Verna Yu - 'Don't mess with us': the spirit of rebellion spreads in Hong Kong
An old Chinese idiom
has become the key catchphrase of Hong Kong’s social discourse in recent
days. Pien Dei Hoi Fa – flowers blooming everywhere – is
the term being used to describe the emergence of local protests and
so-called Lennon walls,
colourful collages of sticky labels with political messages, that are popping
up in local communities all over Hong Kong. Millions in this
former British colony have flocked to the streets in several mass protests over
the past month to fight against a proposed law that would allow individuals to
be extradited to stand trial in China’s opaque courts. Now, feeling emboldened
by the solidarity and big turnout at recent protests, which have made headlines
across the world, Hong Kong people are now riding on the wave of their success
to speak up on a range of issues, which are generally related to their
discontent with the encroachment of China into Hong Kong.
Over the past weeks,
there have already been many smaller scale rallies on the sidelines of the main
protests, among them a couple of mothers’ rallies urging the authorities to
listen to young people and numerous open-air Christian gatherings urging peace. But many more, with
different themes, are in the pipeline: there are at least five planned protests
or rallies over the coming week and nine until the end of the month, and lists
of these are going viral on social media.
On Saturday thousands
of people turned out for a Reclaim Sheung Shui protest in a town near the
mainland border, a show of anger against so-called parallel traders who snap up
goods ranging from foreign-made formula milk to cosmetics and medicines and
resell them in China.
On Sunday, a rally in Shatin against the extradition bill and a separate
journalists’ march on Hong Kong island against the police’s rough handling of
reporters are planned. There will be an elderly people’s march to support the
young next Wednesday and a rally against pro-Beijing media in the next few
weeks.
Such frequent protests
are rare in Hong Kong, where people are known for their stoical work ethic in a
city that has some of the highest property
pricesin the world and little social welfare provision.
Many interviewed by
the Observer in the Sheung Shui protest on Saturday said the millions-strong
anti-extradition protests last month had become a lightning rod for them. Many
have been accumulating pent-up anger against the government for policies they
felt they had endured long enough... read more:
