Blogs were blocked, Twitter was tamed and there was nothing in the newspapers, but word of Hong Kong's commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown still filtered through to the mainland yesterday.
Internet users bypassed censors and accessed overseas Chinese- language websites to see images of Thursday's 150,000-strong crowd at the candle-light vigil in Victoria Park.
Some mainland bloggers travelled to Hong Kong to attend the gathering and uploaded live video onto websites.
On Bullogger.com, a liberal blog service popular with the mainland's cultural community - which was shut down last year and moved its servers to the United States - bloggers discussed the events at Victoria Park and uploaded photos.
'We mainlanders should thank the Hong Kong people who gathered to mourn June 4 last night: they represent the conscience of China,' one blogger said.
The microblogging service Twitter was among a host of websites blocked in the run-up to the anniversary as Beijing strained to avoid any mention of the events.
