Last week was when the umbrella protest was in full
force. Somewhere by the end of the week I
was walking into work through the protest.
I am lucky in that the protest seems to have set up right smack dab on
my walk into work. So I was walking in
and looking at art and enjoying the vibe, man it is so nice and peaceful and
wonderful. I passed a supply tent, one
of the places where people are donating free water, snacks, even food donated
daily from local restaurants. I asked if
they needed anything, I could pick up some food or water I suggested. The man sitting at the table already covered
with bottles and bottles of water said that they had it under control and didn’t
need anything, the guy next to him quickly added an honest enough sounding ‘thank
you for your support.’
This made sense, it seems as though they have to keep it in
the family. They have such a careful
approach which involves very respectful resistance. It is a message of politeness which permeates
to each and every single person in the crowd, and they know they can rely on
one another to toe the line. Me they don’t
know, so with me they are very kind and thankful for my support but they would
prefer me to lend my love and solidarity.
I have found ways of helping, I have donated water on other days, I have
talked with people and offered my love.
I wish I could do more, but understand completely why they keep me at an
arms distance; this is their fight.
Still I love them for what they are doing and I am inspired by
them. I am inspired by teenagers. I know, right? Teenagers.
About five minutes after leaving the supply spot I found a
way to help. I was walking up a set of
stairs to the public walkway which went between a set of malls and then off to
the ferry. As I passed the restrooms two
young, maybe fourteen or fifteen year old girls called to me nervously. They were dressed in all black with the
yellow ribbons, the uniform of the protestors in Hong Kong. They asked me if I could help them, I was
delighted and said absolutely.
One of
the two girls was holding a toilet brush.
Turns out they were afraid to go into the men’s toilet and needed me to
go fetch them another brush because, get this, these teens were voluntarily cleaning
public toilets. I went in and didn’t see
anyone so I told them to come in too. I
found a collection of mops and dust bins but no toilet brushes. They seemed disappointed, and I tried to tell
them how amazing it was that they were doing this, but they were on a mission
and disappeared into the ladies room.
That is what this is, that is who
they are, that is what they are about.
Young people have taken over major areas of one of the world’s largest
cities and they’ve done so without resorting to violence, they’ve held the
areas without destroying anything; no looting, no vandalism. As a matter of fact they are actually doing a
better job taking care of their little areas and the people in those areas than
the city does. I thought I would write
some of what I have seen so far down.
Here it go
Last week
I work in Admiralty which is
basically part of Central Hong Kong.
Several weeknights classes end at 9:45 and after ten or fifteen minutes
of chatting with other teachers and putting
the teaching business from the day to bed I am off to catch the 10:30
ferry home, there is no 9 o’clock. The
walk home at night through central takes me through a series of shopping malls
which connect by bridges and walkways.
At night all the shops are closed up and only the Mcdonalds and KFC are
still pulling people in. At night in
Central it is quiet, the stores and sidewalks that in the day are so crowded
and frantic become empty churches where footsteps echo and the rare people you
see won’t look you in the eye. At the
end of the walk through the malls is a bridge over a large street into a park
which takes me to the waterfront. At the
water I hang a left and stroll along the shore to the ferry piers. It is a nice walk, and at night the lights
from Kowloon across the water is dazzling.
Hong Kong has the most amazing skyline, no other city looks quite as great
especially by the water at night. At the
ferry pier the boat takes me into the darkness of the ocean and to my wonderful
little island twenty minutes away. I
look forward to my walk as I do my ride home.
It is peaceful and I let my mind wander to wherever it wants to take
me.
Last
week in the park before the water one night I noticed some students hanging
around. They were laying on the grass, a
drum circle here, a kid strumming a guitar there and some people passing out
literature in a language and don’t speak in an alphabet I can’t read. They looked like they had been there all
day. I stopped for a minute and looked
around, but really it was pretty small.
I didn’t know what it was about and it was the sort of thing you see in
a big city from time to time. Like any
big city commuter I kept walking to my boat without giving it much thought.
The
next night I noticed these kids again, I think that would have been Wednesday,
two weeks ago at the time of writing. It
seemed like a larger number, now they had a stage with people speaking into
microphones, saying things in a language I don’t speak. There were more people handing out fliers,
and there were now tables where people were signing things. Off I went for the boat again.
The
next night was Friday (I finish early on Thursdays) and I had had a quick after
work beer with Jason which wasn’t quick enough as I had missed the 10:30 ferry
meaning I had to wait around for the 11:30.
I noticed the vibe in the park had changed. Things seemed a bit more tense and I remember
seeing TV cameras where there hadn’t been any before. Instead of heading home I walked around the
corner of a building to where I saw a large crowd brewing. They were all yelling at police who were on
the other side of a glass wall. I could
see that four young, geeky looking, skinny teenagers were getting cuffs behind
their backs. A man near me was yelling
at the top of his lungs and waving a fist at a police officer on our side of
the glass. The crowd started chanting
something I couldn’t understand but when they did one of the kids getting
arrested looked up and smiled, which triggered an explosion of applause. A group of girls started singing the song ‘do
you hear the people sing’ from Le Miserables.
I know, I know it’s a show tune.
But there was something so powerful and important about the song as it
came from these kids. It was clear that
something was happening. I kept
investigating.
Around
another corner I could hear a massive crowd screaming from the bottom of large
wall, I must have been a few stories above it.
People were climbing the wall to stand on top and shout. I had no idea what was happening but was sure
something was going down. More police
ran by across the park. I noticed news
reporters. I walked around yet another
corner to see a sea of people outside a building. They were screaming and looked very
upset. I hung around but felt uneasy, I
didn’t know then what I was looking at.
After a while I split for the boat.
Later I
put together that that was the very day and the very building where hundreds of protesters had burst into and
occupied. That was the day when there
were so many arrests, that was when it was really kicking off. And I while I knew I was looking at something
I didn’t know what it was yet, and neither did the protestors and as they would
prove a few days later with their tear gas neither certainly did the police.
Saturday came and went, I didn’t see anything. Sunday was my day off and I had four hours
booked in the studio to practice for two hours each with two bands I play with
for two hours each. The first band was
with Richard Davis, a new project that promises to be a very fun early 90s sort
of college rock thing, Richard writes great songs and that day we worked with a
bassist and it gelled. In the middle of
everything Richard looked at his phone and said that police were using tear gas
and rubber bullets on protestors. It had
begun.
When
the second band had wrapped it’s jam it was 9.
The teenage girl who works the reception at that studio was all over her
phone and watching it on a laptop. We
asked them what was going on, her friend said some of his friends had been hit
with pepper spray by cops. This was in
Mong Kok on Nathan on Argile street near Nathan, one of the busiest streets in
Hong Kong which certainly means busiest world wide top ten. The streets were lined with people selling
illegal iphones right off the street corner, we saw one woman buying two. China being China here we had one half of the
city tearing itself to shreds and the other half making money hand over fist
knowing the cops were too busy attacking protestors to notice.
The
other guys in the band were heading to a bar in Wan Chai to have a beer, maybe
go check things out later. I had to go
then and there so alone I went to Central to find where the shit was going
down.
In
Central on the street people seemed frantic.
I saw a man leaving the area with
a camera. I asked him where to go and he
pointed over his shoulder and told me ‘go about two blocks that way, you can’t
miss it.’ He was right. Two blocks and around a corner I saw a row of
Hong Kong Police all in black with gas masks looking very much like soldiers
from some 80s sci fi. They had a massive
black sign which in English and Chinese warned of tear gas and people were
running the other way. I felt my eyes
start to sting. Someone ran past me and
in broken English warned me not to go that way.
A moment later I couldn’t breath and my eyes were on fire. I was coughing and gasping and realized I had
been exposed to tear gas. For me I got
it by getting a bit too close, I didn’t realize how far it spread and hung in
the air in the area afterwards. I was
not at any point close enough to be directly hit, but even as a second hand
victim it sucked for about fifteen minutes.
I made it to a nearby street and an old man
wearing a doctors mask was doubled over and gaging, his eyes streaming with
tears. I asked if he was ok and without
looking at me he muttered ‘the bastards, the bloody bastards.’ Here was a guy who had been very recently
subjected to tear gas and much worse than I had. I asked again if I could help him and he
looked me in the face through blood shot eyes before stumbling away. I went towards the chaos.
Around the corner I found
thousands, thousands of people charging down the street. I could see the tops of the police helmets on
the other side of the crowd. Plums of
acrid white gas clouds hung and drifted just above street level a few meters
ahead. Each time they launched the tear
gas (I’d say it was about once every ten minutes) people would flee the front
area, ducking and screaming only to turn and march right back to the front
moments later.
I don’t remember seeing umbrellas
that night, maybe they were there and I didn’t notice, as it was not yet known
as the umbrella protest. I think it was
later in the night that people started pulling out umbrellas, but I did see
lots of surgical masks. I also saw most
people had covered their eyes with cling wrap, some over glasses and some had
just wrapped it around their heads several times. I think the effect was that they were not
only getting tear gassed but also couldn’t see clearly through the cling
wrap. The message was more telling the
police that they couldn’t or wouldn’t be defeated.
At this point I had to pee, really
bad. I had had a couple of beers with the
guys at practice and it was getting serious.
Central Hong Kong is about the worst place to try to find a toilet when
not in a late night violent civil upheaval, that night all shops and doors were
locked and all building security were on guard.
So I left for a while, wandering in vein trying to find a place to
piss. I was mad at myself too, I
realized I was witnessing history and would miss it due to my weak beer
bladder. Finally, finally I found a
security guard in a building far off who unlocked a hallway leading to a men’s
room.
When I got back the police line had
actually been pushed back a really long way.
It was pretty amazing, actually.
I heard later that protesters in the front were picking up the
barricades and marching them forward at the cops who had no choice but to back
up. By this time (and I guess it was
about two hours I had been there) the
police where boxed in on both sides by the students.
The closer I got to where the
police where, the younger the crowd was becoming. They looked fifteen on average, and they were
all getting gassed. I saw a line of
police who were blocking a side street in a line behind a barricade. It looked as though they had been flanked and
separated from the other detachment. Now
they stood in one row from one end of the side street to the other taking abuse
from hundreds that were screaming at them.
It made me feel sad for them for a second. They grew up and were from Hong Kong too
after all. Then I reminded myself that
they were using tear gas on children and I remembered that I didn’t feel sorry
for them anymore.
Closer I walked to the police line,
now pushed far back. I started to think
it was a bit foolish, being there, being that close to the shit as it went
down. I don’t know if it was the sheer
spectacle o f what I was witness in or
the high minded ideas which held me there.
I had the feeling I was seeing something important, something I would
never see again. I fully realize that
those among us will criticize me for getting too close, although I do think I
was far enough back that I was not in
real danger. And while it certainly
isn’t my fight as I am not a real Hong Konger, it is my home and you know what? I believe in democracy as well as peoples
right to protest for it. But after a
while it started to feel like it wasn’t my place to be there, plus I needed to
catch the last ferry of the night home so I split.
I woke the next morning with a head
ache, I could still smell tear gas on my clothes. I went out to the new territories to my
friends Jason and Sandra’s house. They
were scheduled to head out for Macau for a nice gambling weekend and I had
agreed to watch the dogs. They have
cable which means Cinemax and out here that means super crap 80s action films
pretty much all day. I was treated to
Superman 4 and Cobra, later in the night I got the x box going with a grand
theft auto game. I had been really
excited about the idea of house sitting with the big tv and all, but that day I
couldn’t stop thinking I needed to go back to see what was happening, so in the
evening I called my friend Jonathon and we met up in Mong Kok to look at
things.
Mong Kok had thousands, it was
impossible to walk down any part of the road.
Nathan road (perhaps the busiest in Hong Kong) was clogged with people,
their barricades had stopped all traffic.
Everyone was wearing all black ,everyone had yellow ribbons. Jonathan took me to a bus, a double decker
bus which had been surrounded by people and cut off and eventually abandoned in
the middle of the street. It was now
covered with paper signs but noticeably no graffiti of any kind. No spray paint, no bumper stickers. It was sitting in the middle of an
intersection of one of the busiest roads in one of the busiest cities on earth,
surrounded by I guess close to a hundred thousand that day and nobody had done
a single destructive thing to this bus.
Someone was passing out sticky notes for people to leave on the bus, on
mine I wrote ‘fight the power’. Best I
could think of. An old man next to me joked
that I should put it in Chinese and I laughed and told him I didn’t know how so
he smiled and laughed too.
The streets were teenagers sitting
indian style on the ground shoulder to shoulder. One of the MTR train stop exits was covered
with hundreds of people who had climbed to the top. We walked and walked in one direction for
what must have been thirty minutes along Nathan in the same direction and saw
no end to it. Some protestors were
walking around with trash bags picking up after people. Others were setting up the initial water
supply points, collecting what food and water they could and passing it out for
free. There was a recycling area also,
it seemed as though the protesters were doing a better job running their small
city than the actual city had ever done.
We made it to one major
intersection and a sea of lights cell phones lit up like lighting bugs on a
summer night and the crowd sang a song which was calming and serine. This was one of the many times I felt
profoundly moved by the pure beauty of the umbrella protest.
Jonathan and I ducked into a store
and bought as much bottled water as we could carry. We went around a corner to a supply area and
gave it to one of the people giving away free supplies. We kept walking.
I called to Jonathon over the crowd
that this was how you are supposed to have a protest movement. I said that this was these were the kids who
got it right. A man near me in the crowd
heard me and said “You can never see a million person in the streets are
peaceful. Only Hong Kong.” I was inclined to agree.
It seems the whole idea is to give
them nothing to complain about, be as respectful of everyone as possible while
shutting down a major metropolis. Give
no reason to incur wrath, prove that your side is bigger. They use tear gas on teenagers so the
teenagers turn around and clean up the city, and they offer free water and
snacks (yeah snacks, like cookies and crackers everywhere you go god bless em)
to any stranger that walks past.
Starring in the eye of the tyrants that would rob them of the democracy
they were promised these kids would be so bold as to smile and offer to
recycle. They block roads with
barricades decorated with signs apologizing for any inconvenience. We teachers spend our lives regarding these
teens as kids who lived in their facebook profiles and phones and for
shopping. We were wrong. Man were we all wrong. I have never come across a more impressive
group of young people in all my life as the kids of Hong Kong. Did you know one of the main organizers is 17
years old? Yep Joshua Wong is 17 and
along with others is orchestrating this thing.
Over the following days people
talked and speculated. One of the most
common sources of conversation seemed to be how everyone expected it would take
for Beijing to get nasty. People love to
speculate. Wednesday was the big Chinese
national holiday and also the largest day for the protests so far. It was unbelievable to see and it was strange
to walk down what are normally busy streets which were of course now carless
with kids sitting in file. Each road was
half occupied by the protesters and half open for people to walk. Concrete dividers on the road had jury rigged
steps for people to walk over as well as protestors on each side offering to hold
your hand over. Every so often you’d
pass someone with a water mister spraying all who passed with their pleasant
vapor. Seriously, not just one but loads
of people spraying a gentle mist on the hot crowds of people. I wandered around for hours that day. Eventually it became a bit dull, mainly I
suppose for another reason the umbrella protests are great; it’s not in any way
a show or an entertainment. There is no
stage, no bands, no games, no hot dog booth.
This is a protest, and I saw many signs reminding people of that. Aside from people yelling through bull horns
there was nothing to see beyond the thing itself. This is a movement that has a very large
concentration of teenagers, you’d think someone would want to get one direction
or something. But wow these are some
wise young people, nothing of the sort.
They are not trying to keep numbers by offering some sort of
entertainment, I think that may have been a mistake of occupy wallstreet.
Another point I’d like to make
about this, they have a very short list of seemingly reasonable but more likely
impossible demands. The biggie is they
don’t want their election in 2017 to consist of candidates who were vetted and
preapproved by Beijing. They were
promised democracy in the hand over in 97 and this is the issue that has
brought out the large numbers. They also
demand the resignation of the current governor
CY Leung. They have other issues
related to the cost of housing as well but those seem to be taking a back
seat. Having a clear set of demands
makes it more difficult for the government to refuse them, as does their
peaceful respectful nature. China being
China I think it is clear that to give in an inch would be unthinkable, so it’s
hard to know where this will go at this point.
Last
Friday, I was teaching a class from 6:30 to 8.
At 8 I had a fifteen minute break in which I went upstairs and learned
that a group of bullies (I later found out they were Triads) went into the
demonstrations in Mong Kok and started punching people and trashing the
barricades, the police stood by and watched.
Rumors haven’t been proven but it is a pretty safe bet that these men
were paid to do it. They claimed to be
supporting the police, and remember these are peaceful teenagers now getting
punched in the face by government hired members of the most notorious Asian
Mafia this side of the Yakuza.
The
news made me sick, I felt like all the air had left my body. I walked back down stairs to teach and a
young man came running into the room and politely asked me for the class
materials as we was going to study on his own.
I gave him the hand out and as he was leaving I asked him if he was ok,
he turned and said ‘no’. As he was running
down the hall of the school I called to him to be safe, he waved back to me
over his shoulder. I have no doubt he
was running to get to Mong Kok.
But the
kids kept coming over the weekend. The
next morning I saw an old man posturing like he was going to fight protestors
on my walk into work, that was at 8 in the morning. Other teachers said they had seen fights in
the subway.
That day class numbers were way
down. I teach kindergarten age kids on
Saturdays now and a lot of the parents were really upset about having to drag
their little kids across what was becoming more and more of a tense
situation. The next day was Sunday and I
went out to Mong Kok for band practice.
I waited by the exit, the always busy street was now open and occupied
now by blue ribbon people. These guys
were in support of the cops, and I think a lot of them were Hong Kongers who
were sick of seeing the streets taken over and some of them were the thugs that
were beating people up. A crowd of them
formed with someone screaming about something in the middle. Around the corner were thousands, thousands
of protesters. It didn’t look like these
guys were about to do something, it looked more like they had cleared out a
small quarter of a block and were in one corner griping as the protests
continued.
All week things started to die a
natural petering out. Numbers were less
and less as the scheduled talks with the government approached. The HK government had agree to hear the
protesters, but before the talks word went out on twitter and facebook that if
they didn’t get what they wanted that protesters should be ready to
return. This was used as an excuse for
the government to call off talks all together and the next day everyone was back. Not in a huge numbers, I suppose the ones who
were only sort of into the first week are home.
But the hard core dudes are out in tents living there.
I would now like to outline the
steps the Hong Kong government has taken to deal with the protests in five
steps.
1.
Tear gas protesters, many of whom are teenagers.
2.
Hire members of the mafia underworld to beat up
peaceful protestors (again, teens)
3.
Order police to stand back and watch as members
of triad mafia underworld beat up protesters.
4.
Agree to hold talks with the protest organizers.
5.
At the last minute tell the protest organizers
to go fuck themselves and call off talks.
Crazy that it isn’t working for them, right? I guess the scariest part is gonna be step 6.
