I watched the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests on China official TV daily when it was broadcast until the end of May 1989. I was a teenager at that time. we talked about it at school. we talked about at home. we talked about it heavily at college. we just didn't talk much about it publicly. nobody got arrested by simply talking about it, which may not be like what you might be thinking.

when I was young, there was no GFW. I remembered that I visited lots of western medias about it to better understand it by two-sided stories. and I believe that I did better understand it.

I do use VPN as many of others when I am in China. It's a common thing.

The moment you want you access the internet as a chinese kid, you can google tianmen and get information about it. Its not of course always the correct information that is on the first results, but its not like its completely wiped.