Lennon Walls in various parts of Hong Kong!

A Lennon Wall was set up in my neighborhood two days ago

Its size has substantially increased over the past 48 hours or so

If you look closely, you'll see it's now multi-layered

as well as -memoed!

This past weekend, extradition bill protesters held their first marches outside of Hong Kong Island: in Kowloon and, it could be argued, Tuen Mun too.  Still more protests outside of Hong Kong Island are being planned for this weekend.  In the meantime, many people are expressing their concerns and feelings by way of posting messages on various Lennon Walls that have appeared in various parts of Hong Kong over the past few days.

After hearing of Lennon Walls having been set up in Tai Po, Yuen Long, Tsuen Wan and elsewhere, I was happy to see that my neighborhood had got in on the act a couple of days ago.  And while there have been incidents of pro-Beijing "blue ribbons" going and damaging some of these walls (as per someone's Tweet: Why don't they just start their own walls?), I've been happy to see that the one located closest to where I live is not only intact after two days but has actually grown quite a bit.

In a city without universal suffrage but where people do have freedom of speech and expression, the Lennon Walls are a great way not only for people to let off steam but also to gauge what people are thinking in our currently troubled times.  To be sure, there are messages that are critical of Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong police and other members of Carrie Lam's administration.  From what I have seen and read so far though, many more of the messages are pretty supportive of Hong Kongers in general and extradition bill protesters in particular.  (There really are a lot of "We love Hong Kong" and "Hong Kong ga yau!" messages up there.)  

At around midnight, however, more than 100 police officers in riot gear were deployed to the Tai Po Lennon Wall to remove post-its and posters bearing the name and information (e.g., police ID number) of a policeman who had challenged a lawmaker late on Sunday night to a one-on-one fight.  So I guess that what I look upon as an imaginative and creative outlet is seen as posing a great threat to the police and government.  And, actually, when you think of it, the fact of their having come into being in so many parts of Hong Kong, including areas traditionally considered pretty "pro-Beijing/government" such as Kennedy Town, along with their resurrection after getting damaged and torn down ought to be a good indicator that the support for the on-going protest is really widespread indeed, and pretty strong too!