Visiting Hong Kong during its time of unrest and changes

Jan Pokrzywinski, 2019-10-16 Comments

For quite a long while I was wondering what the first article should be for my website. I was in this procrastination bubble, where I had an idea, I made templates, I prepared some initial texts for some of my planned articles. Then nothing, for a few months, until one jet-lagged and sleepless night in Hong Kong, just a day after the "very dark night" when I pulled my crap together, sat down and started writing this. Don't expect much as I'm not a great writer, definitely not an "influencer" but I may tell you some things that your usual news agency won't cover.

Coincidentally, I arrived with my family in Hong Kong just a day after the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. Why would I go there in such turbulent times in the first place, you might ask? My wife comes to Hong Kong each autumn (or at least tries to every year, with certain gap years due to pregnancy and such) to pay respects to her family. We bought our plane tickets earlier in the year and they're non refundable, like everything else labelled "economy" in today's world. I like to think, that we're not stingy but rather cautious with our money, hence we decided to go regardless of the political situation. It couldn't be all that bad, right? The media gives highlights of the protests every now and again, sometimes mentioning an escalation of sorts. In most cases, articles sum everything up to a few paragraphs without any vivid descriptions.

This was also the first time we were bringing our toddler with us on such a long haul flight, to a different time zone, a good few hours out from her nap and feeding schedule. Coming with us, was my mum, partially as a treat to thank her for all the help she provided in recent months with taking care of our child and partially to exploit her some more to help with the child whilst on the trip. As I was to learn, travelling with a small child and her adaptability to a 7 hour time difference was not the thing to worry about in light of everything else going on.

We arrived on Wednesday the 2nd of October, a day after the biggest protest and immediately something felt wrong. I've been to Hong Kong before and I have never ever gone through immigration check that fast. Where were all the people? Considering its capacity and my previous experiences, the airport felt almost empty. This impression didn't end there, the hotel felt about the same, barely anyone in the lobby. We have stayed in the same hotel before, around the same time of the year and it always took us some time to queue up for check-in. Not this time.

On the first day as is usual for us, we spent time stretching after a long, tiring flight. Then we made a run to the nearest Wellcome supermarket in order to pick up all the bottled water that we could bear to carry with us. I somehow tend to forget how hot and humid it is in Hong Kong. I'm not great with hot weather and I end up drinking the same amount of water in a day, which I would normally have in a week.

The next day we had some errands to run and recheck our plans and arrangements with the local parties with whom we were to meet. Not much to say about Thursday, really. The biggest highlight of the day was probably the breakfast, not great but miles ahead of the plane food we endured the day before. I should have also sensed that the mood in the city was not great, based on some of the posters I spotted while walking around.

On Friday, we went out with family to get ripped off, like the tourists do and go for an open bus tour. Word of advice here: don't ever bother doing it, it is literally never worth the money in any of the cities, Hong Kong being no exception. Now that I told you not to do that, when we did it, we went to Stanley, with the idea to visit Stanley Market (to get ripped off some more). Throughout the journey, walking along Victoria Harbour, travelling on the Star Ferry and walking on the Stanley promenade, I had this constant feeling that I must have travelled in time. Back to when Hong Kong wasn't overpopulated and overcrowded with unending masses of tourists. There was no getting stuck in a crowd exiting MTR tunnels, no elbow fighting in a run to the ferry and no constant stopping behind American tourists in Stanley. The place just felt empty.

On our way back from Stanley we experienced the first sign of things to come. At the Central stop on the bus tour, we were told to alight as there were no more buses to The Peak Tram. Huh? The tour representative literally told me "too much traffic". Hold up yo, I'm not that smart but also not that stupid, I'm not sure who that excuse would work on. Only after a few more seconds of my "not amused" stare, she finally piped up "There are riots, go back to the hotel". Fine, we're getting somewhere with a more satisfying explanation, "Yes ma'am, right on it".

This is probably a good time to mention that first of all, I fully support the Hong Kong people and their fight for democracy, even though I don't agree with some of the violent outbursts. Coming from a country which only in recent history fought the same fight, even though I didn't experience it first hand, I can relate a lot. Another thing to mention is that even though my full support is outspoken as it is, I'm definitely not heading to the front row to show it. I'll let someone else clash with the police, while I'm sitting comfortably in my air conditioned hotel room. I could try to make excuses for myself "Oh, I have a family to look after", "I'm too old", "My foot hurts and it's too hot" but the reality of it is, is that I'm just a wimp with no intention of inhaling tear gas or getting my arse shot.

It is also worth mentioning that it's really hard to gauge the bias of the media coverage of some of the events, as I have noticed a certain sway in a few local news articles. You know, where they report facts and yet there's an underlying pro Chinese, pro government hint in every article. Very subtle, yet present and hard to ignore. I was in Hong Kong in 2014 when the first Umbrella Movement protests were starting and later in 2016 during the "civil unrest". At the time, media coverage for these events seemed a bit more balanced, I guess something must have changed in the last few years. This time, I was to learn how very limited the coverage is and how much of what's happening gets filtered to fit the headlines.

We made our way to the hotel before it got dark, Sha Tin suddenly looked much busier than previous days. We went out to have dinner in a restaurant nearby and pick up some more, much needed bottled water. After standing for about an hour in the supermarket queue, we walked out to a completely different picture. Aside from it getting dark, we saw piled up traffic on one side and a march of people all dressed in black, chanting on the other side. I recorded an obligatory video that will allow me to brag at work about how "exciting" my holiday was and then we returned to the hotel to put our daughter to sleep.

Back in the comfort of our room, we were wrapped in our parenting bubble of the bath time and bedtime routine. We occasionally heard some sirens and alarms setting off in the distance. Once our child fell asleep, we went on to take turns to shower to wash off the day. Whilst I was sitting and catching up with the much delayed news about the anti-mask law, I heard chanting just down the street. There was a small march outside our hotel and a road barricade. As I was to learn next day, we were not far from a more central hub of all the chaos. I again, took some videos, and for your convenience I put them all together into a single clip, here. That was about it, there was a fire truck trying to break through the stopped traffic, we saw some laser pointers bobbing on the Sha Tin Town Hall building, a light beam from a helicopter on one of the buildings across the river but not much more than that.

The next day, Saturday, we had to make the best possible use of daylight and with the ever-changing environment, adapt our plans to accommodate for any potential disruptions. With the closure of the whole MTR network, that meant no more touristy stuff for us. My wife and her sister set off with their family to drive to the mountainside and the temple to pay their respects, ahead of the Chung Yeung Festival in order to cover all the bases in case of any further network closures on the day. In the meantime, I set off to run some errands and experienced the aftermath of "a very dark night" as Carrie Lam called it. I had a backpack full of dirty laundry, another full bag under my armpit and a shopping list with me to keep me company. Naively, I was thinking that maybe if I manage to finish up quickly with the essentials on the list, I can take some extra time to shop for new shoes.

I walked out into the heat and left my mum with my child to nap together. First on the agenda: laundry. Bless Google Maps, as much as I hate all the giants meddling with my private data, I do enjoy the services they provide to make my life easier. I found a laundrette just across the river and started my way down there. Initially everything looked like it did the day before, until I hit the underground pathway. Now covered with fresh graffiti. A few steps further, pavement bricks were missing, which I can only guess were used as projectiles during the fights. A lot of the ground level shops were closed down with shutters drawn.

For an early Saturday afternoon, it was dead quiet in the Sha Tin Centre. On the sky bridge level quite a few shops were closed but not as many as downstairs. Then walking down, I saw the darker side of the riots, a food joint which was heavily vandalised and was still signing out an alarm, many hours after the night skirmishes. This is what I can only suppose the media described as "targeting pro-Beijing businesses". I'm not entirely sure how a Japanese chain restaurant would become a target in an anti Chinese movement, I don't know the background of this business but this does seem to be a line where the pro-democracy protests start turning into "break shit up" riots. Only a few days later and after rather an excessive investigation into it, I found out that this is somehow related to the comments made by the chain's owner on twitter and I'm still unsure of the details.

I got the laundry sorted, with an ever grumpy lady behind the till. There is always something about those laundrettes and their attitude to customer service that makes me uneasy, no matter in which part of Hong Kong I'm trying to drop off my dirty pants in. It was time to move on to the next item on the list, which was to buy some throat lozenges for my mum. She was being obliterated by the omnipresent air conditioning. Finding an open pharmacy turned out to be more of a challenge that it would seem, on my way I passed three Watson shops, all of which were shuttered down. Well, not a problem, I'll just go to the bigger shopping centre, the New Town Plaza and go to one of the pharmacies there. Or not? As it turned out, that shopping mall was pro-actively shut down to avoid any looting or other acts of vandalism on the day following the unrest. This is one of the biggest shopping malls in Hong Kong, I can't even grasp how big of a financial hit it must be for all of the businesses within its premises. After being politely ushered away from the sky bridge door connecting the malls by a security lady, I set back walking through the maze of Sha Tin Plaza mall to finally stumble upon an open Mannings where I got some honey candy.

After abandoning any other non essential items from the shopping list, I set back to the hotel, taking a different route to take in the extent of the damage and see how far it had spread. I walked through the sky bridge and saw a constant stream of black and red spray painted slogans. This by itself felt like an alternate universe. All the previous times when I was in Hong Kong I never once saw graffiti anywhere. On my way, I witnessed more ripped up pavement, piled up barricades and half burnt down boards. Walking through the underground passage I noticed some small printed posters comparing the current government staff to the deadly sins, along with some other prints covering some of the events so far. Next to me taking photos, were some elderly people stopping and reading it, looking like they're not fully comprehending the message. I'm glad that I took those photos, these posters were gone from the subway walls the next day.

On the stairs going up from the tunnel I passed a man with a little girl, about 6 or 7, she was looking around at the graffiti and the posters depicting a police officer aiming a gun at a protester. For a brief second our eyes met and I saw a mixture of confusion and fear in her eyes. I think this was the moment when it really hit me, clueless, arrogant tourist. This could be just as well, me walking down with my little girl, uncertain of the future and scared to go out as the youth of the nation struggles with the oppressive government. The main difference is, I'm going to leave in a few days. She will stay here to see the whole story unfold, no matter which turn it will take.

That evening there were no more riots, marches or any other happenings in the Sha Tin area. This had nothing to do with the introduction of the anti-mask law but rather an unforeseen closure of the whole MTR network as a result of the night's vandalism. That by itself was the most crippling blow to the prostesters, as well as everyone else in the city.

Although I'm writing this while I'm still in Hong Kong with a few days until my flight back, I will publish it after my safe return back home. I don't know how quick the Chinese bots would scan this based on key words and put me on some sort of black list. I'm just a nobody with an opinion, trying to peek into the chaos from the outside to understand a bit better on what's going on.