It’s been a helluva couple weeks in Hong Kong. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets multiple times — braving sweltering heat and, in one case, tear gas — to protest a deeply unpopular bill that would allow extradition to mainland China.
The demonstrations were enough to compel embattled Chief Executive Carrie Lam to shelve the bill, but in addition to being an effective form of political protest, they also served as a clearinghouse for some creative self-expression, both amusing and affecting.
So, as we wait to see what next steps organizers and activists are planning in hopes of squeezing further concessions from Lam, let’s take a look back at some of stuff circulating in the protest-sphere.
Like Moths to a Flame
In Chinese culture, moths represent the souls of deceased loved ones, but last Sunday they represented something else entirely. Moths were a recurring theme on the protests at June 16, with dozens of protesters waving moth-shaped placards (and one woman yelling at an actual moth in Admiralty) thanks to a pun on the Chinese word for “moth” — 蛾, or ngor — which sounds an awful lot like a character in Carrie Lam’s Chinese name, 林鄭月娥, or Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.
And speaking of wordplay and Carrie Lam, the increasingly unpopular leader is often referred to as “777,” not only because it’s a reference to the number votes she captured in the CE elections, but also because the word for seven in Cantonese is a homophone for the word for “dick.” The more you know…
Grammar, Police
Hong Kong’s police chief, Stephen Lo, has been taking a lot of flak lately, not just for police’s heavy-handed response to Wednesday’s demonstration that was totally a “riot”-but-not-a-riot-riot, but also for his English language skills.
During a police press conference on Thursday, June 13 — where reporters turned up in full protective regalia — Lo struggled to find le mot juste when responding in English to a question by an SCMP reporter about officers arresting protesters in hospitals.
“I understand some people will feel that we are locating rioters or protesters inside hospital seems very umm… uhh, seems very, umm… sorry, I can’t find the right word,” Lo says at about 15:30 on this live stream.
Cue the internet, which leapt in to immortalize the moment in a WhatsApp sticker.
New Whatsap stickers poke fun at Police chief Stephen Lo, who in yesterday's press conference struggled to find a word when answering a q in English and told everyone to stop laughing when he said he respects journalists pic.twitter.com/d2zZyevBuc
— Vicky Wong 黃瑋殷 (@vickywong710) June 14, 2019
Praise the Lord, and Pass the Amusing Signage
If these protests have had an unofficial anthem, it would be the 1970s Christian hymn Sing Hallelujah to the Lord. The song picked up steam when students started singing it at protest sites, partly to ease tensions between protesters and police, but also as a cover for remaining at the site for as long as possible. (Fun fact: under the Public Order Ordinance, unlike protests, you don’t need a permit to stage a religious gathering.)
The sheer ubiquity of the song might seem strange given that A.) it’s not exactly the first tune that jumps into your head when you think “fight the power” (Where’s the Rage Against the Machine, guys? Or, for that matter, “Fight the Power”?!), and B.) the number of people who identify as Christian in Hong Kong hovers at just around 10 percent of the population.
Nonetheless, it’s been all over, and we apparently weren’t the only ones to pick up on the odd dissonance inherent in staring down police brutality with a kinda sappy song that seems more the province of a long-haired youth minister with an acoustic guitar.
BEST #extradition protest poster: "Stop Using Baton Or We Sing Hallelujah To The Lord"
Photo by my colleague @jamespomfret @Reuters pic.twitter.com/zhUIY3Iuft
— SJ (@SijiaJ) June 16, 2019
Just Like Moms
Motherhood has been a bit of a recurring theme in the protests. There was Carrie Lam’s condescending analogy in a TV interview, in which she likened herself to a mother, and the tens of thousands of protesters in Admiralty to spoiled kids. Then, there were the thousands of moms who staged a sit-in in Central, waving placards telling police: “Don’t shoot our kids.”
But the mom that everyone remembers was Tina Luk, a 47-year-old church worker who tugged Hong Kong’s heartstrings after footage of her tearfully facing off with riot police at last Wednesday’s violent protest was widely circulated. In a clip broadcast by local broadcaster i-Cable, Luk can be heard yelling at officers, “I’m someone’s mom! You also have a mom! They also have a mom! Please don’t do this! I beg you you put down your weapons! They’re just kids! They’re only teenagers!”
Luk has since become something of an emblem of the protests, and was immortalized in a cartoon by local illustrator Kong Chi Lo. The first panel depicts Carrie Lam, with the caption “Mother,” sitting impassively as riot cops beat protesters, while the second shows Luk pleading with police accompanied by the caption “Rioter.”
Luk was also immortalized in the guise of “Little Miss” — the English children’s book/cartoon character — by designer Maxwell Ip (who we interviewed in 2014), who draws key Hong Kong figures and news events as characters from the beloved Roger Hargreaves series.
Back Off
On Tuesday, June 11, some people had planned to camp overnight in Admiralty ahead of a planned citywide strike the following day. But when people arrived at Admiralty MTR station, they were met with a large number of police officers, who were preventing people from leaving the station and carrying out bag and ID checks on protesters — and even journalists.
Pro-democracy lawmakers soon turned up to the station demanding an explanation, and the ensuing exchange went viral after one officer freaks out halfway through, shouting “Don’t touch my back!” and wheeling around, only to find his own police colleagues.
Naturally those words were plastered onto the back of everyone’s t-shirts during Sunday’s protest. (They were also at the center of a recent kerfuffle at a cake shop, but that’s its own thing.)
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByzyegsjzxK/
Freedom’s a Bitch
Police’s use of force on protesters last Wednesday drew swift and widespread criticism, but almost equally upsetting to Hongkongers was their use of foul language, which came across as adding insult to injury, quite literally. One video even circulated showing cops threatening protesters taking refuge in a nearby building, telling them to “come the f**k out, motherf**ucker,” and calling them “f**cking liberal c**ts” (real classy, guys).
Local illustrator Ar To responded with this cartoon of the Goddess of Democracy — a statue that was famously erected in the middle of Tiananmen Square during the 1989 pro-democracy protests — dressed in full protest regalia with the words “Freedom-Hi” written on it. Accompanying the illustration was a slogan that was a direct rejoinder to the cop’s deployment of the c-word: “I’d rather be a free pussy than a fascist turtle.” (“Turtle” is an old-school slang term for cops.)
The poster was printed and circulated by the thousands by the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.
https://www.facebook.com/Artohk/photos/a.337271833020631/2250348881712907/?type=3&theater
Mr. Yellow
There was also a somber element to some of the last week’s protest art after a man fell to his death on Saturday evening after unfurling a banner on a set of scaffolding protesting the extradition bill. The following day, thousands of protesters lined the street near where he fell to leave flowers, origami cranes, and incense in his memory.
One tribute came from the dissident Chinese artist Badiucao, who has been especially busy this week, creating eye-catching illustrations of Carrie Lam shedding crocodile tears and Joshua Wong speaking to protesters shortly after being released from prison.
One of his more affecting creations, though, depicts a yellow raincoat — like the one worn by the dead protester — falling through the air.
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByvNZaPjVis/
