Kelvin | Frontliner on why he is willing to sacrifice - “If I succumb to fear, Hong Kong will fall apart.”
A post-90s worker who is extremely afraid of repeating the same mistakes of the Umbrella Movement, and has to go on the front line no matter what.
“We never push with the intent to harm or kill the police. We just want to push them back so that the PRNs won’t be afraid of taking to the streets. I hope those two million people can once again come forward, even if they only help with passing supplies at the back. I promise that us frontliners will always stand in front of PRNs, so that if anything goes wrong, we will be at the front shielding you and making sure all the PRNs have retreated safely before leaving. ”
Journalist: Tea Leaf
Artist: Tendarken
Photos: Handsome Fat Jai, KC
Some call us valiants.
But I would say we are not the real frontliners, and we are not as brave as you imagined us to be. The real valiant is Edward Leung Tin-kei, as he was the first person to say “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our times”. What we are doing now is only an imitation of what the frontlines did in 2014 and he did in 2016, so we cannot bear the halo of being the first-generation valiants who save Hong Kong. If this halo truly exists, it should belong to Edward Leung and the first batch of fellow protesters who took to the streets in gears.
Some people criticised him for rousing young people to go on the front line, and many severed ties with him. At that time, those were my thoughts as well. I insisted on being a PRN, as I thought Hong Kong was different from other countries, and movements like the ‘yellow vests’ would not happen. Nowadays, most peaceful protests are like a mother teaching her son (the citizens were the mother and the government was the son): the mother kept talking but the son didn’t listen at all, so she had to raise her voice and punish him to make him see where the problem lies. Now we realise in hindsight, so we really have to say to Edward Leung, “we are sorry.”
12 Jun* marks the first tear gas of the year. It wasn’t until that moment that I became willing to put on gear and go on the front line. To be frank, I only realised at that point that Hongkongers had been frogs in a pot of boiling water. Using tear gas to disperse crowds was not unheard of, but wasn’t it excessive on people with nothing but surgical masks and gloves?
This April, when the government was conducting a public consultation on the extradition bill because of the Chan Tong-kai incident**, I had already been thinking that, on the surface, it seemed like the bill was in place so Hong Kong would not become a fugitive haven and criminals could be extradited to stand trial where they should. I absolutely accept and agree with that. Yet if we think again, it is obvious that the intent of this bill is to silence opposition. If no one in Hong Kong had been awake and we’d just hazily let the bill pass, I am sure that the Article 23 (of the Basic Law) would have been passed soon after. By then there would be no point mentioning ‘50 years of no change’*** because everything would have already changed after just twenty-odd years. If this extradition bill had passed, with the Article 23 following, whoever spoke up would be extradited to mainland China. At that time, there would only be more people like Li Wangyang, Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xia, and even more Causeway Bay Books incidents****. I became aware in April, though I still believed that the government would not continue if enough people voiced their opposition in the public consultation. However, the bill passed the first reading, and Carrie Lam was trying to push the second and third readings through. If it weren’t for the martyr that took his own life at Pacific Place (immensely grateful to him), we wouldn’t have been able to impede the process.
On 12 Jun, I stood at the front line outside of the Central Government Complex on Tim Wa Avenue, with only a surgical mask for gear. At that moment I thought: the people in front of us - although we call them ‘dogs’ (translator’s note: a derogatory term in Chinese) - were actual police officers. When we, a group of millennials born in the 80s or 90s, wrote about our aspirations in primary school, over 90% of us probably had said we wanted to join the police force. I couldn’t see their faces, but I believe, among that band of police officers, there must have been millennials as well. Why did they look so strange? There shouldn’t be a generational gap between us, so why couldn’t they see what we see? Or were they not Hongkongers at all? In fact, many fellow protesters at the scene were saying that members of the People’s Liberation Army, Public Security and Armed Police Force (translator’s note: law enforcement in mainland China) were amidst the local police officers. I didn’t believe that, not until 31 Aug*****.
I was one of the frontliners at the scene of the ‘train massacre’***** (on 31 Aug).
On that day, we were truly terrified. We weren’t scared of getting arrested or beaten. Instead, it was because we heard something that no Hongkongers should have ever heard.
I was inside the train, yet I could not see the faces of the Special Tactical Squad members (commonly known as the ‘Raptors’) in front of me. It’s a commonly known fact for Hongkongers that the Raptors are part of the police force, and therefore have to meet the entry requirements of the police force, so it is very unlikely that there are male officers who are 1.5m tall. Apart from that, although it is not surprising for the police to speak Mandarin, they surely would not be as fluent as Chinese mainlanders. I even heard the riot police arguing with the Raptors - a riot police officer walked into the train compartment and said, “that’s enough! Stop it! You’re getting us in trouble!” And I thought, “what does ‘us’ mean? Don’t they all belong to the police force, just simply divided into teams of the riot police and the Special Tactical Squad? If anything were to go wrong, Stephen Lo (Commissioner of Police) or the Police Public Relations Branch would step out and explain. So why did they say ‘get us in trouble’?” I tried telling myself that I was overthinking, and that there wouldn’t be officers from the Public Security or Armed Police Force. Yet all of a sudden, a Raptor yelled, “f**k your mother” (translator’s note: a common insult in Mandarin), before kicking a riot police. It was only a light kick to the calf, but the intention was clearly to make him leave. After that, the riot police stopped caring about us and allowed the Raptors to beat people.
We, a group of twenty-somethings who have just entered the workforce, are seen as the masters of Hong Kong’s future. We do not have much experience, but we are nonetheless taxpayers. How could those people acted as if nothing happened when we were getting battered? Why… I witnessed with my own eyes how the so-called Raptors - I do not believe they are the police now - dragged and bashed a protestor when they were not resisting at all. There weren’t many fellow protesters at the scene, so we couldn’t save him, and we could only watch him get beaten through the train door. The moment our train departed, my heart was filled with anguish...
This incident left us frontliners traumatised. It has been a month since 31 Aug. For the past month, no matter whether we are dreaming (editor’s note: this means protesting), going to work or going out with friends, we have always taken detours because we don’t want to see MTR stations and its logo. More than ten of us fellow frontliners there that day, who normally are not scared of rubber bullets or tear gas, were all truly petrified and even haunted by the ‘Communist Party Railway’******. The MTR published a statement later on, saying that “MTR is the collective memory of us Hongkongers”. I really want to ask them, “who do they think they are to say something like that?!” The incident unfolded this way only because the MTR didn’t close the train doors. I understand that they closed the station and shut the gates to protect the staff, but too many civilians suffered that day.
That very night I lay sleepless in bed, scrolling through messages on my phone until the break of dawn. I got even more restless when I pictured what the arrested protesters were going through. When we thought we had hit rock bottom, we heard on the news that there might have been fatalities. At that time, we thought it was far-fetched and we didn’t want to believe it was possible. Two weeks later, I was finally willing to go to the Prince Edward Station exit where the incident happened (i.e. the Mongkok Police Station exit). Elders from ‘Protect Our Kids’ were folding paper offerings and scattering joss paper next to a temporary shrine. At that moment, I felt chills down my spine. I picked up three incense sticks, subconsciously knelt, feeling the spirits of fellow protesters around me. That night (31 Aug) we left without witnessing the whole incident, nor can I validate these ghost stories, but I believe I am not the only one who has this feeling. I’ve been to the shrine three or four times, and every time I got the same feeling. One of those times was just after I ‘dreamt’, when I dropped off my gear at home and went out at 3 am specifically for this. As usual, I knelt before the shrine and in my mind I asked, “what else can I do to help you?” A voice answered me, saying that I was not able to communicate with him nor help him. At that instant, I couldn’t help but cry...
When I was young, I was taught to reach out to the police if something happened, and they would offer us help.
We would never have guessed how they are now beating people, severely injuring or even killing them, shooting someone and causing their lungs to collapse, faking suicides and disappearances… All these unthinkable things are now happening in Hong Kong… I am a 90s kid, born and raised in Hong Kong, and I have witnessed Hong Kong blossoming and thriving. Looking back at the old Hong Kong, and at mainland China through its history, from Mao’s Great Leap Forward to now, I have honestly never imagined that Hong Kong would become like the mainland, with things like the Li Wangyang ‘suicide’, Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia incidents happening. I was not willing to believe that the Causeway Bay Books incident had happened; I even tried to convince myself that these events were acts orchestrated by the victims. In reality, I was in denial as I refused to face the truth. I was a frog in a pot of boiling water.
Now, I know very well that if we still don’t come forward, no one will be able to help us. We have been looking for foreign assistance, but if we think deeper, we’ll see that other countries are not going to help us. Despite the Sino-British Joint Declaration, it is clear that the UK does not care about us. Even for Trump, his first priority is still monetary benefits. On top of that, he is also caught up in the China-US trade war, so he might not help us. It’s our Hong Kong, and only we can save it. I am not expecting a knight in shining armour coming to save Hong Kong, or us somehow receiving foreign military aid. I just want Hong Kong to not be so unfamiliar. This is not the Hong Kong I used to know. I have been living in Hong Kong for over 20 years, and I witnessed the Handover on a TV screen. I was young and naive, and I thought it was a good thing, “decolonising and returning to our motherland is delightful!” As I grew older and wiser, as I learnt about Mao Zedong I thought, “why were people so cruel and fought against their own people? What was the Chinese Civil War for? During the Japanese invasion, why didn’t people unite and fight together?” When I was in school, I had always thought that Hong Kong was a piece of blessed land. There were no wars, no tornados, no tsunamis, no natural or man-made disasters, and we probably wouldn’t fight against ourselves. But now in 2019, isn’t history repeating itself in Hong Kong? The difference between then and now, is that this isn’t a civil war, but rather a resistance in the name of a revolution. In reality, there is no difference apart from the name.
At this moment, I have thrown caution to the wind. I have been arrested before, and I understand that fellow protesters are scared. Seeing how this movement has developed, I cannot help but ask, “actually, does anyone think our mentality has changed?” Every once in a while, some fellow protesters on Facebook would ask why we are damaging government offices, and I actually think they have a point. It is merely a tickle to the CCP government. The same goes for vandalising Maxim’s stores, as it only gives an excuse for Carrie Lam to call us rioters and justify the Emergency Regulations Ordinance. Can we once again focus on the CCP? Why do we have to be in front of the Kowloon Government Office building when we were doing radical things? I warned fellow protesters again and again at the scene that we did not know if any police would suddenly storm out from the building. I, as someone that has been arrested, would like to ask, “why insist on staying here for the radical action? Are there not enough people being arrested?”
I want to say something to all the Hongkongers out there.
We have had a tough time since June. Everyone knows that the frontliners are declining in number, but if this keeps happening, the movement will end. Despite having been arrested, I still go on the streets. I tell myself, “don’t be afraid; if I’m afraid, Hong Kong will fall apart. There’s no turning back for us.” We are not great in numbers, only around thirty to forty people, but we have to face over a hundred riot police. Have you ever imagined that our cordon not being pushed back by the police, but instead, we pushing their cordon and moving the battle front forward? We never push with the intent to harm or kill the police. We just want to push them back so that the PRNs won’t be afraid of taking to the streets. We always say that everything will be fine as long as there are enough people. Since we had the unprecedented march of two million people, why can’t those two million go on the streets again?
Sometimes when I am tired, I fall back a little from the front line to rest. I notice that a lot of PRNs are ‘evolving’. I do not know the extent of their ‘evolution’, but I hope those two million people can once again come forward, even if they only help with passing supplies at the back. Of course, I understand that many people live from hand to mouth, and that some people have to keep the economy and society running, but I hope more people will take a stand, so that more evolving PRNs could go on the front line to help us. Even more so, I hope the armchair critics could not only stay at home and watch the news on their phones, but also go out more and help with the supply chain at protests.
There is no turning back for us Hongkongers, because what’s behind us is the edge of a cliff. Sometimes I really wish there was a leader in this movement. We are fighting in a war and we should not be leaderless. I know that there are risks with having a leader, but if we continue being ‘a sheet of loose sand’*******, we are only going to repeat the mistakes of the Umbrella Movement. As long as we have many people on our side fighting in unity, we can certainly break through the police cordon. I promise that us frontliners will always stand in front of PRNs, so that if anything goes wrong, we will be at the front shielding you and making sure all the PRNs have retreated safely before leaving.
Let’s end here. I have to go out and help our fellow protesters. Some of them are injured and I have to escort them away. In fact, many frontliners are just kids. Not in terms of age, but their mentality. If anyone is in trouble, whether we know them or not, we will insist on helping. This is our motto, our ethos. It doesn’t matter if you call us immature, because that’s how we are. We do not know if we can come together and leave together, but we will never stand idly while one of us needs our assistance. Fellow protesters, we’ll see one another again in our dreams. Remember our pledge of meeting again under the LegCo building.
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*12 Jun - the day when the second reading of the bill was scheduled on. Protesters gathered around the LegCo area, followed by a violent police crackdown.
**Chan Tong-kai incident - Chan is the prime suspect in the murder of Poon Hiu-wing, which took place in Taiwan and prompted the HKSAR government to propose this bill.
***‘50 years of no change’ - it was promised in the Sino-British Joint Declaration that Hong Kong’s system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years after the Handover.
****Causeway Bay Books incidents - a series of cross-border disappearances of the staff at this bookstore, where sensitive and political books that are banned in China are sold.
*****31 Aug/‘train massacre’ - On 31 Aug, after a quarrel between protesters and passengers at the Prince Edward MTR station, Special Tactical Squad officers stormed into train compartments and assaulted protesters and passengers indiscriminately with batons and pepper sprays. Journalists were denied entry into the station, and as a result it is rumoured that people might have been severely injured or even killed by the police that night.
******‘Communist Party Railway’ - a term coined by citizens after the MTR repeatedly acts in favour of the government/police, including but not limited to closing off stations prior to legal demonstrations, using trains as transport vehicles for police officers etc.
*******A sheet of loose sand - a famous saying from Sun Yat-sen which refers to a group of people who are unable to cooperate.