Ai-ming’s first real friend and a student at Beijing Normal University during the Tiananmen Square riots. Yiwen is a dedicated member of the student protests and she does many things that Ai-ming, raised in the countryside, thinks are very “Western” and “modern.” Yiwen listens to a Walkman (Ai-ming assumes that listening to private music breeds private thoughts) and she always wears a pink dress with a matching pink headband. Her willingness to wear clothes that mark her as different, even vain, demonstrates her dedication to fighting against the contemporary Communist value system that doesn’t allow her to express her individuality. Yiwen is the one who gets Ai-ming involved in the Tiananmen Square riots.
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Yiwen Character Timeline in Do Not Say We Have Nothing
The timeline below shows where the character Yiwen appears in Do Not Say We Have Nothing. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...the story of the riots. Ai-ming tells Li-ling about how she and her best friend, Yiwen, slept beside each other in the square. For Ai-ming, during the time of the demonstrations,...
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Chapter 5 (II)
...studying so she can pass the entrance exam at Beijing university. One of her neighbors, Yiwen, is a first-year student at Beijing Normal University and she gives Ai-ming her old textbooks...
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Outside, Ai-ming sees Yiwen walk by in a pink dress listening to a portable music set. Ai-ming thinks that...
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The next morning, Ai-ming runs into Yiwen at the apartment building’s water spigot. Yiwen asks her if she plans to go to...
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Chapter 4 (II)
One day, Yiwen asks Ai-ming if she wants to join her in going to another student protest. The...
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...Ai-ming sees a pink headband standing out in the crowd and she thinks she sees Yiwen in the crowd below. Before Ai-ming knows it, she is in the middle of the...
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...one night when Ai-ming interrupts him to say she and Ling are going to help Yiwen bring blankets to the Square. She asks Sparrow if he would like to come along,...
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The next morning, Yiwen tells Ai-ming that the spokesperson who addressed the students the night before had been removed...
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When Ai-ming gets to the square, she can’t see Yiwen anywhere—it is only around 10 at night that Ai-ming finds her. The hunger strike was...
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At the next table, two girls sing a Cultural Revolution song. “All these songs,” Yiwen says. “I thought they were real.” Ai-ming responds that the songs are “just words,” and...
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...him, he sees a girl with a pink headband and he wonders if it is Yiwen.
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Chapter 3 (II)
...from Tofu Liu. His niece has connected him with someone he thinks Li-ling should meet: Yiwen, an old friend of Ai-ming’s. Since the protests, Yiwen has gone to study electrical engineering...
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Li-ling asks Yiwen whether Ling ever mentioned that Ai-ming had gone to live with her and her mother...
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When Yiwen leaves, Li-ling begins to think of Kai again. She feels that when her father left,...
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Chapter 2 (II)
The next day, having stayed late at Tiananmen Square with Yiwen the night before, Ai-ming sleeps until noon. She plans to go to the Square that...
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...that night, Ai-ming is trying to distract herself by studying for the entrance exams when Yiwen knocks on her window. Crying, she begs Ai-ming to come outside, and Ai-ming does. As...
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...debris are everywhere, and the smoke from “at least a dozen fires” clouds the air. Yiwen yells to her that the army is killing people all over the city—including in the...
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Ai-ming is in Tiananmen Square with Yiwen—they, along with hundreds of other students, slept in the Square all night. Two professors who...
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...that we have nothing. / We shall be the masters of the world!” Ai-ming and Yiwen break off from the crowd to make their way home, avoiding gunfire when they hear...
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Chapter 1 (II)
...anymore. Ling continues looking for Sparrow, and one day while she’s gone to another hospital, Yiwen knocks on Ai-ming’s door. She says someone is calling for her father. On the phone...
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When Yiwen and Ai-ming get back to Ai-ming’s apartment, there are strange people there: a man and...
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Coda
...Sun Shines on the People’s Square. There are 30 people in the room, including Li-ling; Yiwen and her daughter; and Ai-ming’s great aunt, the Old Cat. Li-ling imagines that Sparrow, Kai,...
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In 2016, Li-ling and Yiwen leave copies of The Book of Records online and in bookshops in Beijing, Shanghai, Dunhuang,...
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