Hong Kong 8.5 Strike - Nineteen Hours in Hong Kong
Chasing the hurricane was my first reflex. For the entire Friday I kept an eye on the airfares hoping to land a cheaper fight just right for a 24 hour quick visit and return on Tuesday morning, given the time difference and that everything goes well as planned, I’d be able to make back home Tuesday morning without a delay. Then I talked myself out of it, time was felt to be against me, so was my hastefully prepared project. I worried about not getting the type of pictures want. I also questioned if it is actually worth of an effort? For this being a spur of the moment idea, I’ve left my expedition entirely to chances, no itinerary set, no interviews lined up, no pre-arranged meetings with contacts, only thinking that what had been seen on T.V. must have been live everywhere. The last minute airfare remains inflexibly high. So I draw a line that if the airfare drops below $2,000 I will take it. I sat on it for another day only to question on the impracticable. But I’ve again sensed an urgency. The date had me thinking about it for two weeks, and I had been wondering just how it would turn out. Announcement of the 8.5 strike appeared first in YouTube, it’s the second strike in recent months in the history of this international city, rareness of it traces back to 1967. For two months I have been following the situation in H.K., protests plus a strike presents just the right intensity for a field trip, adding only more reasoning. After yet another day weighing my choices, I talked myself back in.
More than once had expectations failed themselves. I’d have arrived an island thinking a hurricane is going to hit it, it didn’t. Not only it is a miss, I ended with bright hot sun burning the back of my neck all day everyday with hardly a rain drop. The weather man on T.V. would then correct himself that the path of the hurricane had just curved unexpectedly, heading eastward or westward, only not to cross mine. But in H.K., the fight is right on.
Not everyone will say anything to you, most dodge the sensitive, some defer to answer, some kept silent, some shouting. As tension building, everyone’s true political inclination is being brought to the fore. The youth are surprisingly unified, vastly energetic, to pursue a cause with an untwisted sense of recognition.
Virtually unanimous, as I’ve witnessed that late afternoon in Admiralty (金鐘), as each round of tear gas fired, a round of “Dark Society” (黑社會) was shout out from the crowd standing above on the circular sky bridges. What seemed to be audiences on the corridors suddenly became a team of cheerleaders, with no one to orchestrate, they rally with unified output, rounds after rounds, dignified and calm, voicing the best support while delivering constant condemnation. Below on the avenue, the youth lowered themselves on the pavement, shadowing by their umbrellas edge over edge, forming a huge carpet of shield. Overhead, persisting smell of tear gas is windblown. Suddenly the sea of youth stepped aside, squeezed the spaces between themselves to clear out a pathway, a young man pushing a shopping cart transporting a large thick blanket run towards the front. Claps and cheers were heard as he passes. As more tear gas fired, some from the front retrieved up to the bridge to recuperate, they sat down on the floor, taking off their gas masks, washing their eyes with bottles of water. One young man from the pack after only a couple minute of rest, walked up to the rail to observe the action below. He tried to reassemble his gas mask over his face, but paused to catch his breath. He looked weak. I asked him in English if he is alright. He was first surprised that I spoke English and not Cantonese, he then signaled to me with one hand citing that he is not convenient to speak but nodded to confirm that he’s okay.
Over to my right, suddenly a commotion broke out. The recuperating pack was immediately at their full alert. Water bottles were thrown over a line of water filled barricades some 20 feet down at the end of this sky bridge. A few bottles were being thrown back out from behind the barricades, loud verbal exchanges were heard. Three riot police were seen moved about behind the tall barricades. The resting young men sensed their presence. Out of curiosity I moved myself up to the barricades. Through the narrow opening, I saw three riot police in short sleeves with shot guns and pepper spread can in hand, stood at an enclosed area otherwise a garden. Two of them appear to be woman, with one woman police lifting up her visor and shouted back at the protestors. I inserted my lens through the awkwardly narrow observing gap and snapped several pictures. A young woman reporter followed me carefully to the barricades, sensing no danger, she began to videotaping the police with her smartphone. The young men behind us stopped throwing water bottles, they let us taking pictures. They waited. The collaboration was mutual.
My move was to build a trust with protestors. The photos taken of police behind the barricades were useless. It is in what I call isolated fragments, they can’t tell a story as they’re only one isolated portion of the confrontation, I wanted to place both the police and the protesters in the same frame and this evidently can’t be done here.
I also wanted to gain a glimpse of what’s like behind the barricades. The police are feed up too, especially when cameras are pointing at them. Both sides are exhausted; heated verbal exchange between them can easily turn personally. It may be correct to assume that those who engage in a verbal exchange are less likely firing a shot at you because so much energy is being let out through words thus they’re less likely physically threatening.
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Following the barricade, I walked down the stairs from the overhead bride to what was then the battle ground. Scattered water bottles and damaged umbrellas dotted the street. In the distance a connecting throughway was empty of traffics, some protestors remaining on it and yellow vested journalists are seen walking by. It is only then did I finally figure out where I was. The police were above me on a mezzanine, from the same level of bridge the I just came down, positioned in a treed area, grouped behind their transparent shields, dressed in full gears, with their visors catching the slanted six o’clock sun. I walked up another escalator to an overhead bridge, where a heavy pack of yellow vested journalists surrounded yet another line of tall barricades, behind which riot police guarded what was the side of the main entrance to the legislative council building. One young journalist was seen demanding an answer following some exchanges with the police, venting his dismay through the barricade opening. From inside a male cop roared forwards the journalists as if to chase off the cameras pointing at him, by reflex the journalists pulled back a few step, knowing the danger stops at the barricades, they resumed their videotaping.
Soon as the main body of students retreated, another miracle unfolds. On the Avenue below, a group of young students immediately began a cleaning effort. On a street where minutes ago was a battle ground, with a brave imagery of the youth still occupying one’s fresh recollection, here they are, about thirty of them, men and women alike, in their masks, picked up scattered water bottles, flyers and damaged umbrellas, putting them in large plastic garbage bags and carried them away from the streets. The riot police looked on from the mezzanine as an amazing display of social responsibility quietly carrying out itself on the Avenue. Soon they were done, they walked off the site and dispersed in the dusk.
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I hadn’t found much to photograph during the first half of the day since arriving early in the morning. By tenish I’ve already in Wan Chai (灣仔), knowing it is early for anything I still wanted to check out the area and get a feel of it. As in any creative process I engage myself, I needed to work into it then jumping at it thus I allowed myself extra time to do this. I saw nothing out of ordinary, not even a trace of the strike, the same bustling streets receiving the same numbers of visits on an otherwise normal Monday. Coming out of the subway, I saw several men and women in their sixties stood by an exit handing out Metro Daily the Strike edition. A question I asked was not straightforwardly answered. As I wasn’t sure what to do, I saw a young female journalist in a yellow vest and gas mask scurried pass me. She stopped by the curb to hail a taxi but gave up waiting after a few seconds. She then continued to walk hestifully, passing the Metro station where I got off, apparently changed her mind again, turned around and skipped through an alley to another parallel street. She then run across the street despite no signs nor street markings permitting, and headed to a bus stop on the opposite side and waited at the end of a short line. For every a few steps she walked, she looked down at her smartphone. The latest communication must have been less urgent; resorting to take bus indicated just that. I lose the hope that she could lead me somewhere of action.
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By noon, life remains unexpectedly normal. Nothing extraordinary, I see no unexpected crowds, no agitation of any kind. At a soccer practice field, on its stadium side, locals and expats sat scattered in the shades, reading papers, mining their own business.
By 1:30PM, I messaged a friend, knowing a planned protest will run late, I decided to move on. Prior this I had a lunch at a poorly chosen restaurant despite not hungry. Anticipating plenty actions to come, I told myself not to eat again until returning to the airport late at night. I hailed a taxi to the Edinburg Place.
1:45PM, Edinburg Place (愛丁堡廣場）
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A meeting for local performing artists was in preparation. Under a row of canopies, several long tables and chairs and sound amplifiers were lined up. Two young women in their twenties are seen hanging a cardboard signage sporting a black cross made of duct tape. Next to them, hanging on an extension rack, a large poster sporting a striking slogan: Art being censored is like righteousness being lynched (被審查的藝術如同被處私刑的公義). To accommodate some 300 participants who had already waited in the shade by the building site, speakers moved themselves some 20 plus meters across the square to be near the participants, leaving a prepared stage behind. A canopy on four wheels was then rolled over to provide a shade for the speakers. Efforts were coherent. A sense of mission run high. I saw no familiar faces, no well-known actors and actresses; struggle must have been a lower level thing.
3:20pm, Quan Wan (荃灣)
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A bus is slowly backed off via the same way in, vans managed U turns on the two closed left lanes. A truck drove in straight despite waving hands from the protestors and stopped right before a line of men made barricades which sealed off the connecting roads. A stubborn driver got off his truck and began moving the barricades one piece at a time with his own hands. Roar of disapproving is heard from the young crowds marching on the opposite side of the avenue. Then a miracle happened, the protesting youth joined in, jumping over a road divider to the truck side, to help moving the barricade they’d vigorously set only minutes ago. A passage had been cleared to allow the truck to pass. Reason to concede was unknown. The barricades were then put back in place. The youth continued to march westwards along the avenue with their umbrellas and banners.
On every overhead sky bridges and walkways along the side of buildings, even public balconies on the side of shopping malls, protestors strategically positioned themselves, ready to open up umbrellas to block the view of any incoming cameras mostly smartphones from snapping pictures of the march below. The intent was politely declared to protect the identities of the protestors from possibly being seized by the authority. I even met a social workers marched in the crowds introduced herself to explain why this is important. It appears to be a shared responsibility, as they’re ready to relate to just anyone who stepped close to the proximity. Back on a skybridge, I saw several flyers pasted on a column, their arrangement and the aged look appealed to me. Soon as I raised my camera, a young couple stopped me citing the same reason. I stated that I only want to photograph the poster and not the people in the background, not to mention I was pointing my camera slightly upward and couldn’t include the street scenes down below. The young woman pulled a flyer off the column and handed it to me, “here, have it,” she said, I didn’t take it from her as this defeats the purpose of what I do.
After being encountered by an objection from two students citing I have possibly taken pictures of their likeness, I pulled myself away from the march and walked up an over head bridge to continue to observe from the above. However this has also prevented me from working close up. I no longer able to use my 24mm as I’m no longer in the crowd.
The terror created by high tech face recognition software capable to detect and to match faces plus numerous surveillance cameras installed, covering one’s face has becoming a widely accepted method to conceal identity. Additionally keen suspicion can out grown common sense, of intent from individuals who snap pictures during a protest, can be seen as an obvious danger to possibly reveal one’s identity to the authority. For this protestors kept closely guarded protocols before and during planned events to minimize penetration, and might have used a last minute information update to relate to protestors before an event takes place.
The apprehensive nature is real, given the circumstances, no one trusts the authority, neither the curious visitors. Previous cases from the June 4th of 1989 had that authority accessed students’ likeness from published photographs from the newspapers eventually led to arrests. Pictures taken by many photographers in Tiananmen Square had been misused for this purpose despite true intent for portraying the braveness from the hope seekers.
Events in the afternoon had been simultaneously updated on Stand News (立場新聞) on Facebook, that has helped me to plan which train stop to get off. Yet when I get a chance to read about it, it is already happening, and when I do get there it is almost near the end of it. Frustration was with me the whole afternoon. At least this gives me an outlook about how things are going.
I was also convinced that some social media had been used as a tool to relate the last minute info to protestors about the location and the exact time. I initially thought that being secret groups like those on Facebook, where an outsider could not get in regardless and informations shared in those groups could not leaked other wise. I ruled out WeChat as this platform is packed with monitoring mechanism. It didn’t take me long to realized which APP the protestors used after I read an article. Since the method had been published, I’m inclined to think that new methods should have been in replacement, if not so, it could pose dangerous complication.
8:30pm, Hong Kong International Airport
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My hip bumped into two suitcases placed side by side as I was moving backward repositioning myself while photographing a group of young students sitting protest across a walkway in the airport lobby, I turned to apologize and noticed the leaflets pasted on the suitcases, two very cheerful young students, a male and a female, stood by. I signaled with my camera, asking if I could snap a picture of their suitcases, they agreed and we began chatting. They don’t look any older than 18 year old, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, and they were surprised that I knew about what happened in Yuan Lang on July 21, 2019. When they mentioned the name of the place I said the date, we right away had rapport. Yuan Lang 7.21 has made many Hongkongers rethink about how down rightly dirty the authorities are, in a disguised tactic to carry out an actual suppression, by using the local gangs, beating protesters with bamboo sticks, left many bloody and wounded and suffering and a loss of hope for any possibly enlightened political upcoming.
I asked if they could sense there has been mainland security mixed in the H.K. police force? The two weren’t surprised but answered cautiously, they said that they had someone from inside the police who was ready to tell but he was then let go. the youth seem little concerned to clarify it further. It is no surprise that at their age and for being a student their thinking was fact-based. Prior my trip I’ve posed the same question via messenger to a young intern who works for the legislative council, her answer was equally careful, “I can’t fact check on that.” She didn’t deny the existence, her answer was scholar-like, as retaining doubts is an inner quality for truth seeker.
Before I left for security check, the young man took out a flyer and said to me in a pleading tone that only if I could help to spread it to just one other person, to let people know just how hard the situation is in Hong Kong and how hard they (the students) were fighting. I accepted it, on one side of the yellow flyer it reads: Five Major Demands (五大訴求), the other side, 不撤不散！I kept it in my camera bag still till this day.
Social movements help to clarify political stands while sense of belonging in various forms isn’t always readily apparent. When facing changes many choose to be vigilant. Two of my local contacts decided to not to see me on the day of the strike. One woman from an international trade firm, despite unable to go to work on the day of the strike, said will need to work from home even declined to lunch; and a young professional from a prestigious law firm who gave plenty info on the situation was not reachable on the day I arrived. Weeks later news on Cathy Pacific had its CEO absolved who, was ordered by authority to give out the names of his employees who participated in the strike. Rupert Hogg wrote his own name on the list and resigned, a protest in its own right had netizens touched. Dissent isn’t always soundless, a post on Facebook had a photographer paired this lyric with a simple image. 「明天不管將會如何，晴天陰天仍高歌此歌，從不懂解釋我為何，在你友愛里尋到火.」 No matter what happens tomorrow, be sunny or cloudy, I’ll still sing this song, not to explain why I am, in your friendship I found fire.
Driven by a renewed sense of urgency, a song had been quietly written for two months by an anonymous song writer (or song writers) only goes by the name “Thomas” or “T”, had been spreading all over Hong Kong, generated over one million clicks on YouTube on its first publishing, overshadowing a previous favor, on a similar theme, “Do You Hear The People Sing“.
“I feel like I was singing the national anthem when I sang it the very first time,” recalling by a young female singer/performer during an interview post her performance. Suddenly people sing it everywhere, they gathered themselves in the shopping malls, standing on different levels of an atrium echoing and feeling the uplifting, those not familiar with the lyrics, looked at their smartphone, humming to the tone.
For a blatantly ignorance from the authorities, public outcry was high. Large scaled covert effort from the authority to overthrown the protest in a never seen deadly violent way promoted a vast sense of danger, pinning a blame to a peaceful movement, distorting what really is in hope to shift public opinion. Mindless observers ask will Hong Kong ever return to normal, referring to its orderly past. A sensible intellect will ask otherwise, will Hong Kong ever be the same again, citing forcibly imposed measures from an authoritarian authority against all will.
A scene from the movie Jurassic Park had two men walking in the forests while a group of small dinosaurs wondered about by their feet. Perhaps due to fear or maybe dislike, one man pulled out a taser gun and stunned one of them. The little creature cried out sharply, the rest fled. What followed was a memorable dialogue. One man said to the other, “they’re herbivorous,” the other replied, “not anymore!”
If nature of learning is regarded to be similar, forced wakening, from how brutally a message is delivered, undeniably leaves deep marking on kind hearts perhaps never erasable.
If some of us still like to retain an impression that such a movement, namely the persisting protest in Hong Kong, is a result of influences from an outside source aimed to cripple an existing regime, then perhaps we should ask how badly that regime had chipped itself to pieces that with or without a fist punching at it, it shall shatter. There is no glueing method of any kind or a miracle that could hold it together. If insists, the debate may be passed on to a later generation, but I think there is no need as this generation will be forced to see upcoming changes, and will be forced to figure out why. That on one note, how easily invasive our perception can be tailored to made to see things only one way not the other way; and two, why voices of resistance from the other side are so uniformly one, even more uniformed than our own, that we’ve literally left with no words and no spirit perhaps no hope for a continuation but to accept something new.
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Note: Due to sensitivity no images published had close up frontal and names and professions mentioned in the article are falsified to cope with this sensitivity; choosing to publishing this article a year later on the anniversary of this event also serves the same.
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https://latewrite.wordpress.com/2020/08/04/hong-kong-8-5-strike-nineteen-hours-in-hong-kong/
More than once had expectations failed themselves. I’d have arrived an island thinking a hurricane is going to hit it, it didn’t. Not only it is a miss, I ended with bright hot sun burning the back of my neck all day everyday with hardly a rain drop. The weather man on T.V. would then correct himself that the path of the hurricane had just curved unexpectedly, heading eastward or westward, only not to cross mine. But in H.K., the fight is right on.
Not everyone will say anything to you, most dodge the sensitive, some defer to answer, some kept silent, some shouting. As tension building, everyone’s true political inclination is being brought to the fore. The youth are surprisingly unified, vastly energetic, to pursue a cause with an untwisted sense of recognition.
Virtually unanimous, as I’ve witnessed that late afternoon in Admiralty (金鐘), as each round of tear gas fired, a round of “Dark Society” (黑社會) was shout out from the crowd standing above on the circular sky bridges. What seemed to be audiences on the corridors suddenly became a team of cheerleaders, with no one to orchestrate, they rally with unified output, rounds after rounds, dignified and calm, voicing the best support while delivering constant condemnation. Below on the avenue, the youth lowered themselves on the pavement, shadowing by their umbrellas edge over edge, forming a huge carpet of shield. Overhead, persisting smell of tear gas is windblown. Suddenly the sea of youth stepped aside, squeezed the spaces between themselves to clear out a pathway, a young man pushing a shopping cart transporting a large thick blanket run towards the front. Claps and cheers were heard as he passes. As more tear gas fired, some from the front retrieved up to the bridge to recuperate, they sat down on the floor, taking off their gas masks, washing their eyes with bottles of water. One young man from the pack after only a couple minute of rest, walked up to the rail to observe the action below. He tried to reassemble his gas mask over his face, but paused to catch his breath. He looked weak. I asked him in English if he is alright. He was first surprised that I spoke English and not Cantonese, he then signaled to me with one hand citing that he is not convenient to speak but nodded to confirm that he’s okay.
Over to my right, suddenly a commotion broke out. The recuperating pack was immediately at their full alert. Water bottles were thrown over a line of water filled barricades some 20 feet down at the end of this sky bridge. A few bottles were being thrown back out from behind the barricades, loud verbal exchanges were heard. Three riot police were seen moved about behind the tall barricades. The resting young men sensed their presence. Out of curiosity I moved myself up to the barricades. Through the narrow opening, I saw three riot police in short sleeves with shot guns and pepper spread can in hand, stood at an enclosed area otherwise a garden. Two of them appear to be woman, with one woman police lifting up her visor and shouted back at the protestors. I inserted my lens through the awkwardly narrow observing gap and snapped several pictures. A young woman reporter followed me carefully to the barricades, sensing no danger, she began to videotaping the police with her smartphone. The young men behind us stopped throwing water bottles, they let us taking pictures. They waited. The collaboration was mutual.
My move was to build a trust with protestors. The photos taken of police behind the barricades were useless. It is in what I call isolated fragments, they can’t tell a story as they’re only one isolated portion of the confrontation, I wanted to place both the police and the protesters in the same frame and this evidently can’t be done here.
I also wanted to gain a glimpse of what’s like behind the barricades. The police are feed up too, especially when cameras are pointing at them. Both sides are exhausted; heated verbal exchange between them can easily turn personally. It may be correct to assume that those who engage in a verbal exchange are less likely firing a shot at you because so much energy is being let out through words thus they’re less likely physically threatening.
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Following the barricade, I walked down the stairs from the overhead bride to what was then the battle ground. Scattered water bottles and damaged umbrellas dotted the street. In the distance a connecting throughway was empty of traffics, some protestors remaining on it and yellow vested journalists are seen walking by. It is only then did I finally figure out where I was. The police were above me on a mezzanine, from the same level of bridge the I just came down, positioned in a treed area, grouped behind their transparent shields, dressed in full gears, with their visors catching the slanted six o’clock sun. I walked up another escalator to an overhead bridge, where a heavy pack of yellow vested journalists surrounded yet another line of tall barricades, behind which riot police guarded what was the side of the main entrance to the legislative council building. One young journalist was seen demanding an answer following some exchanges with the police, venting his dismay through the barricade opening. From inside a male cop roared forwards the journalists as if to chase off the cameras pointing at him, by reflex the journalists pulled back a few step, knowing the danger stops at the barricades, they resumed their videotaping.
Soon as the main body of students retreated, another miracle unfolds. On the Avenue below, a group of young students immediately began a cleaning effort. On a street where minutes ago was a battle ground, with a brave imagery of the youth still occupying one’s fresh recollection, here they are, about thirty of them, men and women alike, in their masks, picked up scattered water bottles, flyers and damaged umbrellas, putting them in large plastic garbage bags and carried them away from the streets. The riot police looked on from the mezzanine as an amazing display of social responsibility quietly carrying out itself on the Avenue. Soon they were done, they walked off the site and dispersed in the dusk.
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I hadn’t found much to photograph during the first half of the day since arriving early in the morning. By tenish I’ve already in Wan Chai (灣仔), knowing it is early for anything I still wanted to check out the area and get a feel of it. As in any creative process I engage myself, I needed to work into it then jumping at it thus I allowed myself extra time to do this. I saw nothing out of ordinary, not even a trace of the strike, the same bustling streets receiving the same numbers of visits on an otherwise normal Monday. Coming out of the subway, I saw several men and women in their sixties stood by an exit handing out Metro Daily the Strike edition. A question I asked was not straightforwardly answered. As I wasn’t sure what to do, I saw a young female journalist in a yellow vest and gas mask scurried pass me. She stopped by the curb to hail a taxi but gave up waiting after a few seconds. She then continued to walk hestifully, passing the Metro station where I got off, apparently changed her mind again, turned around and skipped through an alley to another parallel street. She then run across the street despite no signs nor street markings permitting, and headed to a bus stop on the opposite side and waited at the end of a short line. For every a few steps she walked, she looked down at her smartphone. The latest communication must have been less urgent; resorting to take bus indicated just that. I lose the hope that she could lead me somewhere of action.
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By noon, life remains unexpectedly normal. Nothing extraordinary, I see no unexpected crowds, no agitation of any kind. At a soccer practice field, on its stadium side, locals and expats sat scattered in the shades, reading papers, mining their own business.
By 1:30PM, I messaged a friend, knowing a planned protest will run late, I decided to move on. Prior this I had a lunch at a poorly chosen restaurant despite not hungry. Anticipating plenty actions to come, I told myself not to eat again until returning to the airport late at night. I hailed a taxi to the Edinburg Place.
1:45PM, Edinburg Place (愛丁堡廣場）
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A meeting for local performing artists was in preparation. Under a row of canopies, several long tables and chairs and sound amplifiers were lined up. Two young women in their twenties are seen hanging a cardboard signage sporting a black cross made of duct tape. Next to them, hanging on an extension rack, a large poster sporting a striking slogan: Art being censored is like righteousness being lynched (被審查的藝術如同被處私刑的公義). To accommodate some 300 participants who had already waited in the shade by the building site, speakers moved themselves some 20 plus meters across the square to be near the participants, leaving a prepared stage behind. A canopy on four wheels was then rolled over to provide a shade for the speakers. Efforts were coherent. A sense of mission run high. I saw no familiar faces, no well-known actors and actresses; struggle must have been a lower level thing.
3:20pm, Quan Wan (荃灣)
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A bus is slowly backed off via the same way in, vans managed U turns on the two closed left lanes. A truck drove in straight despite waving hands from the protestors and stopped right before a line of men made barricades which sealed off the connecting roads. A stubborn driver got off his truck and began moving the barricades one piece at a time with his own hands. Roar of disapproving is heard from the young crowds marching on the opposite side of the avenue. Then a miracle happened, the protesting youth joined in, jumping over a road divider to the truck side, to help moving the barricade they’d vigorously set only minutes ago. A passage had been cleared to allow the truck to pass. Reason to concede was unknown. The barricades were then put back in place. The youth continued to march westwards along the avenue with their umbrellas and banners.
On every overhead sky bridges and walkways along the side of buildings, even public balconies on the side of shopping malls, protestors strategically positioned themselves, ready to open up umbrellas to block the view of any incoming cameras mostly smartphones from snapping pictures of the march below. The intent was politely declared to protect the identities of the protestors from possibly being seized by the authority. I even met a social workers marched in the crowds introduced herself to explain why this is important. It appears to be a shared responsibility, as they’re ready to relate to just anyone who stepped close to the proximity. Back on a skybridge, I saw several flyers pasted on a column, their arrangement and the aged look appealed to me. Soon as I raised my camera, a young couple stopped me citing the same reason. I stated that I only want to photograph the poster and not the people in the background, not to mention I was pointing my camera slightly upward and couldn’t include the street scenes down below. The young woman pulled a flyer off the column and handed it to me, “here, have it,” she said, I didn’t take it from her as this defeats the purpose of what I do.
After being encountered by an objection from two students citing I have possibly taken pictures of their likeness, I pulled myself away from the march and walked up an over head bridge to continue to observe from the above. However this has also prevented me from working close up. I no longer able to use my 24mm as I’m no longer in the crowd.
The terror created by high tech face recognition software capable to detect and to match faces plus numerous surveillance cameras installed, covering one’s face has becoming a widely accepted method to conceal identity. Additionally keen suspicion can out grown common sense, of intent from individuals who snap pictures during a protest, can be seen as an obvious danger to possibly reveal one’s identity to the authority. For this protestors kept closely guarded protocols before and during planned events to minimize penetration, and might have used a last minute information update to relate to protestors before an event takes place.
The apprehensive nature is real, given the circumstances, no one trusts the authority, neither the curious visitors. Previous cases from the June 4th of 1989 had that authority accessed students’ likeness from published photographs from the newspapers eventually led to arrests. Pictures taken by many photographers in Tiananmen Square had been misused for this purpose despite true intent for portraying the braveness from the hope seekers.
Events in the afternoon had been simultaneously updated on Stand News (立場新聞) on Facebook, that has helped me to plan which train stop to get off. Yet when I get a chance to read about it, it is already happening, and when I do get there it is almost near the end of it. Frustration was with me the whole afternoon. At least this gives me an outlook about how things are going.
I was also convinced that some social media had been used as a tool to relate the last minute info to protestors about the location and the exact time. I initially thought that being secret groups like those on Facebook, where an outsider could not get in regardless and informations shared in those groups could not leaked other wise. I ruled out WeChat as this platform is packed with monitoring mechanism. It didn’t take me long to realized which APP the protestors used after I read an article. Since the method had been published, I’m inclined to think that new methods should have been in replacement, if not so, it could pose dangerous complication.
8:30pm, Hong Kong International Airport
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My hip bumped into two suitcases placed side by side as I was moving backward repositioning myself while photographing a group of young students sitting protest across a walkway in the airport lobby, I turned to apologize and noticed the leaflets pasted on the suitcases, two very cheerful young students, a male and a female, stood by. I signaled with my camera, asking if I could snap a picture of their suitcases, they agreed and we began chatting. They don’t look any older than 18 year old, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, and they were surprised that I knew about what happened in Yuan Lang on July 21, 2019. When they mentioned the name of the place I said the date, we right away had rapport. Yuan Lang 7.21 has made many Hongkongers rethink about how down rightly dirty the authorities are, in a disguised tactic to carry out an actual suppression, by using the local gangs, beating protesters with bamboo sticks, left many bloody and wounded and suffering and a loss of hope for any possibly enlightened political upcoming.
I asked if they could sense there has been mainland security mixed in the H.K. police force? The two weren’t surprised but answered cautiously, they said that they had someone from inside the police who was ready to tell but he was then let go. the youth seem little concerned to clarify it further. It is no surprise that at their age and for being a student their thinking was fact-based. Prior my trip I’ve posed the same question via messenger to a young intern who works for the legislative council, her answer was equally careful, “I can’t fact check on that.” She didn’t deny the existence, her answer was scholar-like, as retaining doubts is an inner quality for truth seeker.
Before I left for security check, the young man took out a flyer and said to me in a pleading tone that only if I could help to spread it to just one other person, to let people know just how hard the situation is in Hong Kong and how hard they (the students) were fighting. I accepted it, on one side of the yellow flyer it reads: Five Major Demands (五大訴求), the other side, 不撤不散！I kept it in my camera bag still till this day.
Social movements help to clarify political stands while sense of belonging in various forms isn’t always readily apparent. When facing changes many choose to be vigilant. Two of my local contacts decided to not to see me on the day of the strike. One woman from an international trade firm, despite unable to go to work on the day of the strike, said will need to work from home even declined to lunch; and a young professional from a prestigious law firm who gave plenty info on the situation was not reachable on the day I arrived. Weeks later news on Cathy Pacific had its CEO absolved who, was ordered by authority to give out the names of his employees who participated in the strike. Rupert Hogg wrote his own name on the list and resigned, a protest in its own right had netizens touched. Dissent isn’t always soundless, a post on Facebook had a photographer paired this lyric with a simple image. 「明天不管將會如何，晴天陰天仍高歌此歌，從不懂解釋我為何，在你友愛里尋到火.」 No matter what happens tomorrow, be sunny or cloudy, I’ll still sing this song, not to explain why I am, in your friendship I found fire.
Driven by a renewed sense of urgency, a song had been quietly written for two months by an anonymous song writer (or song writers) only goes by the name “Thomas” or “T”, had been spreading all over Hong Kong, generated over one million clicks on YouTube on its first publishing, overshadowing a previous favor, on a similar theme, “Do You Hear The People Sing“.
“I feel like I was singing the national anthem when I sang it the very first time,” recalling by a young female singer/performer during an interview post her performance. Suddenly people sing it everywhere, they gathered themselves in the shopping malls, standing on different levels of an atrium echoing and feeling the uplifting, those not familiar with the lyrics, looked at their smartphone, humming to the tone.
For a blatantly ignorance from the authorities, public outcry was high. Large scaled covert effort from the authority to overthrown the protest in a never seen deadly violent way promoted a vast sense of danger, pinning a blame to a peaceful movement, distorting what really is in hope to shift public opinion. Mindless observers ask will Hong Kong ever return to normal, referring to its orderly past. A sensible intellect will ask otherwise, will Hong Kong ever be the same again, citing forcibly imposed measures from an authoritarian authority against all will.
A scene from the movie Jurassic Park had two men walking in the forests while a group of small dinosaurs wondered about by their feet. Perhaps due to fear or maybe dislike, one man pulled out a taser gun and stunned one of them. The little creature cried out sharply, the rest fled. What followed was a memorable dialogue. One man said to the other, “they’re herbivorous,” the other replied, “not anymore!”
If nature of learning is regarded to be similar, forced wakening, from how brutally a message is delivered, undeniably leaves deep marking on kind hearts perhaps never erasable.
If some of us still like to retain an impression that such a movement, namely the persisting protest in Hong Kong, is a result of influences from an outside source aimed to cripple an existing regime, then perhaps we should ask how badly that regime had chipped itself to pieces that with or without a fist punching at it, it shall shatter. There is no glueing method of any kind or a miracle that could hold it together. If insists, the debate may be passed on to a later generation, but I think there is no need as this generation will be forced to see upcoming changes, and will be forced to figure out why. That on one note, how easily invasive our perception can be tailored to made to see things only one way not the other way; and two, why voices of resistance from the other side are so uniformly one, even more uniformed than our own, that we’ve literally left with no words and no spirit perhaps no hope for a continuation but to accept something new.
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Note: Due to sensitivity no images published had close up frontal and names and professions mentioned in the article are falsified to cope with this sensitivity; choosing to publishing this article a year later on the anniversary of this event also serves the same.
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