Local students know very little about June 4, but some make sure they find out, writes Sara Yin

For anyone born in Hong Kong after 1989, learning about "June 4" usually happens by accident. Take 19-year-old Fung Fan-cheung, who only heard of the date in primary school when he stumbled upon a political cartoon.

"I was curious so I continued searching online. Then I was angry. The photos were so terrible ... so much blood, wounds," he told Young Post at last Sunday's public demonstration to commemorate June 4.

Twenty-two year old Leo Yau Lut-pong, a fresh university graduate and member of the Young Civics political party, first heard of the date five years ago when he saw a random book showing photos of student activists.

"I was shocked. They don't teach this in school," he says. "But then, when I tried to talk to my classmates about it, most didn't care."

As time distances the younger generations from what took place that summer in Tiananmen Square, a combination of apathy, ignorance, and self-censorship are threatening to erase the subject from the public agenda altogether.

June 4 lives in history as the infamous day the central government used armed troops to quell unrest by students, resulting in hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths around Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

But educators are not sure how to write about it. For a start nobody can even agree on factual details, such as the death toll (figures vary from 200 to 2,600).

For now, textbook publishers refrain from devoting any more than a paragraph to the date.

"Some teachers mentioned it in the first couple years after 1989, but now they are all too scared to touch such a sensitive subject," says a former secondary school teacher.

Mr Yau thinks it should be included in the school curriculum, and encourages young people to discover "the truth" for themselves by reading different accounts and searching online.

Legislator and Civic Party co-founder Tanya Chan, 38, understands how difficult it is for youths these days to understand the gravity of the situation at the time.

Ms Chan says she was politically apathetic before 1989. "I didn't care about politics or anything happening [on the mainland]," she says.

"I thought of myself as just a Hong Kong person with a separate identity from China."

She says June 4 changed all that.

"It's extremely important to remember June 4," she says.

"If we don't have democracy ... we won't be Hong Kong people."

Mr Fung agrees. "We are victims of this incident, even if we weren't in [it]. Forgetting about it would threaten our freedoms," he says.