Cave Bliss is an Australian in her 40s. Her husband is currently living and working in Hong Kong. Find out how they were swept up in a protest in their neighbourhood and how this experience galvanised their fight alongside Hongkongers.

“The protests had been going on for months. My husband and I had joined a few. This time, the rally took place just one block away from our apartment, so we decided to join in. Quite unintentionally, we found ourselves near the frontline between the riot police and the frontliners...”

— Cave Bliss

Journalist: Cave Bliss

Photographer: One Hungry Coconut

The protests had been going on for months. My husband and I had joined a few, but they weren’t in our neighbourhood so we would return home before they escalated.

This time, the rally took place just one block away from our apartment, so we decided to join in. We walked alongside people from all walks of life. There were elderly people with their walking sticks, families with young children—some even with babies in strollers, groups of young adults, couples holding hands, people in suits, people holding up signs and umbrellas. The majority of the people around us wore a face mask, though we did not.

Following the flow of people down numerous city blocks in the rally, we found ourselves back in our own neighbourhood. We turned at a corner and discovered that we were at the rally’s frontline. Quite unintentionally, we found ourselves at the frontline between the riot police and the frontliners.

People at the frontline

Many frontline protesters urged everyone to turn back from the frontline, saying that we had reached the ‘end of the line’. They said that the police were lining up against them a couple of blocks further down the road, as well as across the footbridge just one block ahead. Many of our fellow protesters followed their instructions and headed back to where they came from. Since we were so close to our home—not to mention that we are familiar with the area—we decided to stay in case we could be of some use. We knew how to escape quickly and easily if things took a turn for the worse.

Noticing we weren’t wearing masks, a woman approached us and gave us each a black face mask. She then moved on to the people who were also bare-faced and repeated the action. At that moment, a group of about ten PRN (peaceful, rational, non-violent) started to walk through the crowd towards the frontline. The crowd parted to provide them with a clear path, cheering them on and clapping as they passed. The atmosphere was electric; we sensed something was about to happen.

In the middle of the action

I noticed a few protesters unscrewing and dismantling nearby streetside metal railings with a few others shielding them with umbrellas. I opened mine and joined them. Suddenly, someone yelled, “Get down! Tear gas!”

Everyone crouched down behind their makeshift shields. No teargas was fired this time.

Everyone went back to what they were doing. With the railings now completely unscrewed from the footpath, the black-clad protesters carried them towards the frontline to use as a barrier between themselves and the ‘raptors’—a common name for the special tactical squad among the riot police.

We decided to relocate ourselves closer to home in case we needed to make a quick escape. We made our way through a small lane that dissected a block between two parallel main roads, each containing thousands of protesters facing off against lines of riot police.

As we approached the end of the lane, we noticed a commotion up ahead on the main road. Everyone was yelling, but we couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Then it happened—a few shots rang out in the near distance, tear gas smoke started to billow, and a stampede began as everyone turned and started fleeing down the road. We ran with them, but we soon got separated.

Umbrellas and bandages

Being familiar with the area, I ran towards a hidden laneway that I knew of and followed the lane up a hill. At the top, I was met with a scene that took me a few seconds to process.

I saw an elderly lady getting her eye bandaged by her equally elderly friend, while a couple of first aiders were attending to a young man wrapping bandages around his ankle.

The young man’s friend saw that I had an umbrella and politely asked if he could use it. “Of course, please,” I said as I offered it to him. He held it up over us to shield us from the police helicopters that had started to fly overhead.

Once the crowd below had moved past and his friend was ready to move, they both got up and started to head back down the lane. After a few seconds, he came back. “Sorry, I forgot to leave your umbrella.” Before I could tell him to keep it, they had gone.

Meanwhile, the two elderly ladies were also leaving. The one who had helped bandage her friend earlier limped as she walked away. I noticed they were carrying a bag full of bloody garbage and so I told them that I would take it. They were very grateful not to have to carry this small burden and limped away after thanking me over and over again.

Watching them both hold onto each other as they made their way back down to the street broke my heart; they were out here fighting for freedom alongside their younger neighbours. They didn’t deserve to be dealing with this.

Unexpected encounters

I messaged my husband as I made my way towards home, telling him I was on my way. He messaged back that he was also close to home, but had stopped to help someone who had been caught in the thick of the tear gas. The sting of tear gas was still in the air by the time we reunited near our apartment building.

A small crowd had gathered at our vantage point about one block up the side of a hill alongside the road that just minutes before was teeming with stampeding protesters escaping tear gas. We watched as the police walked past, moving forward along the road, gradually pushing the protesters into the next suburb.

It was time to go home.

Opening the security gate to our apartment building, both of us in shock as to what we’d just experienced, we quietly made our way up the stairwell.

As we turned a corner, we discovered two young men, teenagers if I were to guess, standing in the stairwell in front of a small kitchen that was on the second floor. One man’s skin was very red and he looked to be in great pain as he applied saline from a very small vial to soothe his skin. We immediately invited him to come to our apartment to have a shower. He was extremely grateful as he timidly followed us up the stairs.

We prepared the shower for him. He asked us if we had any spare clothes and shoes he could use. We collected a sample of clothes and shoes for him to choose from as he showered in cold water for about ten minutes. Meanwhile, the second young man waited outside, too timid to come inside. When he had finished showering, the first young man gratefully chose a pair of flip flops—his feet were too painful to wear shoes—but opted to wear his own clothes.

We offered bags, tissues, drinks, saline, whatever we thought might be useful, but he declined it all, telling us his brother, the other young man, was waiting downstairs to meet a friend who would take them home. He asked to use a hairdryer, but we didn’t have one. He thanked us once again and left.

After they left, we suddenly felt very worried that his wet hair would be a signal to the police that he was a protester who had been close enough to the frontline to be tear-gassed. Would he be noticed as he made his way home? Would he be arrested?

We had no idea how he and his brother got home, or if they got home safely.

And that’s when it happened.

That moment of being so close to the effects this conflict had on real people, and seeing those two young brothers in such a state of pain, looking so frightened and helpless, changed my perspective. It galvanised my resolve to fight alongside the people of Hong Kong.

Standing with Hong Kong

I bought a hairdryer, and bags and bags of first aid supply the very next morning. I joined the frontliners at every single weekend protest, as well as the one on 1 October—China’s National Day—where a record number of arrests were made.

As the frontliners blocked roads to keep our fellow protesters safe, used scavenged materials and dismantled gates and fences to use as barriers between us and the police, and held umbrellas aloft to shield each other’s identity as they worked, I stayed close-by with a backpack full of first aid materials and saline to help them when they were affected by tear gas or when they sustained injuries as they ran from charging raptors.

I can’t get the image of those two young brothers hiding in our stairwell, scared, as one tried in vain to soothe his pain, out of my head. That moment was the catalyst that drives me to contribute to the movement in any way I possibly can, even now that I’ve moved back to Australia.

I’ve connected with a group here to help them organise protests. I proofread English Lennon Wall posters and social media posts, and I connect protesters in Hong Kong who are looking for supplies with people who can provide what they need via social media. My husband remains in Hong Kong for work and he contributes in similar ways.

I’ll return to Hong Kong in June to visit my husband. I sincerely hope there’s a resolution to this conflict by then, that our five demands (not one less) are met, and that I can reunite with my fellow protesters to celebrate, masks off.

If not, I’ll rejoin the frontliners with my backpack, committed to doing my part to support them in their fight for justice and democracy.

Add oil! Fight for freedom! Stand with Hong Kong!

“I am Cave Bliss, I am a HKer.”

P.S.: I still have the black face mask the lady gave me. I've worn it to every protest since then. Although it's a little tattered now, I'll continue to wear that face mask to future protests until it falls apart. And when it falls apart, I'll still keep it as a treasure from a kind stranger, a symbol of the moment I became a HongKonger.

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Cave Bliss | An Australian ally's witnessing of pain, fright and helplessness