On this sleepless night, there is a small story I want to share. Today I went to the courthouse to sit in and support those who had been arrested. For the first time I witnessed a judge's contemptuous manner towards a defence lawyer, which left those of us in the public gallery dumbfounded — but I won't dwell on that here, because what I really want to share is a young woman I met afterwards. She had made a journey of more than an hour specially to come and sit in, and as we walked and talked we shared a good deal of what we had each been through. The understanding between us was the rare kind of kindred-spirit recognition you almost never find, and in the blink of an eye an entire afternoon had passed.
A second-year university student, she goes out almost every weekend to protest, always on her own, because she has no like-minded friends around her — each time it is just her slight figure, with no companion to look out for her. "You have to remember not to use a 3M respirator, it doesn't form a complete seal!" she reminded me. She had been hit by tear gas; the gas had got in through the vents of her mask, the sting so bad she couldn't open her eyes, and as she tried to flee she had no idea what to do — luckily a first-aider rinsed out both her eyes in time.
The most harrowing moment she described came while she and a group of fellow protesters were in a standoff with the riot police: a charge from the Raptors came out of nowhere, and she immediately turned and ran for the only escape route. At that instant a Raptor brushed right past her. My heart was in my throat as I listened, yet she spoke of it lightly — it turned out she had not been the target. I asked her if she hadn't been afraid. "I didn't know what was happening, so I stayed calm — I wasn't scared at all. One Raptor charged right to the front and pinned down a protester next to me, so I and a few others piled on top of him to get our comrade free."
I could hardly believe that this young woman, smaller than me, with only a soft, gentle voice, looking so mild-mannered, was so brave and resolute underneath — none of this is something you could observe from the surface alone. From our conversation I learned that, although she does not push right to the very front of the line and rarely faces the worst of the danger, she goes out to protest every time fully prepared to be arrested, and still wants to fight on to the end: "If the day ever comes when I'm taken, I won't be willing to be locked up before we've even won."
We got onto the incident a couple of days earlier at Causeway Bay station, where two protesters had been subdued on a stalled escalator by two officers wielding batons. To my surprise she felt a touch of resentment about it: "When I saw those few protesters running up the escalator and abandoning him, honestly I was furious. I understand that for a lot of people, walking away the moment they see police is an instinctive reaction — and yes, saying it out loud is bound to be divisive — but when the situation allowed, why couldn't they have helped get him free?"
She believes that, to this day, many people still haven't worked through a certain mental block, that they carry a kind of moral shackle: "When the other side won't listen to reason and is breaking the law, why should we still be the ones bound by the rules — wasting time trying to reason with them?" Even so, she sees the larger truth clearly: "That said, the way I understand it, everyone has their own baggage, and I can't demand that every single person be exactly like me. Just because someone holds the same belief as you doesn't mean they'll act on it the same way — and the reverse is true too."
Lately the chant "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times" has rung out stirringly every night at ten o'clock. I asked her whether she had gone out to shout it from her window, and she said quietly: "Actually I've never once shouted that chant, because I feel I'm not worthy of it." In her eyes, Hong Kong people — herself included — haven't yet reached the level of revolution, haven't yet made the necessary psychological preparation. "So many people still don't grasp what a revolution costs — that it would mean giving up more than we hold now, things like our jobs, our ordinary daily lives, traded away for the future, and yet nobody is willing to let those go." She went on: "The older generation simply settled into their lives in silence, and now it's left to us to clean up the problems that have been piling up all along. If I were to shout that chant when I'm not truly part of a revolution, I would feel deeply ashamed."
For a few seconds the air seemed to freeze, and I admired the courage and conviction in her bones. In that moment I was thinking that our ideals may be set too high — so high they're like a heaven none of us knows how to reach. These days I often imagine what it would be like if Hong Kong one day became a place that was just and that put its people first: first the dirty cops would be reckoned with, Carrie Lam and a host of officials would be held to account and resign, and then, after genuine dual universal suffrage was put in place, power would truly be returned to the people rather than the mainland coming first, and society's problems would be solved — no one would have to live in a coffin home stripped of dignity, the white-elephant projects of Lantau Tomorrow would be scrapped, young people would have a day when they could rebuild hope in society…
I've drifted too far. The truth is, the reason she and I clicked so completely is that, like her, what I long for is to break free from rule under the Chinese Communist regime. She said that if one day she heard someone cry the chant "Hong Kong independence", she would be deeply moved. We both believe that Hong Kong people are the most precious thing on this land — in language, in thought, in culture, in identity, all of it irreplaceable — and that, facing the Communist Party's years of reddening and its contempt for Hong Kong people, for as long as we have no self-determination over our own future, our fate will still be controlled by the Party, and we will only end up like the Uyghurs, facing the day our bloodline is wiped out.
It took us three months — how many lives, how much blood and sweat from how many protesters, how many people's cries — to finally force the government to respond to just one of the five demands; yet everyone felt Carrie Lam had left it far too late, because we had seen through her hypocrisy and no longer believed this authoritarian government would ever bring Hong Kong people a future.
But many still haven't seen clearly that, even if the Hong Kong–Beijing side were to meet all five demands, as long as we remain under Chinese Communist rule, the suffering of Hong Kong people will go on, and 2047 is still a reality we will have to face. Since 1949, what the Communist Party has done has been there for all to see: just look at how it has endlessly bloodied and violently crushed those who pursued democracy and raised questions — all the more so under Xi's perpetual rule, the Party will never wake up.
As it happens, both this girl and I were at the courthouse for the first time. She said that going out to protest is exhausting, but she still feels her own contribution is negligible, and that she came to sit in hoping to let the arrested protesters know that someone was there supporting them. I suddenly recalled someone asking, "What use is one more of you out there?" Honestly, I don't know either — like today, saying "stay strong" to the arrested protesters, I didn't really help them in any concrete way. I just imagine that if no one were there in the public gallery, then facing the hearing alone would be that much lonelier and more forlorn for them.
Forgive this long piece for having no real thread; only at the end do I get to the thing that moved me most, and I'm grateful to anyone who has read this far. When the girl and I were talking into the evening, she said she needed to buy gear, so I went along with her for a wander. It turned out she wanted to buy an anti-theft waist bag, and when she saw the price tag marked at 40 dollars, she fished out her wallet and found she was 2 dollars short. Awkwardly she asked to borrow it from me, saying she'd pay me back next time. I laughed: "Silly, it's two dollars, forget it!"
Not long after she asked me again whether I knew of anyone giving out meal vouchers, which threw me for a moment: "Is it for yourself you need them… or definitely for a friend?" Just then she walked off towards the queue and said, embarrassed, "I've no money… so I wanted to keep McDonald's meal vouchers to eat with after each protest." Only then did it dawn on me, and feeling that my own foolishness had put her in an awkward spot, the ache in my heart was hard to put into words: "Why have McDonald's for every meal, that's so dismal… let me treat you! And come on, you're going to do one more lap with me now, let's see if there's any other gear you want to buy! I'm getting it for you!"
She broke into a genuine smile and said: "Last time someone gave me a pink respirator, so I've already upgraded! Everything else is complete too — all I'm short of is a waist bag!" In the end I snatched the waist bag out of her hands to go and pay, only for this stubborn thing to clutch the banknotes in her hand and try to slip them into my backpack on the sly. I said: "I suspect you're concealing an offensive weapon! Hands off!" Even as I said it, she kept trying to sneak the money into my bag, until I gave her a good smack — even the cashier started laughing.
"I don't want people helping me out… it's just that I'm too lazy to do part-time work. It's not right like this — next time I'll pay you back, treat it as me changing four ten-dollar McDonald's vouchers for you, all right?" she said, a picture of helplessness. I said: "No deal — I'm covering your dinner tonight too, I'm treating you! Accepting someone's kindness is a good thing, you know!" In the end she insisted on going home to eat to save the money, but I managed to talk her into going with me to a protest next time so she'd have someone to look out for her, with dinner afterwards on me.
I questioned her like an interrogator about what she eats on a normal day, because I am very tense and worried she might faint from not eating enough. She told me that at home she mostly cooks instant noodles, and when she has time her mum cooks rice, but after every protest she always eats at McDonald's. Hearing this, I genuinely felt that the older generation owes the young far too much. What we are fighting for is a value we have believed in from childhood — a just society.
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