Musing some more about what's happened to and in Hong Kong on "Double Ten Day"

 

Not so long ago in Hong Kong, pro-democracy protest marches

were a thing -- and ditto the displaying and waving of Taiwan flags

 

Today, October 10 marks the anniversary of the 1911 uprising which toppled the Qing Dynasty, ending two millenia of imperial rule in the "Middle Kingdom", and ushered in a new Republic of China (ROC).  Popularly known as "Double Ten Day", it is a national holiday in Taiwan (AKA the Republic of China) .  And although October 10th is not a national holiday in that whose official English name is the People's Republic of China, there are ceremonies held there to commemorate Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese revolutionary revered on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.        

 

Years ago, I viewed a Hong Kong movie with scenes showing parts of Hong Kong where refugees from Mainland China dwelled and congregated decorated with the flags of the Republic of China (AKA Taiwan) on "Double Ten Day". Given recent political developments however, I doubt we will see these kind of scenes again in Hong Kong movies, or real life.

 

"Hong Kong's security chief Chris Tang last month warned that celebrating the "Double Ten" could constitute support for Taiwanese independence -- a crime under the city's draconian new security law."  This prompted much derision on social media -- which was compounded when he sought to repeat his warning again a couple of days ago -- but the fear of arrest under China's security law for Hong Kong did indeed prompted some folks from not doing this year what they've done for decades, at least not publically.

 

A case in point: Ng Hong-lim had led celebrations in Hong Kong to mark Taiwan's national day for more than 50 years.  "Born on the Chinese mainland, Ng fled to Hong Kong in the 1950s  At the age of 15, he left for Taiwan and joined the army in hopes of defending the ROC -- to which he still pledges unwavering allegiance.  Following security chief Tang's warning last month, restaurant bookings for more than 100 tables by Ng's group was abruptly cancelled."  But even if "[n]ow we are not allowed to express it, but we still remember it in our hearts," he told reporters.

 

Other reporters went over to the Red House in Tuen Mun that was used as a base by Sun Yat-sen to conduct his revolutionary activities today and found it cordoned off, and heavily guarded by the police and other security personnel-- like was the case last year but not previous years.  Upon beholding this scene, Ryan Ho Kilpatrick, a Hong Kong journalist now based in Taiwan, was prompted to ask the following: "How long until Dr Sun’s statue is removed from HKU along with the Pillar of Shame?"  

 

Kilpatrick also was moved to conclude the following: "Once an oasis of freedom, the ultra-sensitivity bred by Hong Kong’s widening crackdown on political unorthodoxy has made it, in some ways, even more repressive than the mainland PRC."  Sadly, he may have a point there.  And it really is shocking as well as sad how far Hong Kong has fallen in the freedom stakes in so short a time.

 

The deterioration of the situation in Hong Kong is something that English professor Jessica R. Valdez has most definitely noticed.  She shared her thoughts and feelings in a poignant Twitter thread yesterday about the university that she currently is a part of (which happens to not only be the university whose campus the Pillar of Shame is currently located but also Sun Yat-sen's alma mater):

When I first came to HKU from Shanghai for an interview more than 7 years ago, the Pillar of Shame represented everything about HKU and Hong Kong that was different from mainland China. I saw it as a promise of what was possible at an HK university.  

More recently, I have been going out of my way to pass it on campus to reassure myself that it was still there. No matter how bad things were, at least we could still have this emblem of open critique and historical memory.

It was bound to be taken away at some point, but its removal will feel (for me, at least) like the end of the HKU I believed in, the university I was so excited to join seven years ago.

Erasures, absences, and removals like this one are why I can’t bear to stay here much longer.

But while Valdez has effectively given up on Hong Kong and the elderly men who celebrated the "Double Ten" for decades had decided to not do in public this year, at least one person has gone about making his/her mark today over at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) campus.  More specifically, they broke thru a barrier and put up posters of Sun Yat-sen and Qian Mu on CUHK’s democracy wall!  (And yes, I reckon that both Dr Sun and Qian Mu -- the latter of whom co-founded one of CUHK's member colleges before relocating to Taiwan -- would have approved of this act of defiance and resistance enacted today!)