% in Beijing between 1987 and 1988, leading to panic among salaried workers that could no longer afford staple goods. They've tried to have these economic changes, but the market has panicked. And now people are wondering, can I afford to buy things to support my family whilst inflation is soaring around,

them so discontent was soed particularly among students who faced an especially limited job market and many could not find work particularly this will upset you in social sciences and the humanities come on that's we're all humann yeah i'm a manatee i'm a manatee you're a manate well that's why you and me together are humanities um you know our offspring will be when we finally figure out how late i don't know we're always like we're quite a few guys that we don't know which bibs go where and which bobs you know there's nooks there's crannies we can't figure it out you always end up in opposite

corners of the room yeah so many options is this right is this is this don't end up for you oh oh I don't know I'm not blah I'm not sure what I know is this is this is humanity something as well maybe humanity's is that's actually we have a pause in the I think, I think, let's have one more go now. And Dave, can we pause this for a second? Humanities is a awaken something in me.

So, just, is that okay if we? You need five? Yeah, could you step out? Five should be plenty. Make it three. Private companies also no longer needed to accept students assigned to them by the state, and many high-paying jobs were offered based on. nepotism and favoritism. Oh, so previously it was like you're allocated students. Yeah,

like the government was just in charge of everything, basically. So you go there, you go there, you go there. And they're like, all, we're trying to be less involved. Yeah. So that you can all like do whatever you want and then we can grow some business. But then without that, people are like, perfect. I'll hire my son. Yeah, great. I'll have him. I've got a high paying job. Great. I'll have, you know, my other son. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my, I've got a third son. Oh, my God. I'm so glad I had all those sons. Get him in, get him in Some of him just, he's renaming as well

It's just the one son He's like, oh no, no, this is a totally different guy Yeah, this one's Barry Barry, the other one was Barry Barry Barry, no yeah, didn't let me finish Barry Bory This one's Bory This is my boy, Bory

My company has three CEOs Barry Bory And Barry There he is There he is I mean there they are There they are That's one of them

Go out of the room Get your brother One at a time though No, I don't like seeing you in the same room at the same time. It's one of my weird things. What if a missile was to strike this room? I couldn't lose all my boys at once. That's right.

Barry, go get Bory or whichever the fuck one you are. Deng Jop being famously, he's the one that brought in the one child policy. And now I'm starting to see why. Because Barry and Bory. Barry, Barry, yeah. Yeah. Again from Wiki. Facing a dismal job market and limited chances of going abroad, intellectuals and students

had a greater vested interest in political issues. So before this, you're like, well, no matter what we do, it doesn't change. So, you know, you're in the system and I guess it works to a certain degree. But now then they're not getting jobs and they're like, well, I'm missing out. So I'm going to take more of an interest in my future and that means getting more involved in politics. So all these things are confluating together to make this the background. word confluating right he said it he looked down i went what girl straight over to mat like did

you hear that holy shit it's the word i don't i'm not panicking no that sounds fantastic if it is it it is now that was gorgeous because it's conflating is a word that sounds like it but means a different thing yeah no it's conflating i should have said conflating no that's what you said no thank you that's what you said well i thought to be honest confluating sounds better i agree should we I'm more impressed by that. I said if it isn't a word it is now. Should we speak to the Prime Minister? Can I just remind you that language is fluid?

Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Great, confluating. So they're all confluating together as I go back to the script with the Chinese Communist Party. A deep chasm formed in the central leadership about how to address all of these problems. The party's socialist ideology faced a legitimate crisis as it gradually adopted these capitalist practices. Some wanted to become more liberal and pushed for more reforms, whereas others,

favoured going back to the hardline party of the past. So it's funny that even in a system that only allows one party, there are factions. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That is, it is basically a two-party system, but they're all just in the one party. They're all part of the one party. The general secretary of the party, Ho Yawbong, was seen as a reformer. Reformer Pilates.

Yes. That's hard. Is that the hot one? It's the one on the little machine. Oh, the machine, the stretchy thing. Yeah, it's called a reformer, yeah. Reformer. No, so, some to land, I hear you boop down.

Thank you. That's how you remember. Ho. This is, like, it's dangerous to pick the wrong team in something like this, right? It's, you want to make sure, if you're a coward like me, who's winning? Who's going to, yes. Because that's who I'm back. I don't want to be purged.

That's who I've always liked. Because it feels like, yeah, the rest will be purged. Yep. And you would be correct. So Ho Yabang was the general secretary of the party. He was notable for his liberalism and the frank expression of his opinions, which sometimes agitated other senior Chinese leaders. He was one of the first Chinese officials to abandon wearing a Mao suit in favor of a Western business suit.

And when asked which of Chairman Mao's theories were desirable for modern Chinese, He reportedly replied, I think none. Oh, yeah, should have probably said, you know, like when you can't think of any, he said, oh, I don't know, I thought, I thought, oh, I really liked how he, you know, he got up in the morning and he really had a go. Yes, I thought, yeah. I really liked how he was a deep thinker. Yeah, he had a real stick-tuitiveness. Yes. I mean, you might not like the way he went about it, but you can't deny he got the job done.

Yeah. Yeah. Can't deny that. You can't deny it. Longevity? Yeah, exactly. That's an attribute I aspire to. Yeah.

See, this guy needed a little lesson in... Bit of PR. A bit of PR. Bit of diplomacy. According to Britannica, when he became secretary, he oversaw the purging of unrepentant Maoists and corrupt or incompetent members from the party and replace them with younger, better educated people.

So he, because he's from the liberal side of the party. party. Now Mao's gone. He's like, well, we've got to get rid of these hardline people that want to go back to the way it was. And when you say get rid of, I think just in this case, getting fired. Just fired. Yeah. So he favoured political. Not a bad result. Yeah. Considering how things might have been done. Unless you're talking from a cannon. That's just a quick way to get home. Yeah. If you live far. That's true. Oh, avoid the traffic. Just cannon home. When is that technology coming in? Come on. Come on. Yeah. I was promised this as a boy.

Oh, I'm sick of peak hour traffic. Yes. Commuter cannons. Every summer we should just have one big net. Yeah. Fire me over that way. Great. But you'd still be peak hour where you'd be landing on other people in the net.

Oh, true. Like back in what the, when was Robin Hood days? Because, you know, Kevin Coston, Robin Hood, they definitely catapulted people. Yeah. Like, I'm pretty sure Christian Slater got catapulted. Well, why don't we just... And that was hundreds of years ago. Yeah.

What about like the Harry Potter system where we just use all, because we all have a fireplace. Oh, you're thinking magic. Oh, yeah, that was magic. Yeah. Well, no, I think why not use magic? Yeah. If it's available, why not use it? It does feel there people like, no, no, I don't want to use magic.

Yeah. Why not? Why not? It's available and it's free. Yeah. Hard liners, you know? And it means, oh, instead of sitting in traffic for 45 minutes, I'm home in 30 seconds. This is the problem with the fossil fuel industry.

They're too powerful. They're suppressing magic. Yeah. Yeah, they buy the copyright for magic and then they lock it in a safe for 100 years. Yeah. It's renewable and I hate that. Oh, I can't monetise. It's magic.

Oh, it's all airy-fairy. Yeah. To them, if you can't dig it out of the ground, it's not where the hoot. Okay, how's this going? I think really well. Okay, great. So that's that's Hoyaabong who's pushing for more ruffle. Right.

Oh, yeah, bong, fantastic. Incredible. Fantastic name. Bong is strong. It's more of a bong. Bung's way less good, to be honest. It still sounds great, but I don't think it's a less positive word. But it gives beaves and butthead vibes, don't they say bungholio?

Yeah. TP for your bunghole. Or Mr. Bungle? Oh, Mr. Bungle. so he's pushing for further he's like this is great let's open up even more let's get a bit more capitalism going through here are the conservatives which are actually confusingly in this system the left but let's we don't have to worry about that led by chen yun said that the reforms had gone too far and advocated a return to greater state

control to ensure social stability and to better align with the party's socialist ideology so there's a growing rift in the party and each side needed the approval of the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. Also, as citizens were now exposed to other countries, including the West, some people were like, well, I want more of that. Right. Again from Wiki, in mid-1986, astrophysics professor Fang Li Ji returned from a position at Princeton University, obviously in America,

and began a personal tour of universities in China, speaking about liberty, human rights, and the separation of powers. Fang was part of a wide undercurrent within the elite intellectual community and thought China's poverty and underdevelopment and the disaster of the cultural revolution, the thing I talked about before that Mao put in, were a direct result of China's authoritarian political system and rigid command economy. So he's coming out being like, I've just come back, I've seen another way to do it. Yeah, which is interesting because I think they're going the other way now.

Anyway. And a big part of that is because of today's story. Right. Yeah, it's all still very relevant. So in December 1986... I'm in America. Oh, so, yeah, actually you're so right. And also, possibly from today's story. So in December 1986, inspired by Fang and other people power movements

worldwide, student demonstrated staged protests against the slow pace of reform and demanded amongst other things. Economic liberalisation, democracy manifest, and changes to the rule of law. protests spread to Beijing and Shanghai, where thousands gathered, and the protest leaders were seen as Fang himself,

that professor I spoke about, as well as Wang Ruong and Liu Binyan. General Secretary of the Party, Ho Yobong, whose name you love. Yeah. He's the liberal guy. Was seen as sympathetic to the protesters, asking for more Western-style freedoms,

and after their protest lasted weeks, senior military officials and Deng Xiaopung, who's the man in charge, forced Ho to resign on the grounds that he had been too lenient with student protesters and for moving too quickly towards free market-style economy reforms. According to Radio Free Asia, when Ho, quote-unquote, resigned, the party forced him to issue a humiliating self-criticism of his mistakes on major issues of political principles in violation of the party's principle of collective leadership.

Like gun in the back sort of stuff? Yeah, I think it's like a force statement type thing. During the event, all of his allies abandoned him, with the exception of his close friend, Xi Zhongshun, who stood up and defended him and lashed out at everybody for Ho's treatment. Interesting to note that Xi Zhongshun is the father of Xi Jinping, the current leader of China.

Ah, and that's coincidence. That's not like a nepotism thing. Pure coincidence. But his dad's the only one that stood up and said, no, this guy's done a lot of great for our country. And now, you've all turned you back on him. I just thought that was interesting. Yeah, that is interesting.

Anyway, Ho Yawong is very important to the story. A lot of the reason he was fired was people who were against him pushing for further reform in the party were just jumping on a reason to get rid of him because he's the liberal reformist and people are like, we've got to get rid of this guy. So any sort of slip up with those protests going on that they very much. were happy to get rid of him. Right.

But on the other side of the spectrum, he was seen as a hero to the protesters and students and intellectuals pushing for reform. And when Ho Yabong died suddenly of a heart attack on April 15, 1989, not long after he was purged from the party, students reacted strongly, many believing his death was related to his forced resignation

and the way he was treated, like having to come out and say, I'm sorry, I've done the wrong thing, I've let down the party, have let down the country. And they're like, the stress he's under, that's what caused him to have a heart attack and die early. So on the 15th of April, mourners began to gather in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Now, what is Tiananmen Square, I hear, you ask? Yeah, because, I mean, it is synonymous with this awful event. What is it? What is it before that? In Western culture, that's definitely what we associate it with. Right. But it's got a long history. Found in the center of Beijing, it's one of the largest squares in the world, and it has,

I've written here a long history. Oh my God. It was originally designed and built in 1651 and has been enlarged to four times its original size. It now covers an area of 100 acres, or 40 hectares. It measures 880 by 500 metres or nearly 3,000 feet by 1,600 feet.

Wow. Mow wanted the square to be able to hold over 500,000 people. Shit. That's a big venue. Sort of like half as funeral people. procession. I just want to double check as well because just with some of those dimensions, it sounds more like a rectangle.

Oh my God, you're so right. Yeah. And like, I'm never right about these things. It's a rectangle. Wow. Okay. Is a rectangle a kind of square or is a square a kind of rectangle? See, there are those things true?

Is it like a turtle tortoise thing? I think they're just different shapes. Okay. But they're like cousins, maybe, yeah. Right. If that's what you're asking. I think so. Maybe they're both oblongs.

Are they both parallelograms? There's a geometrist somewhere screaming. Going, how dare you? And we say, how do you be a geometrist? Get a life. Geometrist. Do something that fucking helps people. You nerd?

What? You don't think... Come here, I'm going to bash you. I'm a jock. You are, yeah. Well, don't bash me for saying they're both. quadrilaterals. Okay, thank you. Come here for your bashing.

Come here. Don't fight it. Can you step out for a few minutes? I need to bash, Dave. It was cemented over in 1958, so now it's all cement. The square is, square, quadrilateral, oblong, is directly next to the forbidden city. A massive imperial palace complex commissioned in 1406 by the Yongol Emperor, of the Ming dynasty, but you knew that.

Of course, obviously. You know, you're very familiar with the Ming. Yep. And their dynasty. And what years that was? Yeah, 14 or 6th, definitely here. Yep. It was so named because access to the area was barred to most of the subjects of the realm.

That's what's called the Forbidden City. Government functuaries and even the imperial family were permitted only limited access. The emperor alone could enter any section at will. Hmm. And I think it famously has 10,000 rooms. Okay. That doesn't seem super efficient. I mean, I guess you could turn most of them into bedrooms,

but just like individual rooms. Yeah, because I suppose like the bathroom. Yeah, that's one. And if you've got a separate toilet. That's two. The toots, its own room. Yeah, 9,000 of them are... Nine thousand of them are tuts.

The tut room. That's why the king's the only one that's allowed to go in there. Yeah. He's always leaving rooms going, do not go in there, and people extrapolated to, it's forbidden. Oh, okay. But he was really... just being polite.

Yeah, he's like, that wreaked. Yeah, you don't want to go in there. I don't know what I ate, but it was not right. And the name Tiananmen comes from the massive stone, Tiananmen, which means gate of heavenly peace, first constructed in 1417, once the main gate to the forbidden city, situated at its northern end, Chairman Mao's portrait hangs over the gate of heavenly peace. And it's still there to this day. So, Chairman Mao is still, he's still a pretty big deal.

over there. Yes, Riviet. Because it's a wild country with, like, history going back, you know, years. So far back. Invented all sorts of wild things, gunpowder and paper and all these sorts of things.

Yeah. But he is the one still, did he invent anything cool or? Well, he took the Communist Party to the forefront. Yeah, I guess that is a pretty, that's pretty big. Kicked out their enemies. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I just, yeah, it's a fascinating country. Oh, man, the history of China, it's possibly the most interesting country. Yeah, it'd have to be. It's like... Well, I mean, how do you compare? How do you compare?

Australia's got the longest continuing civilization in the world. True. You all right? I reckon we go head to head. We do like a... Amato Imano. Like one of those sort of 32-team tournament knockout things. Yeah.

Who's got the best history? Yeah, and then Greece are like, hello. And we're like, fuck. And then it's like countries are like, you know, kind of a made-up thing anyway. Yeah. Yeah, true. Everything's made up. Yeah.

Don't start that. I really spiral when you start to think like we just made everything up. Yeah. Everything's made up. Everything's made up. Oh, no. I know. I'm spiraling.

Stop. I know. It really breaks my brain. Yeah. But no, let's get back to work. I think we're made up. So we can make some money. thing we're made up go live in our houses instead of fucking caves caves are perfectly good

yeah well they were made up whoa yeah no caves are naturally occurring oh they were made up by the water whoa yeah on the wind shit yeah okay nah we've gone too far now I need a break uh what a mental break yeah yeah but then like you blame on to go who made up the water um sorry shouldn't have asked shouldn't have asked that's a good question stop no stop Jess I've got a book I want you to read it has a few answers

no spoilers not about how the water was made but maybe how it was made in a wine you're talking about Bill Bryson's book again he's touring Australia I got an ad that popped up I nearly screenshot and said are we going the steel yard missile man sent me a damn

saying I'm sure a million people have sent you this I said no no one's me this. I'm busy. Fantastic news. I'm busy. I think it might be February. Yeah.

I'm busy. I should look at tickets. If anyone wants to get me a Christmas present. No doubt it's already sold out, but. Oh, yeah. He'll that actually. The Bryce heads. Yeah.

I don't know how many more opportunities you'll have to see Bill Bryson in concert. That's right. With the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra? I assume so, yeah. How old is he? I think he's 70s. Okay. I'm seeing Dolly and she'll be 79.

Right, nice. Yeah, Bill is 73, so he's still got time. Yeah, yeah. But you might have to start going to Vegas to see him. Yeah, that's true. He's opening for Wayne Newton. Dad. So Britannica describes the features at the square

because there's also a bunch of buildings there. There's a monumental museum complex on the east side of the square is the National Museum of China. Then there's the National Museum of Chinese History dedicated to the Chinese history from its earliest beginnings up until the Chinese Revolution, like we're talking about a very, very interesting country. To the south of the monument, to the people's hero is the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall,

which is where the body of Mao's mal lies in state. Farther south is the front gate. What does in state mean? It just means like on display sort of thing. I actually don't know if he's on display, like Lenin or something. John. Yeah. Yeah, no, that is.

is, yeah. But it's, so he's basically... Oh, you can't, no, his embalmed body is publicly displayed inside. Oh, like, like his tomb or his body, body? No, no, his body body. Sort of like what they did to Far Lap. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy to do to a human, but...

I just want to be clear, do not do that to me. Okay. Don't want to be stuffed? Yeah, like... Like Homer Simpson wants to be stuffed and put on the couch as a constant memory? You like Vladimir Lennon from the Soviets who Mao took a lot of inspiration from. He was lying in state and he can go walk past a glass box of his body, just lie in there. That's interesting.

Yeah. I think that's really interesting. Not what I'd do. No, personally. Fire me out of a cannon. What is, do you know what Mousie Dung, Mousie Dung believed, like, afterlife style? No, not sure. question without notice come on mate i think they got rid of all the religion so right so that's

why it's like there's no afterlife i want to hang out here stuffed yeah like it i want to live out my life as i've always dreamed to be as an exhibit oh when you put it like that yeah something to be admired yeah yeah yeah have a little plug that says you know like a short paragraph about your life yeah oh god how would you summarize my life Too hard in it. One paragraph. Yeah. Oh, you couldn't capture the nice eyes sit on my couch.

The incomparable, Jess Perkins. Thank you. That's nice. That's nice. She smelled better in life. Hopefully that's true. Yeah, I hope so too. Yeah.

This, yeah, this smell isn't, don't focus on the smell. It wasn't like this in life. Let's not get bogged down in the smell. Honestly, like really, day-to-day didn't really notice the smell. about it. You know what I mean? Not noteworthy. Neutral.

Yeah. Yeah, this now is different. That's more of the things that are, you know, eating at her body now. Yeah. And all the chemicals we have to use. Yeah. You know, we packed her ass, obviously. Obviously.

Obviously. What do we pack her ass with that? Cotton. Cotton. And old newspapers. Yes. We had to do something with them. Can you use the clippings of newspaper articles I've written?

Yes. I do have them somewhere in a... One's you've written, one's written about you. Yes. They will be in your ass. Thank you. That's quite nice. I imagine hundreds of them.

Oh, four. Tens. Tens. Oh, that's good. Tens? Yeah, yeah. That's pretty good. That's a pack an ass. My tiny little ass.

Yeah. We're going to get half a headline in there. Done. I don't like where this is ended up. Okay. Let's get back to the front. Move away. So I've actually, I've been to China in 2011 and we went to Tiananmen Square.

I didn't see Mal's body. It didn't go in there. But it's a pretty surreal place to stand because you do see the portrait of Mao, which still hangs down. It's massive. You see it from everywhere. And then we went into the Forbidden City and that is absolutely beautiful. So you're allowed in now?

Yeah, you can go in now, yeah, with a guided tour. They really need to change that name. Yeah. Yeah, it's no longer forbidden. Now it's one of the most famous tourist attractions. Kind of like takes away some of the sexiness, isn't it? When it's no longer forbidden, you're like, no. Oh, I guess.

It's right, I guess. Yeah. It is also a place where I've never seen more cameras in my entire life. Like every square inch of Tiananmen Square, I remember. And you work in TV. Exactly. And this is 15 years ago, so I think there's even more now. But yeah.

Everybody's got a bloody camera in the pot with these face. We're all bloody broadcasters, aren't we? Anyone can do a podcast? No, you can't. It actually takes quite a lot of skill and nuance. Back away. Back off. Everyone can, but should everyone?

Yeah, should everyone? Leave it to us. Oh, I thought we were also talking ourselves down. I know, but I have no other skills now, so I can't start again, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you're young, just go do something else. Oh, Jessica, I got a good joke for you. I think I just came up with it.

This will be really good. This will be really good. I'll be recording, recording? What's the collective noun for a group of white men? What is it? Oh, no, sorry, I don't know. Is it a podcast? That's actually really funny.

That's pretty funny. That is funny. Yeah. That is funny. And that's what sets us apart. We also have a straight white woman. Thank goodness. Finally.

Do you remember when Alice there, Trombly Birtchel started a podcast about that joke? Just being like the strangest of that joke being tweeted by people so often like they'd just thought of it. Like it was like every hour, a new person tweeted it. Great singer. That's great. And I never got offended by it. Because I'm strong. Uh-huh.

I'm independent. Yes. Yep. I am woman. Yeah. I am strong. You are invincible. I am invincible.

I am beautiful. I am proud. That's an Australian. Yep. How about that? I know. What a song? What is a song?

I am woman. Hear me wrong. The first I heard of it was a woman who looked like Homer Simpson driving past bar when Homer had forgotten to pick him up from soccer training. As soon as you said, that's a woman, hear me wrong. Go straight to that scene. And then when I found out, it was Australia. I was like, God bless Australia. Yeah.

Helen ready. Helen ready. Yeah, she sure is. So, as well as my visit in 2011, the square has seen a number of major events. Did you write that down? No, I've riffed that. No, you haven't.

Come over a look. Did you? You write that down? No, I've just written the squares that seen a number of major events, but I thought, Dave, that's really good. I've been there.

I like that. It was a great segue back because we'd really gone off back too. Have you been there? Have you been to China? I have not. I've only, I've been to Shanghai.

There was the first country outside of Australia. I visited. Really? Oh, and what did you get up to? Are you there for long? No, I was in there for like four nights

was on the way over to the UK. Oh. And had a lovely time. That's a cool city. It's so cool. And like the first time leaving Australia. So wherever I went it was going to have that kind of heightened over there. Totally.

Like, you know, and it's dulled over time travelling, but early travelling was like, holy shit, I just feel like every sense of mine is pinging. It feels like your brain cracks open. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. And if you go to like Shanghai is one of the world's biggest cities. And then they have some of the biggest buildings and everything lights up and it's really like, it was quite, the air was thick.

It was just felt, everything about it felt different to what I'd ever experienced. It was, you know, I would have just been wandering around. wide-eyed, taking everything. I loved it. So much fun. So cool. Remember spending so much money on a long neck of what is a very common beer over there, sending it back to Dad as a present.

And it cost, like, a hundred bucks in postage and stuff. That's so lovely. Worth it. And does he still have that beer? Yeah, he would have no recollection of that, I don't think. You remember want to spend $100 on one beer for you? I love you, Dad. For a cheap Chinese beer that you could probably get a damn.

Murphy's. Sorry, uh, name. Yeah. Which one are you? Yeah, Bob. Yeah. Is it Bob? I can never remember what.

Barry and Borry. Barry and Bury. Don't forget Bury. My personal favourite. Yeah, of course. Because you came up with Bury. Yeah. Bury.

So the Square has seen a number of major events, including the Proclamation of the People's Republic of China by Mao from the balcony of the gate that now bears his image on October 1, 1949. It's basically seen as the country's town square. And the square also had a history before. the 80s of being a place where students protested. In 1919, what was called the May 4th movement saw thousands of students gather to protest the government of the day, and this paved the way for the spread of communism. In 1976, the square saw what is referred to as the Tiananmen

incident, where thousands gathered on the traditional day of morning, the Qingming Festival, in the square to mourn the death of Premier Zhao Eli. The gang of four that I mentioned before led by Mao's wife, Changching, didn't like the displays of mourning and removed thousands of wreaths that were laid. This didn't sit well with the people and thousands more turned up in the square to protest against the authorities, taking away the wreaths. The gang of four sent in the militia armed with clubs to clear the square and many arrests were made. Unfortunately, that's sort of a taste of what is to come in the future as well. including then so a lot of people were arrested including then vice premier denja pang

who was accused of planning the event whilst he insisted that he was nearby only for a haircut I mean I was just getting a haircut around the corner best barber in town yeah I mean I had to come here near gentleman obviously do my hair cut so this is either true and that is so unlucky or it's a lie and I love that kind of small lie yeah yeah yeah what do you mean I was getting a haircut Look at this. Does this look freshly done to you? I think so. I think it does. And did I get that done?

Thanks for this morning. Thanks for remembering. But it's the kind of lie that's like, would he lie about a haircut? That's such a weird lie. And his hair does look pretty fresh. Yeah, it's hard to. I'm kind of rocking it. Hang on, and getting the tape measure out being like, sideburn's equal.

Yeah, this is fresh, fresh too. So that's Deng Xiaoping arrested. Now, 13 years later, and now the leader, Deng Xiaoping was the powerful leader of the country, but Trouble was again brewing in Tiananmen Square. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or growing your business,

Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain and showcase your offerings with a professional website. Now with Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools, anyone, and I mean anyone can build a bespoke online presence that perfectly fits their brand or business. Even me? Even you. I literally did with Squarespace.

Fantastic. Maybe you started with Blueprint AI Squarespace's AI enhanced website builder to get a fully customized website in just a few steps. Did you do that? Yeah. Squarespace also offers a complete library of professionally designed an award-winning website templates with options for every use and category. It's easy and intuitive, no experience required as exemplified by Jess.

Yeah. Questbase also gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid all in one place from consultations. That's how I pronounce it, on purpose, from consultations to events and experiences, showcase your offerings with a customizable website design to attract clients and grow your business. Get paid on time with professional on brand invoices and online payments. I also pause in weird places on purpose. You're also gesticulating a lot with his fingers. Head to Squarespace.com slash do go on for a free trial

and to save 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain. Hi, it's Morgan from off the shelf and I'm here to tell you about Paramount Pictures, a new movie regretting you, a film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's best-selling book, regretting you. If there's anything I love more than an adaptation, it's an adaptation that's going to make me feel something.

and with Josh Boone, yes, the director of the Fultonar stars, at the helm, I'm ready. Between the first loves, secret relationships, and second chances, I am prepared to be going through every single emotion. This film also has a stacked cast starring Alison Williams, McKenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Fames, and so many more. Gossi regretting you only in theaters, October 24th. Now the next part of the actual events of the protests come from PBS and BBC,

both have great timelines of what happened at Tiananmen that I will link to in the show notes. But if you want to read more and go through the, in detail, the timeline. So on April 15th, 1989, Ho Yao Bung died. Remember, he was seen as the liberal reformer in the Communist Party and had been ousted. And the students and intellectuals wanted even more reform were upset about his death, but also with the pace of reform in China. So he's kind of the fuse that lit the whole thing, him passing on. And within a couple of days, tens of thousands of university students began gathering spontaneously

in Jenerman Square, which is seen as the nation's symbolic central space. Like I said before, it's the town square. It turned into a protest, and in the name of Ho, they began calling for press freedom and other reforms. Over time, their seven demands were affirm Ho Yabong's views on democracy and freedom as correct, because remember he had to come out and apologize and say, I've let the country down, let my party down. They wanted to, two, admit the campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalisation had been wrong. Number three, publish information on the income of state leaders and their family members. Because like I said before, some people are making an absolute killing.

Number four, allow privately run newspapers and stop press censorship. Number five, increase funding for education and raise intellectuals pay. Number six, end restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing. And number seven, provide objective coverage of students in official media. So between April 18 and 21, demonstrations began to escalate in Beijing and spread to other cities and universities across China. Workers and officials joined in with complaints about inflation, salaries and housing. These were the biggest pro-democracy demonstrations of their kind

since the communists came to power 40 years ago. Because it's not just students now, as other workers are joining in too. This is a growing movement. The speed at which it was growing made party leaders fear the demonstrations could lead to chaos and rebellion. And as we've previously heard, the party was divided on how to react. According to PBS, one group led by Premier Lee Peng, second ranking in the party hierarchy,

suspected quote-unquote black hands of bourgeois liberal elements were working behind the scenes to undermine the government. Leapang was very anti the protests and what they were demanding and argued that the protests should be dealt with and nipped in the bud before getting out of hand. So that's one side of the party. On the other side, a minority faction led by party general secretary, Zhao Ziyang, believed that the student mainstream is good and argued that their patriotism should be affirmed,

although, quote, any inappropriate method of action should be pointed out to them. Zhao Ziyang pushed to wait before acting further. So at one side of the party, like, we've got to stop these protesters right away. It's getting out of hand. And he's being like, no, no, let's treat them with respect and see where they're going with this. On April 22nd, more than 100,000 university students assembled outside the Great Hall of the People in the Square, where Ho's memorial service was being held. The students carried a petition of demands and asked to have a meeting with Premier Le Pen, who refused to meet them. He's the guy that's like, we've got to get rid of these protesters.

Then the students started boycotting class and organising student unions, which was against the law in China. On April 25, Shao Ziyang, who was more on the side of the students, was away visiting North Korea. and Premier Lee Pang maneuvered to call a meeting with the party where he convinced leader of the country, Deng Xiaoping, that the students are a serious threat to the Communist Party and the action must be taken. So he's waited till the guy that's really pro-student's left on country business. And without him out the way, he's like, let's get the party together,

and be like, we've got to get rid of it. We've got to stop this now. Deng Xiaoping, who's the one with all the power, agreed, and according to PBS, he said, we must explain to the whole party and nation that we are facing a most serious political struggle. We've got to be explicit and clear in opposing this turmoil, end quote. So a long article appeared the next day in the state-run newspaper,

The People's Daily, with the headline, The necessity for a clear stand against turmoil. It accused the protesters of being part of a well-organized plot to throw the country into chaos. This article actually set off even more protests and even more people gathered in Tiananmen Square. PBS quotes, Jan Wong, a foreign journalist in Beijing at the time, who recalled by late April, quote,

in Beijing, one in ten of the population was joining in, all of the old people, all the little children, so it was massive. You had doctors and nurses and scientists and army people demonstrating. The Chinese Navy was demonstrating, and I thought, this is extraordinary because who's left? It's just the top leaders who aren't out here. Wow. So it was a real growing movement.

Yeah. Over the next few days, the Communist Party continued to disagree with action to take. Shao Jiang's camp advocated negotiation and stressed the government should address legitimate complaints such as the need for political reform. On the other side of things, Lee Pang, and his allies argued that social stability had to be restored before any reforms could be considered. On May 4th, tens of thousands of students marched into Tiananmen Square to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1919 May 4th movement that I mentioned earlier, which was an incredibly

successful protest started by students. Between May 5 and 12, some students returned to class, and PBS writes, the movement was in flux and lacked clear leadership. Because it is genuinely so natural. It's just getting bigger and bigger and bigger that it's difficult to say who's in charge of the protests. It's actually... Who's sending around the emails?

Yeah, exactly. It's a very organic movement. We need some Virgoes at the helm. Make it a spreadsheet. Oh, is that a Virgo trait? Yeah, we love to plan. Right. We love to organise.

That's virgins, right? Yeah, because we're not doing anything else. Right. We need to do something with our hands. Exactly. Oh, you're both virgins. You go like this pent-up sort of energy. That's right, that we put into planning and organizing and alphabetizing.

Whereas us, Libran's, we're just in balance as far as I understand. Yeah. You turn on me up. The depth of what I know about Libran's is the logo being scales. Yeah. So it's all about keeping things balanced, I guess. Yeah. It's about weighing things in a way.

Yep. in balance keeping things in scale yeah it's about you know scaling up scaling down oh yeah yeah you gotta scale up scale down controlling flow

yes Libra flu that's a tampon brand do you know that I did yes used to me so some of the people are sort of losing a bit of momentum

they're going back to class but others took things up a notch when on May 13 hundreds of students began an indefinite hunger strike in Tianan Square pressing for political reforms and blaming their extreme action on the government's failure to respond to their request for dialogue. Man, I'm so stupid because I'm just like, I hope this all comes to a positive, I know where it's going and I keep getting hopeful and like, anyway.

Yeah, sorry. Sorry, I can't change history. I don't fully blame you, but I think you should be held accountable for this. It should be a very different podcast if we could change history. Yeah. I'm like, whatever we report happens. Yeah, imagine that. Magic, magic podcast.

Oh, my God, and every story finishes with me getting an ice cream. That could be, that's a movie. That's a movie. Yeah. Where somebody's doing a podcast and they're like, they forget the house of the end. So they kind of make it up and then that happens. Yeah, they leave the studio and go, hang on a second, flying cars. Yes.

That's good. Copyright that. Copyright. Yeah, we thought of that. My gosh, are we going to Hollywood? Yeah, I think we should. Hollywood? Hollywood.

You're listening? Hello. Hello. Hollywood. Hello, Hollywood. That works. Oh, and in the end, we learn a valuable lesson. Yes.

And I get the guy. Yeah, and somehow everything goes back to how it was. Yeah. And then if something funny happens after the credits. Yes. Bloopers! Bloopers! I saw Freaky a Friday.

Bloopers and the credits. Get out. That's great. Finally, the return to bloopers. Bring them back. No matter how serious the movie. They're delightful. Like, if you're left with your heart and your hand, you're crying your eyes out,

nothing's going to make you feel a little bit better than a couple of bloopers. Seeing the actors having fun. Yeah, they all know each other. You know, that person. and that sort of like got killed by car, they're alive, they're fine. They're fine. Jess, I got to point you towards my podcast. Who knew with Matt Stewart? We have bloopers and post credits. You should listen. Really? I tend to avoid anything you're on. I know. But you have bloopers on that. That is my favorite part. That will get you over the

lot. That is my favorite part. I love bloopers. Just skip to the end. I do listen to your podcast and I do listen to the bloopers because it is fun. Do you include a time code for bloopers that people can just skip ahead? I should do that. I really thought I was setting up Jess for a good riff of, it's not worth that price to pay, but, no, it just went. She loves bloopers that much. I love bloopers that much. I listened to dog shit podcasts, like, who knew it with Matt Stewart. I'll sit through that absolute fucking trash.

30 seconds ahead. 30 seconds ahead. 30 seconds ahead. Any second now. Just to get to them bloopers. Because there are sometimes like 20 minutes of bloopers. I can never have enough. I love the big bloops, big juicy bloops.

Most of my YouTube history is bloopers. Yeah. I love bloopers. So fun. Yeah. We'll be including some bloopers at the end of this, I'm sure. Oh, you've done a few. I think it's too late now to tell AJ.

Here we go back and, oh, man. But they're not funny bloopers. It's just Dave mispronouncing something and trying again. Having another go on a name. Going, no, that's not right. Oh, do you want to like fake a blooper, yeah. But to say a name. Oh, that's pretty good.

I fell off my chair. Oh, wow. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That was funny. Say your line. You can't. You can't. You can't.

You did a funny face. Or, um, why don't you, like, fumble on a word, but accidentally, like, say, a pain or something or, or, uh, some sort of... Like, when I say, like, Tiena Penn Square. Sorry. I meant Tiena Men Square. Yeah. Well, where is your mind?

You're obviously thinking about writing influence, mate. Yeah, I got pen on the brain. You're our inky little boy, aren't you? Sorry, I'll just let me take that again. Roll up, roll up, roll up. Okay, I think that'll work. That's really good. AJ put that in at the end.

I think people will love that. People love that. They will lap that up. Yeah, they'll love that. Leave it in here and put it at the end. Yeah, people want a second go at it. Ooh, or delete it from both. Whatever you think.

Yeah, get rid of it entirely. Yeah. I know something like, oh, a bug just flew into my eye. Oh, better stop the podcast for a second here. Ha. Got a bug. Oh, boom's in shot. Oh, got it.

Is it like Monsters Inc or something like that? They did a few, they did fake bloopers like that. Yeah, and Toy Story had bloopers at the end there. Monster Zinc had them as well. Oh, do they? That's good. That's a good bit. Which is so funny because the animators worked much harder to make bloopers, and I love that.

I think that's very funny. And they would have all got paid well. I think so. The blooper department. Oh, yeah. All right, do you want me to tell you how this ends? Yep. Yeah, even though you kind of know.

So these people got on a hunger strike, and this move drew broad public support. Put the protest back on the map, our tensions within the government and the Communist Party grew, as the country was about to welcome a visit from Soviet Party Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. This was the first summit between China and the Soviet Union in 30 years, and with this historic visit, China wanted to look like they were very much in control. We're doing great over here. Exactly. Yeah, things are going great.

Look, everyone's happy. We're still number one. Deng Xiaopung still wanted to settle things peacefully, but insisted the students must be out of the square before Gorbachev arrived. Did he say or else? Because if you don't say or else, how am I supposed to know? It was implied.

It was implied, but not said, which it should be. Yeah. It should always be said. Because, uh, yeah, it is, um, I think there's no better way to show like a traveling dignitary to your country that you're in charge by just, brutally crushing your own people. Yep, yep.

Doesn't, I think people go, I respect that. You did that for me? You know, like, it's like you're going over to someone's house and they tidy up a bit. Yeah, have some respect. Yeah, I guess it's like that. Yeah. Yeah, they crushed the dust. Oh, my God.

Zhao, who was on the side of the protesters, attempted to get them to call it off. And when they didn't, he began to lose favor with the members of the party. Here's the one that kept being like, no, no, it'll be cool. Just listen to the protesters. Let's keep a dialogue open. and then he's gone down and had a chat to them. They've not changed anything. And so they're like, well, I guess your way doesn't really work.

Which side is this? Like, he's probably in the middle and both sides are going. He's on the... He's trying to broker a compromise. Yeah, but he is also like, some of their ideas are good. Let's listen to them a bit more. So he's seen as the more liberal side of the party. Being like, let's have...

And what are the protesters think of him? Well, they're a bit like, well, we're not going to just stop without any results. just because they've asked it. So Gorbachev arrived in Beijing on May 15, but the protesters were still there, and because of the hunger strike, plans to welcome him to Tiananmen Square were forced to be abandoned.

This was very embarrassing for the government, and as was the fact that Gorbachev's escort was blocked by protesters on nearly every street in Beijing, making it very difficult for him to get around the city. So they found it very difficult to sweep it under the rug because the protesters are everywhere. Because the rug's moving. Yeah, oh.

Don't you think there's something like if political leaders could just not be so easily embarrassed? It's like, be proud, yeah. We're really proud of how our people have the right to, you know. Why are you so embarrassed by protests? Yeah. Well, part of it was because being in the late 80s, this was a time when the Soviet Union was imploding and the Chinese Communist Party were all too aware of this and this set them further on edge. They're like, are we going that way?

Right. There's a wall coming down here. Imagine if the Chinese wall came down. That's a big one. Cool. Couldn't see it from space anymore. Oh, my God. Oh, no.

Um, actually, Jess. Um. Will we get the Hoff involved still? Hustleloff on the wall? Yeah, who's the Chinese-Hough? Like a Chinese-American, I guess, because is Hoff, like, German-American? Is that the idea? No, I think it was just massive in Germany.

Yeah. Hustl-Lof sounds German, but maybe it isn't. Oh, he could be, but I think that he's just. just had a huge musical career over there. So maybe they'd just go, who was his big co-star, like, um... Kit. Kit. Oh, I was like a Baywatch, but yeah, um, get the car there.

Get the car to drive along the whole wall. Victory laugh. Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. That's pretty cool. Dave, that's a very good idea. Trademark, trademark, trademark. Oh, that could be one of our storylines in our movie. Yes.

Oh, yeah, when I said, remember that time that Kit drove along the entire... Yeah. Great Wall of China. We leave the studio. And that's actually happened. Wow. It changes everything. Is it like in the movie it's like that's animated or are we going to, do we think of big budget

CGI sort of stuff? Big budget CGA. Or real effects. Yeah, real effect. I reckon this. What do you call them? What do you call them? He'll never make it.

That sort of stuff they'll be saying like that. Let's be the jump. And Kit says, I've never seen it. So I don't know how Kit talks, but Kit's like, radical dude. Vum, vum. Is that, does he talk? Yeah, I think, hello, Michael. I think Matt did it better

Radical, dude And he's like he throws a shocker Yeah He's got a human hand He comes out of the glove box He comes out of the glove box Radical dude So with more than

3,000 people starting to take part in the hunger strike And they haven't eaten for days Jow maintained that the way To end the strike Was for the government To retract It's April 26th editorial

accusing them of attempting to overthrow the Communist Party and accept the students' demand for dialogue and begin reforms. He's like, just take... So the students just want to chat. You've got to talk to them and also put out in the newspaper that they're not like going against the country. That sounds so reasonable. Doesn't that sound very reasonable?

It seems like not much is being asked. They're embarrassing us. Like they're sort of, I don't know, they're not, you're not right for government or... leadership if you're going, you're so fragile that you can't, any compromise so you feels like your, um, weak. Yeah. And they're not very good at admitting a mistake coming out and, like, because that's what it would

be if you came out with a retraction. Yeah. It's so good that modern world leadership is so much. So much better than that. Yeah, so open. Have matured. Radical dude. Just the hand out of the glove box is so good.

I'd love to... What, hang on, is there a man actually trapped in this car? Help me. I'm in a lot of pain. Kill me. Dude. I love some actual food. I keep eating oil.

So, Lee Ping, who's on the other side, he's hard line. However, insisted that the government cannot capitulate to the people. Again, Deng Xia Peng, a guy in charge, sided with Lai. Lee Peng and decided against Zhao's recommendations and proposed instituting martial law to end the hunger strike. Wow. You know, sometimes they're like, oh, you were so close. They're not anywhere near it.

No. The following day, hearing about the martial law, the students called off their hunger strikes and instead, they staged a mass sit-in in Tiananmen Square that drew about 1.2 million supporters. My God. Wow. There's a subtle message here. including members of the police and military and industrial workers.

Okay, Jesus, it is really like all walks a life sort of thing. Yeah. All three walks. Police. Military. Military. Industrial workers. Industrial workers.

The big three. Who else is there? Podcasts? Yeah, that's the fourth. Were the comedians there? Jiao Jiang, who's the one who's on the side of the protest, has kind of visited students in Tiananmen Square and made a final unsuccessful appeal for a compromise, but it failed.

Shao Jiang was then removed from office and effectively spent the rest of his life under house arrest. He'd taken the side of the protesters and after falling out of favour with his party, it really cost him. And he spent like a decade and a half or two decades locked away. He actually went further hardline and started criticising the government even further from his exile. His rival within the party, Lee Pang, also had a televised meeting with student leaders in

the Great Hall of the People. So they did have a meeting, but it just did. didn't go anyway. They couldn't find a way forward. So on May 20, troops moved in across Beijing, because it's now martial law. They were ordered not to fire on civilians who blocked their convoys with such numbers that they were stuck on the street and unable to move for three days. There's that many people that you just can't move a car or a truck in and out. Wow. So the army couldn't get anywhere near Chairman Square, and a lot of the protests spent time talking to the soldiers about their cause. After three days, the troops were able to

withdraw, but this was another humiliation for the Communist Party who felt like they were on the edge of losing control. The BBC writes, over the next week, demonstrations continued with almost no visible security presence. They write, there is a jubilant, because they write in first person, there is a jubilant atmosphere in Tiananmen Square. So there was no real police presence in Beijing, and most unusually there was also a free press because there's no cops, there's no army anywhere to control anything, because they went in and then had to withdraw. So the students are like, we're free. You know, we get to do whatever we want here.

So on May 30, art student protesters constructed a 10-meter-tall statue out of papar. I nearly said papier-mache, as they say in the UK, paper-mache in the square. Oh, I thought that's how we said it. Did I get that off England? Did I get that off England? Is it? Do you say paper-mache, do you? Oh, I think I'd say both.

I think maybe it's one of the... Papier-Mache. I love Papi-o-Mash. I think I might accidentally have... some, at some point, switched over to Papia machet, which is not, this is a new one. Pupier. Oh, that's great. Papia mashay. Yeah. Well, I misspoke then. So this 10-meter statue was called the goddess of democracy, and it depicted a woman holding a

torch and became a real symbol for the group. So it's like, it's huge. And you can see photos of it online, and it's become a continued, a continued symbol that's been reconstructed many times around the world, but this was in the middle of the square. During this time without a police presence, Deng Xiaoping devised a new offensive to end the protest, calling on troops from across the country, this time bringing in people without a connection to Beijing or the protesters themselves. So beforehand, a lot of the troops were local,

and they don't really want to move on the protesters because it's like, well, I know you. We come from the same part of China, but he's so quite cleverly shipped in army people from all the provinces around China with people who've got no connection to the people living in Beijing. People who are big city, these uni kids, latte sippers, can't wait to... A bit like that, you're more likely to... Show them a bit of reality.

Yeah, make a move on someone that you don't know. A stranger, that's right. So on June 2nd, the party elders approved the decision to put down, quote-unquote, the counter-revolutionary riot and clear the square with military force. The next day, as word spread that more troops were descending across Beijing, people again flooded the streets to block the convoys as they had done two weeks earlier. Barricades were set up at every major intersection. It worked two weeks earlier, they thought, why wouldn't it work again?

Armoured personnel carriers and tanks rolled into the streets, and according to PBS, again, this isn't the first person because their timeline is, at about 10.30pm near the Mooshidi apartment buildings, home to high-level party officials and their families, the citizens became aggressive as the army tried to bring. break through their barricades. They yell at the soldiers and some threw rocks. Someone sets a bus on fire. The soldiers began firing on the unarmed civilians with AK-47s loaded with battlefield ammunition. The first rounds of fire catch everybody by surprise recalls human rights observer

Timothy Brooke. The people in the streets don't expect this to happen. Because basically they've blocked the army two weeks earlier and nothing has, there's been no force because two weeks earlier they were told don't fire on civilians but now the government have gotten wild thing they have to be told yes yeah you think that's the default have given them orders clear clear the at any cost right basically so you can fire on your own own civilians horrific the wounded were taken to nearby hospitals and bicycles and pool carts but the hospital staff were unequipped to deal with the severe wounds musheedie saw the highest casualties of the night and an untold number of people were killed. At about 1am on June 4, the People's Liberation Army finally reached

Tiananmen Square and waited for orders from the government. The soldiers had been told not to open fire, but they had also been told that they must clear the square by 6am with no exceptions or delays. So they're told, don't fire for now, but if people don't leave, they've been told no matter what you have to get the people out of here. So that's pretty awful. Now, they offered a final amnesty for any of the few thousand remaining protesters who left the square. And this is again from PBS. At about 4 a.m., student leaders put the matters to a vote. Leave the square or stay and face the consequences. It was clear to me that the stay voters were much, much stronger, recalls witness John Pomfret, who was near the students. But Fang Konged,

who was a student leader at the time, said, the goes have it. So the students vacate the square under the gaze of thousands of soldiers. So the leaders made the call. Let's get out of here. Even though a lot of people were very brave. said, let's stay. They're like, I don't want. I don't want to risk everyone's lives. Yeah, totally. So most of the students left after the vote at 4 a.m.

with two hours to go knowing that anything could happen. Later that morning, some people believed to be the parents of the student protesters tried to re-enter Chenaman Square by Chang'an Boulevard. The soldiers ordered them to leave, and when they didn't, they opened fire, taking down dozens of people at a time. Sheesh. According to eyewitness accounts, the citizens seemed. not to believe that the army was firing on them with real ammunition.

Because this is everyday people. They're concerned parents. They don't know where their kids are. A lot of them are very young protesting in the square. They want to get back in there. And I think a lot of them are like, well, you're not going to shoot me. I'm an unarmed person, but they just pulled out the AK-47 and just started mowing people down. Wow.

When rescue workers tried to approach the street to remove the wounded, they too are shot. Fucking hell. Which is obviously obscene. The BBC writes, as the new day begins, the capital is in a state of shock. Thousands of angry and curious residents crowd up to lines of soldiers blocking the northeast entrance. The soldiers open fire again. So there's like lots of these small incidents happening all at once. The death toll is still unclear to this day.

The Chinese government figure is 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7,000 wounded. The Chinese Red Cross initially rebranded. reported 2,600 people died. That's a big disparity. Then quickly retracted that figure under intense pressure from the government. A document released by the UK government in 2017 that I'll link to claimed that up to 10,000 people were killed. But it's all heavily debated because it's heavily censored by the government and the

records just in many ways don't exist. What we do know is that by June 5, the army had complete control of Beijing and the government hailed the military intervention as a great victory. But the next day, a solitary man launched an active defiance, I'm going to cry about this, that reverberated around the world, known to Western media as the Tankman. And I'm sure you've seen one of these iconic images. And there's a few of them, it's quite amazing, as a column of at least 20 tanks rolled down Chang'an Avenue, near Tiananmen Square, a lone man wearing dark pants and a white shirt,

appearing to be carrying shopping bags, walked up to the lead tank, and defiantly blocked its path, holding his ground as the tanks came to a standstill. And I'm not sure you've seen the video footage of it, but the, and there is video. You can watch the tank man, sorry, the tank tried to go around the man, but then he moved and blocked its path, and it became a standoff in the man with his shopping, climbed onto the tank, and he appeared to have a conversation with the driver inside. The man was eventually pulled away by people watching on, and to this day, his identity and fader unknown.

Really? So, no, I don't. know if anyone knows, but we don't know who that man was. Yeah, wow. Five photographers managed to take photos of the Tankman from various angles. Jeff Weidner, working for the Associated Press, took one of those photos from a hotel overlooking the square about 800 metres away, using a very long lens. Shit, very, yeah, wow. 800 metres away.

Yeah. He had to get a student to smuggle out the film in his underwear before it could be sent back to the US before being broadcast across the world. His photo was one of the most widely used and was nominated for a a Pulitzer Prize and is widely regarded as one of the most famous photos in history. Yeah. Amazing. Didn't win the Pulitzer Prize.

It didn't win. Yeah, but somebody else got a picture of a really cute monkey. Yeah. We're in a nappy. So, like, what are you going to do? Something really powerful and impactful and... Monkey and a nappy. Monkey and a nappy.

It's also wearing cowboy boots. Okay. Yeah, a nice dry tank man, but... And the nappies got Diamanties on it. Yeah. It's bedazzled. It's really a decorative nappy. A bedazzled diaper.

Charlie Cole, working for Newsweek, had to hide his role of film in a hotel toilet, I think hiding it in the system. And his version won the 1989 World Press Photo of the Year. And I'd never seen the zoomed-out uncropped version taken by Stuart Franklin before this report. And I thought that there's about four tanks in front of him, but there are so many behind them. And to see one tiny little unarmed man walking up to them when the army already has control of the city, like, It's wild stuff. I think there's like 20 tanks behind them. And he's just walked up to it.

And like I said, there's video footage. If you watched it on YouTube, all the comments are like, this is the bravest motherfucker in history. Yeah. Such a powerful action. Yeah. Tankman. Tank man.

The video footage of the Tankman was also filmed and broadcast around the world. Australian Broadcasting Corporation have very own ABC. Cameramble News Network, CNN, cameraman, Jonathan Shear, and National Broadcasting Company. NBC cameraman Tony Wasserman appeared to be the only television cameraman who captured the scene. Wow.

You got in there. Did you hear that? Oh. ABC. ABC was there. He had a great name too. What was his name? Willie.

Willie Fuwa. Willie Fuwa. That's a great name. Willie or Wani Fuwa? I reckon he well. I reckon Willie Fuwa. In April 1998, Time magazine named what they deemed

the unknown rebel, one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Wow, and we don't know who it was or what happened to him. Whether he was like quickly arrested that day and like disappeared forever or if he's just gone on living his life, we don't know. Amazing. People speculate like the people that got him off, were they playing closed police people or were they other protesters who are like,

dude, you got to go, they're going to get you. In China, the man's action, however, was reported on very differently. Yeah. One television program branded Tankman a quote-unquote lone scoundrel and used images of his protest to demonstrate that soldiers of the People's Liberation Army had, quote, exercised the highest degree of restraint when confronting unarmed civilians. And the image of the Tankman is still censored in China. So it's iconic to people outside of China, but a lot of people would not recognize that photo there.

Right. It's suppressed. So the protests were crushed, but it wasn't fully over. on June 13, the Beijing Public Security Bureau released an order for the arrest of 21 students they identified as the protest leaders. Some tried to flee China, with seven making it to safety. Some of these were helped with what's called Operation Yellowbird, a British Hong Kong-based operation to help those involved with the protest to flee the country. Western intelligence agencies such as British MI6 and the US CIA were involved in the operation. Other contributors

included politicians, celebrities, business people and triad gang members from Hong Kong, forming what was deemed a very unlikely alliance. Yellowbirds successfully helped more than 400 dissidents who were smuggled through Hong Kong and then onwards to Western countries. Thousands of others, however, were arrested in China and Britannica writes that a number were executed, but again, we don't know that number. There was outrage around the world and many foreign governments and media organisations criticized China's handling of the protesters labeling the event a massacre,

which is commonly in the Western media. We know it as the Tiananmen Square massacre. Yes. The United States instituted economic and diplomatic sanctions for a time, and since 1989, the US and the EU have had an arms embargo on China stemming from this incident. In Australia, I'm going to mention us again, Jess. Yes.

Then Prime Minister Bob Hawke held a memorial service in Canberra, and that is emotional because he's a pretty tough guy. He is crying as he describes in detail some of the killings of the unarmed protesters and he goes into quite a bit of details pretty full on. He announced that the 27,000 Chinese students in Australia at the time could stay on full visas and in total granted 42,000 permanent visas for Chinese students. According to the ABC, this even surprised his cabinet who weren't consulted on the decision prior to Hawke's announcement on live television.

So they were finding out in real time. I'm going, oh, okay, I guess that's what we're doing. Fuck. Within China, it was a different story, literally. Rather than a massacre, it was a necessary force to counter-revolutionaries and to stop them from destroying the country. The suppression of the 4th of June marked the end of a period of relative press freedom in China, and media workers, both foreign and domestic, faced heightened restrictions

and punishment in the aftermath of the crackdown. Time magazine writes Beijing has manufactured a cultural amnesia around the June 4th massacre to the point that even you can't look it up on their social media services or their version of Google and June... Not a lot of TikToks about it.

No, and even June 4th, which is 4 slash 6, even that, you know, that or 46, they censor any combination of that. Time continues, it's not taught in schools or mentioned in newspapers while high-tech sensors detect and block any mention of online. There you go. So thoroughly has the memory of June 4th been expunged

that the generation born after the incident remains largely unaware of this historic watershed. So, yeah, the younger generation, the older people who are around, they don't mention it. Yeah. And then for the younger people, they just aren't taught about it. Yeah. And so the ones were there who, like, obviously many, many, many

who were in support of the protests, They just had, like it really did just snuff out any, any sort of rebellion uprising at all. Yeah, that's right. Like, it was a real hinged moment, like, we'll try and open up more, or will it go the other way in the protest? Because they crushed down so hard, it just forced them to go back to a hard line even more. To the point that public commemoration of the incident is officially banned, and whilst you can still visit Tiananmen Square and its famous surrounding sites,

Like I said before, when I said, when I was there, I'd never seen any many, that many cameras in a single place before. And any political act or reference to the events of 1989 would be quickly stopped. Wow. You'd be arrested. And whilst it's still free to visit since December 15th, 2021, visitors must make a reservation with a passport before entering the square area. There you go. The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and subsequent massacre were a pivotal moment in China's modern history. at the same time the Soviet block was crumbling and the Berlin Wall was soon to come down.

China was undergoing great reform and was at a crossroads, but since opening fire on their own citizens, the country has become even more totalitarian. An article written by Stan Grant for the ABC in 2019 for the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square writes that since the Tiananmen massacre, the country has lifted more than half a billion more people out of poverty. Grant adds that the current President Xi, quote, upholds Deng's bargain with the Chinese people.

We will make you rich, but we will not make you free. So, like I said, pivotal moment. Who knows what would have happened if the protesters had been able to continue or that kind of thing, but it's obviously a pretty full-on story. Yeah, yeah. So well done in, you know, putting that all together because, yeah, it is it. I knew of it, but didn't know a lot of the details. I've just seen the zoomed out version of the Tankman photo as well, and it's very

impactful. It's great. I'm going to try and share it on the socials this week. But, yeah. What a story. I remember being at uni and I think, you know, journalism class, a lecturer sort of talking about having international students from China in classrooms and them, you know, finding out about the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Australian

classrooms, having never grown up. They were like, no, that's not true. That didn't happen. I didn't even know of that. Isn't that scary? Very scary. Yeah, and you'd assume they go back and they're sort of like quietly maybe going, Hey, have you heard of this?

Yeah. Amazing. When I was there, before we went out, I remember, like, because I was on a part of a tour group. And our bus driver, like, tour guide was a really funny, cheeky guide that day. We had wherever went, there's like a new, a local guide. And he was taught, he actually talked about the Genome Square Massia, which we thought, oh, that's pretty brave. And then he also talked about, is like, and no one knows what happened to the Tankman.

until he became a bus to a guide and lying that it was him and we were like, this guy's so fucking brave. Yeah, it's pretty bold. Yeah, but he was very funny. Wow. Very funny.

Were you kind of told not to like ask about it or mention it or... Not, not mention it, but I think it was like told not to do any political acts. Yeah, yeah. Like you can't, like you couldn't whip out a banner or a post or a flag or anything. So you put yours back in your bag? Yeah, I was like, oh, okay, not today. And that brings us to everyone's favorite section of the show.

We've said goodbye to Matt, but Dave and I are still here, so everything's going to be okay. It's going to be fine. Don't worry about it. Matt's okay. He's fine. Oh, he's fine. He just had to go to Bendigo. That's right.

He's going to do some stand-up comedy with Syren Giamana tonight, but by the time you hear this, that's in the past. It's too late. It's too late. But I'm sure that had a good time. Had a great time. Yes, we say goodbye to Matt, and hello to everyone's favorite section of the podcast where we'd like to are dedicated a little bit of time to thanking and basically praising our favorite section of the audience, which is our Patreon supporters. I'm just trying to say, this is it everyone's

favorite section of the podcast? Yes, that's right. You're absolutely nailing it. I can't believe we're really struggling without Matt here. No, come on, go on. This is really his bit. We've got this. Okay, so this is a section where we like to spend some time thanking the people who support us on Patreon.com slash do go on pod. Perfectly said. Thank you so much. There's a whole bunch of rewards there. We talk about that every week. I'm sure you've heard about it. We don't have time now. Let's fucking move on. Too far? Okay. No. Wrong aggressive energy. So, um, the first thing we need to do is, uh, uh, uh, for some of our patrons who support us on the Sydney Scheinberg deluxe level or above where they get to submit a fact, a quote, a question, a brag,

a suggestion, a, uh, some praise, a recipe. It can be anything. And this section actually has a jingle and it goes a little something like this. Fact. Quote or question. He always remembers the ding. I always remember the sing. Dave, I'm happy to read these this week if you like. I'd love you to do that. So, as I mentioned, this is where people get to give us a fact, quote, a question. They also get to give themselves a title.

And our first one from this week is from Kevin West. Kevin's title is Stunnerslaski's Little Sister, who is a syphilitic thistle sifter. And Kevin said, I hope Matt got to read this one and nailed it. Well, Matt didn't, but just did. And yes, she nailed. All right. And Kevin's question is this. Did your parents ever have the talk with you as a child?

How old were you? How did it come about? Now, we always encourage people to answer their own questions and Kevin does so. For me, it arrived in a shocking and embarrassing way, at least for my parents. As a very innocent nine-year-old in 1980s, Southern California, I was living the latchkey lifestyle. I would return to an empty home each day after school and wait for my parents. parents to arrive once they finished work. I was the king of the castle for those few hours. I would collect the mail, microwave a snack, put my feet up and watch my choice of afternoon

TV. What a lie. So good. One day there was a white box in the mail that said free sample. It was addressed to no one by name, so I opened it. Inside there was a large, a single large sanitary pad. I was intrigued, especially when I peeled off the back and realized it was sticky on one side. What the heck is this, my little mind thought. After pondering my options, I stuck the pad to the back of the telephone handset to make hands-free dialing more comfortable. That's so smart. Once my parents arrived home, discovered the pad on the phone, and stopped laughing, they realized there was no way to answer my questions without having the talk with me.

Then says, Smoochers from California. That is such a great one. That's really funny. I don't specifically remember the talk. No, I don't remember having the talk, but I do remember after I think watching American Pire or a similar movie when I was about 9 or 10, asking my mother, what a 69 or was. Oh, my God. Do you remember her reaction?

She took me aside, into the bathroom, away from my older sister who was probably laughing her head off. Pissing herself laughing, yes. And sort of tried to explain it in less full-on way than probably could. Yeah. Because what do you say, it's a sex move? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That feels weird, doesn't it?

You're like, wait, there are different moves? What do you mean? No, it's more of a manoeuvre. A manoeuvre. Logistically, it can be tricky, but I'm a... What I mean, but it's fun for everyone. Hang on, I did it for two, if you will. So that's the most graphic.

I guess the rest of it was left up to school or just working it out. Well, that's interesting because I went to Catholic school. Oh, they weren't talking about shit. Yeah, they didn't tell us anything. But they did have, like, it was an optional thing after school. It was an evening type thing where they'd have different. Well, your parents came along too. Oh, okay, I was going to say that this sounds weird.

No, I know. It was like parents brought their kids along. And I remember, I think mum and dad were there, so they must have been taking it seriously. And, yeah, I think they must have explained sex, but probably also, I guess, maybe periods and stuff like that. You're looking up in the back and your parents are taking notes. Parents are like, uh-huh, oh, it goes there. There are different positions. How did we make these children?

Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, I don't remember there being like a sit-down, let's have a talk. I don't think it often comes all at once. Yeah. I think it's a conversation that happens in parts. Yeah, maybe that's probably why I can't think of time of it. Probably. Yeah. Yeah.

Sitting down with diagrams or anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, by the time it was my turn, I was very knowledgeable. Yeah. Okay. It's not true of anyone in the world. But, yeah, I knew what I was doing. Yeah.

Okay. I was a natural. Yeah, I just duck to water, mate. Duck to water. It's a great question, Kevin. Yeah, I don't have like a horrifically embarrassing. example for you. Yes, but that's so good about the...

I can imagine your parents laughing about the pad too. Yeah, that's great. Okay. I think there was a TV ad, I remember, for pads. But it was like a fully grown man found a bucket of pads and it like stuck them to his arms. Oh, that's right. He became like a superhero with pads stuck to his... Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, like dodging bullets.

And like, a woman gets home and he's like, what are you doing? Yeah. But also, as a woman, you go, that packet is expensive. Yeah, okay? Come on. look after those. Those are precious. They're not a toy. Yeah. I was like about to say, I did have a bit in a stand-up show a couple of years ago about sex ed at my Catholic all-girls school, and there was one class where all we did was, like, the teacher just had the, on the whiteboard,

we just brainstormed slang words for genitals. That's right. I was like, I don't think this is sex ed. Well, we're going like, doodle! Yeah. Shlong. Yeah, very good. Good, doodle, yes, shlong, that's one. Willie, yep, good one. I don't know how educational this is, but they couldn't teach us to use condoms. So they just had to make other stuff up. Wow.

Not allowed to do that, but we can talk about. We can talk about. Wang. Wangs. Thank you, Kevin. Great question. Next from Nick Verde Rosa. He's given themselves the title,

Regional VP of Disappointment. Also with a question. I think we've got three questions this week. Okay, question is, in your travels, what has been the most disappointing landmarks slash historical place you've visited? And Nick also answers their own question. Most disappointing.

Of course, mine is New England based and would be the famous Plymouth Rock where the pilgrims landed in the US and led the first Thanksgiving or whatever. Every kid learns about this event and rock growing up and you would think it's some massive boulder. In actuality, when you arrive at the landmark, there's a large stone building

that just has a huge hole in the bottom. When you look over, you're greeted to a massive pit with a rock that is about a meter wide and less than a half a meter tall with the year 1620 engraved on it. I was expecting one of the largest boulders I've ever seen. No idea how this made it to such a lofty esteem. That's great. So what's been the most disappointing landmark or historical place you've visited? Well, it's not actually disappointing, particularly looking back. But when I was eight years old, just like you, my family went to America.

Correct. On a trip. I believe also, after a relative died and left us money, is that similar to yours? Yeah, yeah. That's the only way we could avoid. We went and one of the things is we went out and we flew over to, I think probably from Vegas to the Grand Canyon. Yes. And I was annoyed.

I was annoyed that on the plane I wasn't allowed to, it was like a small plane. You weren't allowed to eat on it. And I couldn't have my chips until I got on the ground and I was really pissed off. And I was sulky and in a bad mood. Because you weren't allowed to have your chips on the plane. and then I was such a little shit that when we got to the Grand Canyon you got to the edge

I looked over and said it's not that big my parents like you fucking little shit we've flown you half around the world to look at this thing yeah whatever it's a fucking hole I don't care one of nature's greatest one did I'm going to sit over here and eat my chipped

so my parents thought that was very funny and they've talked about a lot since kids are so insanely ungrateful and unapprecious yeah it's like come on I'm seeing the grand I'd love to go and see it now yeah love to do that

great. Yeah. That's so funny. And I kind of referenced that a few years later when we went to London and saw Big Ben and I said, it's not that big. But I was more in control of the joke. Whatever. I think, like, the, it's not disappointing because it's very beautiful, but the Cliffs of

Moore in Ireland, it was super cloudy and rainy and couldn't actually see shit. But it's pretty funny. I've got some funny photos of me and some Canadian friends I met on that tour and we're wearing like raincoats in a really cloudy spot going, wow, beautiful views. Yeah, that's what I can think of. Like, I don't think there's been anything. I remember expecting to be a bit disappointed by the rifle tower. Oh, right.

Because I'd seen, you know, you've seen a million pictures of it. You've seen it on TV and movies. Like, I was like, yeah, I know what it looks like. And then the first time I saw it was from inside the Louvre. I looked out a window and it was just there. And I was like, fuck. I remember the same thing to see it. You're going, holy shit, that's it.

Yeah. Holy shit. And then seeing it up close and being like, Fuck it out. It's really, because the skyline of Paris, that part of Paris is not very tall. Yes. You see it from a long way away. It really stands out.

Yeah. So that's funny being, expecting to be like, ho-hum about it. Same with Big Ben. I remember being like, yeah, it's a fucking clock. And then I saw it and went, whoa! Oh, this is cool. I've seen this a lot. That's Big Ben.

Which is how I imagine people feel about the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Yes. That beautiful bridge. Beautiful. That's not disappointing. God. In anyway. You can't be disappointed by that bridge.

Can't be. I've got to voucher to climb it. Oh, great. Yeah. You're going to do it when we tour there in November? Oh, might do. Cool. That'd be fun.

Why not? Thank you to Nick. And finally, from Ben. Ben Henry is giving themselves the title, Prynipal Skimster. And the question is, what's a Simpsons joke you never got until recently? Great question. Oh, so many. That I wish I had more time to think about.

But they have, Ben has answered the question. Okay. In the episode where Bart is forced to do ballet because he was late to sports sign up, one kid says, Wendell or Lewis, can't remember which one, says, No sign of Bart or Millhouse, and the other kid answers, they better get here soon, or it will be T.S. for them. Of course, implying tough shit, a common N.A. saying, if you don't really have that in Australia.

That North American saying, is it? Yeah. Cut to Ralph struggling to swim while attached to a leash, exclaiming, I don't feel right. I always thought this was, I always thought this was getting very abstract, but thank you. I did enjoy this cutaway? Only on the most recent viewing did I realize Ralph was participating in tethered swimming or Tess for short. Oh, tethered swimming.

I do remember that. I don't. That's a good one. That's great. Tough shit. It'll be tough shit. Yeah, we say tough shit. Well, we did that in the day.

Do you have a Simpsons joke that you never go? got until recently? I mean, Will Anderson has described Do Go On as the type, as the show that explains Simpsons jokes to you. Oh, yeah. So there would definitely be references that I

that I didn't understand that now I would if I was watching them back. Same with like, it's happened a few times watch, rewatching 30 Rock. There was a DB Cooper joke one time and I was like, oh, I get that now. Yeah. But I don't know. It's a great question. the um there's a reddit people uh um post where people are commenting ones that they didn't get

as a kid and i'm seeing there's any oh this i remember this one homers at like an outback place and the sign above it says needs feed and seed and underneath it says formally chucks so it would be chuck's fucking suck That's a good one That's silly I'm sure I just can't think of any off the top of my head Yeah it's really I actually

I also haven't watched The Simpsons for a long time now It used to be back in there In the day living at home When we had Foxtale Because Simpsons was on every On the weekend it was like 8 a.m. till midday The Simpsons was on Saturday and Sundays And I watch that's where I watched

So many of them So but I haven't just Sometimes for a while they're like sitting down especially on a weekend having breakfast so you just want something to put on. We'd put Simpsons on, but I haven't watched it for ages. Got to get back into it. There's a new movie coming. Oh, yes.

I'd love to hear other ones that people are listening. Thank you, Ben, Nick and Kevin, which means we now move on to the next thing we need to do, which is to shout out to some people who support us on the shout-out level or above. Now, we normally come up with a bit of a game here, and this was a pretty dark topic. That's right. A lot of tragedy on this episode. Yeah, so what could our game be to keep it relatively light? Do we think?

Oh, okay. Yep. What did you have? My mom was just going to be, we were talking about a square as a meeting place. Yeah. What shape is there? Oh, that's a bit of fun. My, okay, let's do a two-party because my thought was,

you know how there was like a gigantic portrait of Chem and Mao? I thought, who have they got a really big portrait of? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it doesn't have to be a dictator or a political leader, you know? Yeah. Could be anyone. Okay. So what shape is their meeting place and who have they got a huge portrait of?

Excellent. Do you want to go one for one? Yeah. Okay, I'll kick things off. So, firstly, a shout out from Brisbane in Queensland, Dailan M. Dailan M. Dailan M is a cool name. It is the town jigsaw piece.

Ooh, that's good, with a big old portrait of the rock. Just to be clear, it's Dwayne the Rock. Dwayne the Rock. Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Dwayne the Rock Johnson. He'd love that. That's a great one. I'm a jigsaw, but that's a fantastic shape, Dave.

Jigsaw shape. Because here I am thinking of like conventional shapes. Yeah. And you've gone straight for jigsaw. I mean, you could get it on the random shape generator. No, let's just use our minds. I would like to thank Fromba, this is like such a great. English.

Swadlin coat. Swadlin coat. From Swadlin coat in Great Britain, it's Matthew Thornley. Matthew Thornley, Swadlin coat has a town heart. A town heart? Yeah. At the center of that heart is a big portrait of goofy. That's nice.

A cartoon dog. Yeah. Goofy. Yeah, that's lovely. And the heart is beautiful. That's nice. That's beautiful. Oh, yeah.

We love that in Swadling. Oh, you've got to come down to Swadling Coat. See our big goofy. Oh, that's a little bit of love heart. as well. It's nice, actually. Yeah, it's nice. It's also a crappery.

A crappery. I love a crepe. Love a crap. I'd like to edit. Next up from, ooh, address unknown. Okay, deep in the fortress of the malls, you think? We can only assume. It's Cody Sweetman.

Cody Sweetman is the shape is a large question mark. Oh, very abstract. The town question mark. And big old portrait of the riddler. The riddler. I was going to say the Joker. That would have been better because it doesn't. It's slightly different.

Exactly. But it is the Riddler. No, the Riddler's good. Yeah. The Jim Carrey one? Yep. That's good. And the big question mark.

Pretty cool stuff. Cannot sanction their buffering. I would like to thank from, oh no. Did I do it? You did it. From Canberra. Our beautiful capital city. Hello and thank you to Maggie.

Possibly surname with the W. Maggie. Maggie in Canberra, they're known for their roundabouts. Oh, that's true. And, uh, yeah. They've got a town Oval. Town Oval, okay. It's a little misdirect there.

Oh, that's very good. Thank you. A very large portrait of Malcolm Turnbull. Oh, yeah. Our former Prime Minister. Yes. And he would love that. He would love it.

And plenty of people would too. Yes. They'd say, well, I've got to pop down and have a look at Malcolm. We've got a look at Mal. We've got to check it out. You got Melki. Next up again from Fortress of the Moles. Oh, okay.

Address Unknown. But I would love to thank Meredith Alexander. Meredith Alexander is the town Decagon. Decagon. Ten sides. Whoa. With a big old portrait, huge portrait of Anne Hathaway. Really?

Yeah. The actress or Shakespeare's wife? Both double-sided. And we can spin in the wind. Yeah. You go, I wonder which Anne I'm going to get. Yeah. And which, and people in the town kind of use it like, like you're flipping a coin.

They'll say, all right, let's go flip an Ann. Flip an Ann. What do you want? Hold on you. Yeah, it's pretty exciting stuff. That's great. I'd like to think now from a location that's unknown to me, unknown to you. Yes.

Unknown to our listeners. It's Benjamin. Possibly with a surname, starting with R. Possibly starting with that. You've got a number in your email as well. We won't say what it is, but it's not too. It's not too. Benjamin

in their town it's a it's the town a kidney shape oh kidney shape okay and they've got a large portrait of Jackie Chan

oh that's great yeah really big really big Jackie Chan like doing one of his moves whoa that's cool oh maybe it's it's not a hologram but it's one of those you remember that stuff that you get like

I remember I had a book in school covered in contact. Yeah. And you could see, if you looked at it, it's shiny and you look in a different way. It looks like a dinosaurs moving across the page. Yeah. This is Jackie Chan like doing a big jump. If you look at it different ways. That's sick.

Yeah, depending on the light. Big budget. Yeah, huge budget. Wow. He paid for it himself. Not. Jackie Chan? Yeah.

Or Benjamin? Uh, Jackie. Whoa. But Benjamin owns the square. That's sick. Um, again, once again from the, the, The Fortress of the Moles. Yeah, there's people don't trust us with their address, and why would they?

And fair enough, because we will turn up. I would love to thank Lauren Worthy. Lauren Worthy, okay. I did the shape that time. You can do a shape, if you like. Let me do a very large shape. It's the shape of, oh, it's like someone, it's a funny one, it's a funny one. It looks like from the air, you'll see it looks like someone's jumped out of a plane and done a big splat.

Oh. But it's giant, though. That's awesome. So it looks like a chalk outline of a splat. Whoa, that's cool. That's cool. It looks like person shaped. Yeah, it's person shaped.

But like, but kind of cartoonish. Yeah, great. That's a good one. And it's got a huge portrait of mini mouse. Oh, okay, that's nice. That's nice, I think. That sort of softens the grossness of it. The grimness, yeah, that's correct.

That's beautiful. A couple more to go. I'd like to thank from Ben Fleet. Also, in Great Britain, it's Terry Green. Terry Green. In their town, they've got a star-shaped town star. The town star. Meet you at the town star.

I'll meet you at Town Star. I'll meet you at Town Star. You go get a pint. Giant portrait. That's funny. She's a giant portrait of it. A fosters. Just a fosters has been poured.

Wow. Yeah. A pint of a fosters. So it's just like a billboard, an advertising. Yeah, yeah. But like it doesn't have any. It's just a photo of a glass of beer. But you know it's a foster.

Oh, it's, if we've got the vibe that it's... Freshly the board. Because you can just, you look at it and you can just hear, yeah, hey, yeah. Oh, my God, how am I am at? You're like, that's Australia. That's Australia. To me, that's Australia. That's Aussie.

That's beautiful. That's Terry Green. Thank you, Terry Green. And finally, from Pascoevale South here in Victoria, just down the road, it's Catherine Wooton. Wooton, I can't believe we haven't done a Pentagon. Oh, good one. The town Pentagon.

The town Pentagon with a portrait of Dave Warnocky. Oh, yes. Finally. What position am I doing? You don't want to know. Oh, my God. And I don't think I can say it on. Oh, you can't say that.

Let's just say, you asked your mom about it. When you were a boy. We recently visited Mono together, which is a museum in Tasmania with some pretty confronting images. Let me just say, I don't think I'd even put that in there and try it. Okay. Oh, it's okay. Thanks. No, we don't need that.

No, there's a wall of vaginas, but they would be like, oh, that's okay. There's a machine that poops. Yeah. And it's a huge. denying yourself, would be like, nah. We're good. That's too far from us. No, thanks.

No thanks. Okay, the last thing we need to do, oh my God, is bring in, welcome some people into the Trip Ditch Club. Now, I don't know what we were doing three years ago. Perhaps we were announcing a tour or something because last week and this week, there is a huge number of people entering the Trip Ditch Club. Yeah, wow. This is a long list.

So. Of people. This is our Theatre of the Mind, our clubhouse. They've been supporting the show for three years, and they've never dropped off three consecutive years on the shout-out level or above. We welcome them in. They run on in, run through a banner. We cheer them on.

And once you're inside, you can't leave it. Why would you want to? Because we've got entertainment, food, drinks, places to sleep. There's a snooker championship going on. And it's hovercrafts. Yeah. We've got everything. We've got the hovercrafts.

Yeah, yeah, I've got the hovercrafts. Finally, because we ordered them ages ago. Yeah, finally came through. Oh, thank God. Because the club is getting so big. It's actually kind of exhausting to walk from one end to the other. So the hovercrafts are going to make a huge difference. That's great.

Okay, well, look, normally what Matt does is he sort of lifts their velvet rope. He ticks people off the list. I'm going to do that this week. And normally, like, we say, hey, Matt, let's keep a good flow going. And he interrupts the flow by, like, trying to one-up your jokes and stuff. I'm just going to, we're going to flow our way through this, okay? But also, Dave, you normally book a band. Yes, you're never going to believe who I've got this week.

Who? They, um, a Chinese rock and roll legends, Black Panther are here. Ooh, that's fun. They, um, started in the late 80s, around the time of our story, actually, 1987. Cool. And, um, yeah, they reunited for a new album in 2013. So we'll get some of the old, hopefully, some old gold and some new, some stuff off the new album. Yeah, that's right.

Rock band pioneers, their WikiPage says. So, very excited that they've gotten back to us and said, yeah, we'll come on down. Oh, we'll head on down. So I'm going to read this list, Dave. You just need to clear your mind. Okay. And I believe in you. Thank you.

And I'm going to keep a nice flow going. Yeah. Are you ready? Yeah. Are you ready? Yeah. Dave, are you ready? Yeah.

So ready. First up, from Ipswich in Great Britain, it's Elizabeth Harris. I'm never embarrassed with Elizabeth Harris. Woo! From Indianapolis in Indiana. It's Joanna Werner. Give me your Hannah. Joanna, Joanna for a high-five.

Oh, from Birmingham in Great Britain, it's Helena Heath. She's got great reach. It's Helena Reith, Heath. Oh, that's good stuff. Great reach. Very nice. From Marietta in PA, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania.

It is QJK. QJK, of course, stands for Quietly Joking King. Yes, gets in there with some great jokes. Absolutely. From Rochester in Great Britain, it's Harry Beth and Willow, the cat. Meow, meow, meow. Let me say hello to Harry Beth and Willow. Fuck, yeah.

From Lindisfarne in Tazzy. Wow. It's Eliza Murphy. I think you're great. And that ain't no furphy. Eliza Murphy. Fuck and how yes. From Medfield in M.A., Maryland.

It's Campbell McKinnis. Oh, you still love Campbell, Super. I don't love Campbell McKinness. Is it M.A.'s Maryland? I think so. Yeah, I believe so. From North Perth in Western Australia, it is Claire McLean. I felt Claire Maddirty, but now I've

feel Claire McLean. Very good. From Arlington in VA, Virginia. Virginia. It's Will Mulleran. Where there's a Will, there's a Mulleran. From Portland, Oregon. From Portland, Oregon, it's Travis Adams.

Portland. I'm so, I'm glad that I've fought to get you in tonight, Travis. You're worth it. And from Provo and Utah, give me two. It's Lauren Lyon. I ain't Lauren Lyons. Lauren, you're my favourite.

Oh, you did it. Thank you so much. Well done. Did you black out? Yeah, what happened? Oh, you did amazing. Thank you, I hope so. Thank you again to Lauren, Travis, Will, Claire, Campbell, Eliza, Harry Beth and Willow, QJK, Helena, Joanna, Joanna and Elizabeth.

What an absolute all-star team. Come on in, head to the bar. We've got, you know, all the usual fare and get ready for Black Panther to take the stage. That's right. Can't wait. Last thing we need to do is just remind you. you that you can follow us on social media. Do you go on pod.com

is our website. At do go on is us on social media or dogoon pod on TikTok because do you go on was already taken. Ugh. Who took it? I don't know. Some heck. Some idiot.

And you can suggest a topic. Anybody can. There's a link in the show notes or it's on our website. But Dave, let's boot this baby home. Thank you once again for joining us. We'll be back next week with another blockbuster topic. But until then, thank you. And goodbye.

Bye. Hi, it's Morgan from off the shelf, and I'm here to tell you about Paramount Pictures, new movie Regretting You, a film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling book, regretting you. If there's anything I love more than an adaptation, it's an adaptation that's going to make me feel something. And with Josh Boone, yes, the director of the Fultonar stars, at the helm, I'm ready. Between the first loves, secret relationships, and second chances, I am pleased. prepared to be going through every single emotion. This film also has a stacked cast starring Alison Williams,

McKenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Fames, and so many more. Go see Regretting You Only in Theatre's October 24th. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never miss out.

And don't forget to sign up, go to our Instagram, click our link tree. Very, very easy. It means we know to come to you and you also know that we're coming to you. Yeah, we'll come to you. You come to us. Very good. And we give you a spam-free guarantee.