The “Fishball Revolution” as seen in protest art

Violent confrontations between protesters and police officers in Mong Kok yesterday have been dubbed the “Fishball Revolution” after the snack that supposedly started it all.

The riot, which saw police firing warning gunshots and protesters hurling bricks, has already inspired a creative reaction from artists.

Besides the visual and political similarities to fellow Chinese cartoonist Zunzi, political cartoonist Badiucao‘s drawing bears striking similarities to iconic anti-war photographs such as Bernie Boston’s “Flower Power” and Marc Riboud’s “Flower Child“. Badiucao’s rendition has a bright yellow background in an undeniable reference to the symbolic yellow umbrellas from 2014’s Occupy Movement.

Graphic designer Hello Wong‘s less abstract take shows an imaginary exchange between a fishball hawker and an armed police officer, which depicts the officer saying “Raise both of your hands”! Put down the weapon!!”

The artists behind popular fictional pig “Bi Bi Pig” drew a quick sketch of an anthropomorphic pig hawker with his piglet, surrounded by shadowy pig figures (with two helpfully labelled “Food and Environmental Hygiene Department” and “Police”).

The text reads “Eating a skewer of fishballs means pepper spray and open fire… Hong Kong, what’s going on?”

This image, which has been circulating widely on social media, shows a sign saying “No Fishballs” in the style of MTR warnings. The artist’s identity is not clear from the cut-off watermark, but the image has been shared countless times via various forums of social media.

Finally, in a digression from the “fishballs and guns” theme, artist Dim Sum Graphics has knocked up a comic strip showing the disparity in police action during the case of bookseller Lee Bo’s disappearance, versus the literally “guns blazing” approach taken in Mong Kok.

The strip, titled “Hon9 Kon9”, is a play on the popular Cantonese slang term, “on9“, which means “stupid” or “foolish”. Underneath a photo of missing bookseller Lee Bo is a shrugging police officer with both hands up, saying “There’s nothing we can do”, while a skewer of steaming fishballs is met with a group of riot police saying “出盡全力“, which roughly translates to “Give ’em all we’ve got!”.

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