It had to be pretty bad for you to leave Hong Kong
Hong Kong Demonstration 20190721 Wan Chai-3 (Baycrest, CC-BY-SA-2.5, via Wikimedia Commons [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Hong_Kong_Demonstration_20190721_Wan_Chai-3.jpg])
Today is July 21, 2023.
An unforgettable day, four years ago.
Many foreigners would say, “It had to be pretty bad for you to leave HK.”
Many were expecting me to tell them the real situation.
Many had no idea.
Some couldn’t even tell Chinese from Japanese.
July 21 pushes many memories and emotions already buried in subconsciousness to the surface.
Perhaps it’s time to take stock and attempt to tell the story the way it can explain why so many have had to leave Hong Kong.
Sure, there have been many excellent documentaries on the HK situation.
Apart from the fact that the soundtracks and closed captions don’t really express the narration, their main messages vary.
A few homed in on capitalism vs communism.
Some focussed on politics.
Others stressed on chronology.
Yet others followed individuals.
Still some aimed to explain forces behind.
Those interested in a wholesome record can consult the following:
“Hong Kong Timeline 2019-2022: Anti-Extradition Protests & National Security Law | Human Rights in China | HRIC中国人权” https://www.hrichina.org/en/hong-kong-timeline-2019-2022-anti-extradition-protests-national-security-law
Therefore this is written to give a simple Hong Konger’s viewpoint of the months of anti-extradition protests that impacted one with a “How can it be!?”, or “That’s not right!”
And, which were the events that most struck Hong Kongers as “crossing the Rubicon”?
So here they are described which hopefully when read by even a foreigner, will explain why HK has become so unrecognisable and so unbearable to continue to live in.
“How can it be!?”
“That’s not right!”
***************************************************************
There were many incidents that really broke a Hong Konger’s heart.
These could be grouped into:
(1) Those that starkly betrayed a change of nature of the Hong Kong Government. They were:
a. 721 Yuen Long
b. 831 Prince Edward MTR Station
c. 824 Mis-using MTRC to shut down stations to public
These forever peeled off the Government’s facade.
(2) Those that changed the fundamental societal contract under the rule of law. They were:
a. Trampling of private commercial property right of Shatin New Town Plaza
b. Trampling of private residential property right of Mei Foo Sun Chun
c. Disregarding public safety in firing tear gas in mass transit stations of Tai Koo and Kwai Fong.
These forever subjected Hong Kongers to quasi imperial rule.
============================================
721 Yuen Long Station White Tee people attack citizen in platform (Stand News, Copyrighted free use, via Wikimedia Commons)
(1) Those that starkly betrayed a change of nature of the Hong Kong Government.
At the top of the list.
Police in bed with triads orchestrated by CCP and assisted by Government owned Mass Transit Railway Corporation: 721 Yuen Long.
This has got to be the most traumatic.
On July 21, 2019, people whether dressed in black or colours, including reporters and Legislative Councillor, were violently assaulted by dozens of men primarily dressed in white. They came twice into the station, the second time even forcibly rolled up the shuttered gate. They beat people up, outside the paid area, and then inside the paid area, and finally chased the people all the way down to the platform and into the train cars.
Surprisingly with all cctv monitoring, the train cars not only stayed in the station, but with doors opened all the time! PA system asked riders to exit cars, while white shirts were streaming down!
That’s an early suspicious inkling of the MTRC being an accomplice.
If this event were merely a gang vs people assault, it could have passed as a not too extraordinary mass fighting in HK.
But it wasn’t.
And couldn’t.
Over the entire time when the beating took place, the line to the Yuen Long police station could not connect.
The police station was shuttered.
There were police beat into the station in the early minutes, but photos showed two policemen turned back and strolled away whilst the assault took place.
And it took 39 minutes for tactical police backup to arrive and when asked if he knew how long it had taken them, the commanding officer jeered, “Sorry I don’t know, not wearing a watch!”
Enough clips from media showed that hours before assault, police patrol vehicle passed by groups of white shirts gathering, carrying canes, and did nothing.
Even after the assault, the police officer in charge was seen visiting the gathering place of white shirts and even putting hands on the shoulders of them in a friendly posture.
There was no arrest.
There were sufficient clues to lead to the view that this mass assault was a concerted effort of police and triads in the area, intended to teach a lesson that HK people needed police, or else.
It didn’t help when photos showing the deputy Police Commissioner before promotion, seated in a banquet with Yuen Long key representatives with known ties to triads surfaced.
He was then the commander overseeing Yuen Long.
He would become the Police Commissioner and eventually the Secretary for Security!
Threats and assaults from triads were not news.
Police brutalities weren’t either.
But police conspiring and using triads in an assault of average citizens?
Acquiesced with Government owned MTRC?
That had to be non-HK!
Who could have such power to mastermind and moved all these pawns?
Orchestrated by China influences?
Well, a vehicle registered to an official of a NT branch Chinese department was found on the streets of Yuen Long that night.
And just a few days ago a Mr Shek (石鏡泉), Deputy Editor of the Chinese owned HK Economic Journal called for armed protection of villages, using the image of the kind of whips later on adopted in the 721 assault.
What a coincidence!
That was not what the HK people were used to.
That was really alien.
Depraved beyond the pale.
“How can it be!?”
“That’s not right!”
The Rubicon was crossed.
For the latest documentary on 721, please consult:《721四年：無警時分》
831 Prince Edward Assault (Pakkin Leung@Rice Post, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Police brutality in a black box again assisted by MTRC: 831 Prince Edward MTR Station.
A month later in the evening of August 31, hordes of masked and numberless police rushed into MTR train cars at the platform, purportedly chasing protesters who had changed clothes and blended in. They indiscriminately and mercilessly beat up whoever were inside.
They dressed like the “Raptors“ unit known at the time deployed to respond quickly to protests. So it was assumed they were police and there was never any denial that they weren’t.
But the brutality they showed just was too foreign to Hong Kongers so that it had given rise to rumours that these were imported mainland special police.
The masks and identity-less dress code made it easy to believe.
The brutality seen on clips available encouraged people to believe there were deaths.
And there was no press permitted down the station to film.
Not even first aider was permitted.
Only police.
And MTRC.
Because very soon the station was shut down, bypassed.
Certain trains still moved transporting injured to other stations.
Transporting police too, probably.
But no press, no light.
Black box.
Police, Government-owned MTRC on one side, common citizens the other.
Even if as police asserted protestors had changed clothes and mingled with riders, so what?
Did it justify the kind of indiscriminate brutal beating?
If on 721 the police were still playing the role of police, though with halfhearted enthusiasm, on 831, they gave up all faking and donned the tormentor uniform.
They appeared to have lost all professionalism, all cool.
They whipped with the force betraying their frustration, contempt and hatred.
Bordering on revenge.
Against citizens who paid their salaries.
Assisted by a mass transit company owned by the same citizens.
Using triad no longer satisfied the thirst of first hand revenge.
HK police officially declared tax payers enemy.
“How can it be!?”
“That’s not right!”
One of many of clips of what took place before the station was shut and press removed: https://twitter.com/hk_watch/status/1300380279631118337?s=20
824 Kwun Tong (Pakkin Leung@Rice Post, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Misuse of safe mass transport: Aug 24, 2019, Closing Mass Transit Railway Stations to force protestors onto streets in East Kowloon. This is 824 Mis-using MTRC to shut down stations to public.
Hong Kong people are used to seeing entities such as, Housing Authority, Trade Development Council, Housing Society etc.
They are all established by statues though funded and owned by Government.
They used to have the image of independence from interference though the statues give them a semblance of freedom from interference.
At least reasonably.
Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC) is similar, except for one thing: it is a publicly listed company with Government as majority owner!
Still it derives its authority for all operations under the Mass Transit Railway Ordinance, primarily to provide a safe and efficient public mass transit.
Deviate from that, it is illegal, regardless what the owner directs.
Regrettably the MTRC blatantly deviated from its sanctioned mission under the Ordinance on August 24.
As can be gathered from the Hong Kong Free Press article (“Hong Kong MTR shuts 4 stations around legal protest in Kwun Tong following China pressure”), the MTRC buckled under Mainland newspaper pressure and declared it would shut down several stations on East Kowloon just when a mass rally, already having obtained a permit of no objection from the police, was to take place in the area.
Instead of the usual practice of providing mass transit for citizens and protesters alike, to safely exit from the areas, the MTRC decision essentially turned the East Kowloon area into a dragnet.
Without the mass transit, all protesters were trapped and the consequence could be foreseen: clashes with police.
Crowds could not orderly and safely exit from the area.
Dispersal became inevitable.
So were tear gas, and water cannons.
The CNN report was just one of a multitude of such: “Hong Kong’s calm broken with tear gas on 12th weekend of consecutive protests”.
Once again, the MTRC had a direct hand in the escalation of conflicts.
Worse was it surrendered its primary mass transit mission and became a weapon of the government, no doubt instigated by Mainland backed interests.
The Rubicon was crossed.
Dominos began to fall.
Trusted statutory bodies would begin the vehicle for a weaponisation journey of no return.
============================================
(2) Those that changed the fundamental societal contract under the rule of law.
The three incidents mentioned above, namely 721 Yuen Long, 831 Prince Edward, and 824 East Kowloon, all had fingerprints of government, police, MTRC and Mainland influences.
This was the warped nature.
There are more.
The following will outline the direct result of the corrupting of nature.
The rotting of a good system emerged.
New Town Plaza Shatin Station entrance roadblock 20190922 (Wpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Trampling of private commercial property right: September 22, 2019, Shatin New Town Plaza.
Traditionally, HK rule of law respected the boundary between public and private.
Police without warrant cannot enter private premises and space, whether it is personal or corporate, residential or commercial.
Sure, in the rare and reasonable case of a few police chasing down a knifer or robber, they have cause to deter a crime or apprehend someone committed a crime.
HK people were not fussed by that.
But certainly no large scale occupation.
Of the like that took place on September 22, 2019.
It was Shatin New Town Plaza to fall.
Protesters were gathering in Shatin that day near the New Town Plaza where the railway station was situated.
It didn’t take too long for the police to close the dragnet and corner the protesters towards the New Town Plaza.
Of course then the protesters still held to the normally honoured practice that police wouldn’t breach the line of private property, which was the New Town Plaza.
So they retreated into the mall there.
Little did they realise that there was no longer any respect of property right that did not belong to the government.
A shopping mall owned by Sun Hung Kai Properties was no different from the roads outside: all were at the mercy of the authority!
(Or as it later emerged that the owner SHKP had invited the police to enter to quell disturbances. A ploy that started world wars no less.)
Police with riot gear stormed into the mall, surprising the protesters with devastating and brutal efficiency.
A report of many is found below: “Hong Kong police storm mall after protesters smash rail station”.
The red line was breached.
The disrespect of private property right began.
It would worsen to space for public access but yet within property right of mixed commercial/residential nature, mass transit stations, and academic institutions.
It would be completed when a private residential estate would be trampled under police boots.
Of Hong Kong no less.
Kwai Fong Station 20070726 (I, WiNG, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Tai Koo Station (Matt @ PEK from Taipei, Taiwan, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Police fired Tear Gas in a pedestrian escalator subway: Aug 11, 2019, Tai Koo/Kwai Fong MTR Station.
That police had a vision problem was obvious.
They lost the perspective that they were paid to serve and protect.
Their vision was cornered to see citizens as enemies or potential enemies.
No civilian casualty could be spared, and to be mercied.
It wasn’t difficult to see that the HK police morphed into military combat mode.
They became masked and masked ID number.
They called protestors as “roaches”, employing Nazi dehumanising tactics.
Perhaps they could be excused, for the contempt and disrespect since June 2019 must have been accumulated to such an extent that their meagre personality and poor philosophical underpinning couldn’t provide them a healthy outlook to life.
In combat a soldier has only friendlies and enemies.
In a civilised society like HK, police was not the military but the police couldn’t handle.
They were too spoiled and poorly trained to differentiate the two.
On August 11, finally, the police fired crowd control weapons in Tai Koo and Kwai Fong stations.
While Kwai Fong was a quasi-industrial and lower income area, and the shots were fired in the above ground station concourse, Tai Koo was a different story.
Taikoo Shing, Taikoo Place, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong (sfllaw of Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
It was a middle class private housing estate with sizeable Japanese and Korean population, even with a super grocery store with Japan interest.
Worse still, the tear gas was fired in an enclosed environment and as could be seen in the clip below, took place in an underground escalator pedestrian passage connecting the main shopping centre of Tai Koo, the Cityplaza, to the MTR Tai Koo Station!
One would never expect to have happened in HK, much less Tai Koo!
A clip from BBC: 〈香港「反送中」示威：防暴警察在港鐵站內開槍、發射催淚彈〉
Map of Chinese University Siege in November, 2019 (OpenStreetMap contributors, Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Common)
Protester suffer from tear gas in Cheong Wan Road flyover 20191117 (Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Students seen as enemies: Siege of Chinese University and Polytechnic University November 2019.
A picture paints a thousand words.
There are numerous video records like these two below that tell a better story from various angles.
So there is no need for more words.
https://youtu.be/SNk9gWJWv58
https://youtu.be/YWsmXksO2bk
Suffice it to say that once the police saw protesters as “cockroaches”, youths and universities students whom Government had spent tons of money cultivating meant nothing to them.
Worse still, the police’s inferiority complex flared up in face of the contemptuous chants of young students who could get it to university whilst police flunked!
Revenge was the sweetest, in double measure.
The universities were reduced to war zones.
Students were captured like POWs.
Parents left wailing outside.
Alumni and average citizens driving to CU clogged the highways.
And those aiming to rescue the Poly students were themselves trapped in Tsimshatsui and Yaumati by riot police almost losing their lives but inevitably ended up being prosecuted for being part of a mob (暴動).
Civilisation as it was known was suspended.
Without pronouncement, martial law was in force, surreptitiously.
HK in Nov 2019 would fade even from the rear mirror.
Mei Foo Sun Chuen (Chong Fat at Chinese Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Breaching of private residential property right: Feb 2, 2020, Mei Foo Sun Chuen.
With all that were going on in the second half of 2019, it was logical that the story should wrap up itself sooner or later.
The collapse of the Hong Kong as most had known it would complete.
It would take an unassuming candidate to usher in the new reality.
MFSC was probably the very first large scale resendential estate in hk, leading in others like Taikoo Shing and City One Shatin.
They were all redeveloped from industrial uses such as oil depot, shipyard and gas depot, thus all had large hectarage to build dozens of residential blocks with a sizeable commercial centre.
Within them often were large landscaped spaces for residential relaxation.
Though for obvious convenient reasons they were designed to encourage ingress and egress, still the ease of access didn’t diminish their status as being private, and residential.
Yes newer estates would have gates etc to tighten security but that was not the case for MFSC.
The line between public and private though mental, yet real and respected.
No gate, nor fences.
Still there was the respect of private property.
It would be breached and trampled too in MFSC.
After months of confrontation between police and protesters, the average citizen’s understanding of their mode of operation increased.
With it came an increasing disdain.
So applauses were heard days ago when the security of Swire, a well known British company which managed the upscale Pacific place in Queensway resisted the incursion of police into the shopping area.
Now it was the turn of the security guards of MFSC fending for the rights of the residential estate.
Here as can be seen from the clip (https://youtu.be/51azEUWPnpY), the guard leader was applauded for standing the ground for the residents he was hired to protect from the overwhelming number of riot gear police, who were paid by taxes of the residents under threat by the police!
The victory sweet as it was, was short lived.
Soon military-like force, funded in part by tax paying residents of MFSC, overwhelmed and breached.
Sad and common end in HK.
It had to be pretty bad for you to leave HK
To document others would face two principal challenges: death by multiplicities and by boredom.
Those interested in historical digging would have the internet to thank.
A few keystrokes with the right words could trawl up treasures, words and images.
Here I would just list a few that show the way of life in HK as we knew it was history.
- Riot gear police searched for protesters in Tsuen Wan Macdonalds. Whereas previously no one had expected an everyday meal in an American Macdonalds would see riot gear police demanding HKIDs, it happened now.
- Stop and Search on buses at tunnel portals and piers. Traffic was stopped cold and if you had a weak kidney you were out of luck. Riot gear police stopped every bus at the tunnel portals, in an effort to nail protesters either on the HK island going home to Kowloon and New Territory or vice versa. It never happened before. But now it was expected, harking back to the Japanese occupation days.
- Police drawing pistols easily in protests, Tsuen Wan and Sai Wan Ho wounding youths.
Thus the metamorphosis of HK was complete.
Or to be exact and truthfully dramatic: the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde conversion.
The opposition between police and triads, gone.
The duty of police to protect citizens, gone.
The distance between police and statutory transit corporation, gone.
The respect by police of private commercial property right, gone.
That of private residential property right, gone.
The basic respect of life, gone.
The cherishing of next generation students, gone.
All those not agreeing were enemies.
They were dealt with without mercy.
They were “cockroaches” deserving no humanistic treatment.
Japanese imperial occupation armies re-emerged in HK police uniform.
Things normally expected in the HK society smothered, beyond recognition.
The Rubicon in rear view.
I was there from 2019-2021.
I was amongst the protesters though not with Molotov cocktails.
I had to find ways and bus routes either out of HK island or Kowloon Peninsula back to New Territory where I lived, although I was peaceful-rational-nonviolent (和理非).
And I was qualified to join the team of Silver-hair if I wanted to.
All that didn’t matter at the end.
I saw no pendulum but a spiral downward for Hong Kong.
I sold my flat in Shatin while it could fetch something (now at 2023, it might have dropped 20%, in a yet still downward projectile).
I had to leave HK.
It became too foreign to me.
Governed by clowns who even flunked mere mediocrity admittance exam, yet collecting HK$300-400K a month!
A clown with no originality is not worth that.
I had to leave HK.
“How can it be!?”
“That’s not right!”
Kai Tak Airport Arrival Terminal (Ywchow, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
I conclude this with my own personal story.
Years ago I was meeting my parents who flew into the old Kai Tak from USA. Too excited, I lost track of my son.
Kai Tak then was like what we saw in movies, crowded, noisy, smoke filled and full of opportunities for the crooked.
Thankfully the PA system called for me to lost-and-found.
There was my beloved son, whom I had momentarily lost.
Later I would find out that he, must be still in primary school then, thought it would be normal to approach someone with uniform when in distress.
He ended up well.
Now after what took place in 2019-2020, that uniform was tainted.
My son could well be worse off.
I wouldn’t look for them, even in distress.
I had to leave HK.
In 2021.