Journalist Ian Buruma wrote an interesting piece in the May 31 edition of The New Yorker called "Tiananmen, Inc." with the subhead: "the controversy surrounding the Chinese firebrands of 1989 who became upwardly mobile Americans." Buruma's article is a tough-minded feature about Chai Ling, who led the student demonstrations against the government and watched as her friends were shot and crushed beneath the treads of Chinese tanks.

I must admit, I didn't know Chai Ling's name when the demonstrations happened, and never gave much thought to what became of her afterwards. We Americans, especially we young Americans (I was 14 when the demonstrations hit the news) have always taken our democracy for granted, and the idea of going toe to toe with military forces has never been part of my reality. My worst brushes with armed authority have been speeding tickets and aggressive party break-ups. Heck, even in those situations the cops were fairly polite, and they certainly never tried to run me over with a tank.

Ling escaped communist China, and some say she was smuggled into Hong Kong (which was still British in the early 90’s) in a wooden crate. The girl who erected the forty foot high statue "The Goddess of Democracy" in the face of an angry military is now in the United States. She went to school at Princeton and is now... well, now she's the head of an internet company backed by Reebok and Microsoft, and she's palling around with Republican tycoons like Joseph Malone and she's basically a yuppie.

Okay, so she deserves it, I won't deny that. I don't think she should ever have to work again, she's certainly done her part. But she's a conservative yuppie.

This from the girl who reportedly said, during her younger, activist years that she had to push the government into violence, that until blood flowed on the streets there would be no public outrage or change. Of course, China is far from a democracy now, and maybe Ling has the right to be bitter. Maybe she has the right to go make herself a fortune selling ideas on the internet (I gather she's doing some kind of "consulting.")

Same for her former comrade in arms Li Lu, who also escaped to the west, got an Ivy league education and is making tons of money as the manager of a Manhattan hedge fund.

Maybe this is what they were fighting for all along. To come to America and sell intangibles for vast sums of money. Hell, I dream about that sometimes, and I live here. According to the article, a lot of Chinese activists are critical of the students, calling them naive and stupid. Some say they pushed too hard. Some deliver what must be the most painful admonition -- "you built your careers on the blood of your followers." The two must feel a lot of guilt -- living well in America, having survived the attack, but having lost so many friends.

Or maybe not. The guilty portrait doesn't really come through in the article. Writer Buruma had been interviewing Ling for years, even before the Tiananmen riots. She spoke like a leader, but with a bit of contempt for her followers. I get the sense that this life she has now was something Ling always believed was her destiny.

I'm not sure why I'm moved to speculate on all of this. Maybe it's the weird juxtaposition of words. I remember, as a child, that young people died while protesting for their freedom and I remember that was evil and that the protesters were brave. But I never thought about how the story would turn out, and if I had, I never would have imagined words like "hedge fund" and "internet consulting" to enter the narrative.

I wouldn't even have guessed they'd be rich, or if they were I'd figured them to be managing some democracy advocacy institute in Europe, or as guest lecturers at Harvard. I don't want to sound harsh because neither of the expatriated revolutionaries have stopped speaking for and acting for democracy in China, but it's not their lives anymore. They have new and very American causes to fight for -- retirement and real estate.

I always thought they were and would be advocates for China's poor, but they're really advocating the right to get rich. I thought they'd have some opinion about liberating Tibet, but I doubt they care about that either.

I've been too sheltered to let myself criticize them harshly, but it's sad to think that young heroes grow up.

You don't want to know what Michael Maiello thinks of Jerry Rubin.