/ a hong kong love story /
it’s been some very long dreadful nights for our city of hk. with this spinning head and restless brain that i’m sharing with everyone in town, and being a bad sleeper myself, it’s been all the more difficult to get back to sleep in the middle of the night. for the past year, thanks to my information addict husband, i’ve been flooded with stories and insights left and right and sorta forced to hear all sorts of political happenings, media injustice, public outrage and grudges, a dysfunctional government, political scandals… some quite entertaining at times. all this time i had remained an observer lounging in our comfortable home in this seemingly stable city. then bang, it all exploded on one sunday, and with all my fellow hk people, we’ve come face to face against the full force of every inconvenience, injustice, dishonesty and conflict that’s been bottled up.
as it unfolds, we’re immediately flooded by a sea of different opinions. our youngsters occupying central with style and dignity for their hopes and dreams, with their democratic ideals in various forms and expectations; our officers in their different duty roles, struggling hard with the toughest mental and physical tensions; and the rest, the “silent majority”, who prefer to play it safe and take things slow. all of us cling to the same hope for a better city; all of us equally amazing hong kongers that love our one and only home, that we belong to and belongs to us, with tenderly love.
yet we are all weak, blinded by each of our own wills and emotions, we often fail at letting our true good come thru. impulsive violence, self-centeredness, insensitivity towards consequences, cynicism, extreme criticism and unfair judgments, lack of empathy… with our limitations, we are equally weak and failing.
but who are we fighting for? a better city? democracy itself? or our individual perception and understanding of democracy? freedom? and who are we fighting against? our dysfunctional government – the disposable bridge to mainland? or the oh so gigantic dictator so called “grandpa”? or rather the international conspiracy against our country? or maybe just simply, something is not right, we need to face it and fix it?
and i put these together, plain and simple. yellow and blue ribbons, formed and real, pinned together, sacrificial and brave. held together tight onto a disguised hard rock of white concrete foundation, firm and stable. under bright natural light, shadows form under the constant intertwining of light and darkness. it’s a real picture composed without any photoshop miracle. and it’s beautiful.
we are one very unique city with the captivating night. we are the pearl of the east. our grandparents built a good foundation for us with their own bare hands, we’ve gone thru prosperous yet orphaned colonial times, we’ve reunited with a not so familiar motherland. we continue to struggle with this “dad” that we’ve longed for, yet we can’t feel the same connection and belonging as the rest of the world would for their nations. we don’t resonate to our national anthem as much as to “獅子山下”, or even “海闊天空” that makes better portrait of our city’s rootlessness and wild dreams yearning for a safe haven.
pulling all nighters out on the street, or suffering and hurting for or against protests, or jail time and public ridicule, or making judgements on what is and what not, or building theories to help solve the problem. all are worthy and good, but it is not enough. our city needs peace, not harmony our grandparents seek, but a radical peace. our city needs people to fight for our dreams, proud and united, to play each one’s unique role in this powerful symphony that will rock the world.
make peace, together we walk on.
