Sad anniversaries yesterday and today that we don't need prompting to remember

 

They look like random numbers scribbled on the wall for

those who don't know but for the majority of Hong Kongers,

they represent dates of great significance 

 

Yesterday, I went to dinner at a "yellow" restaurant and noticed that a sign with the words "Do not forget" had been placed by its entrance.  My reaction upon seeing was: how could I not?  After all, it's only been three years since the terrorist attack at Yuen Long MTR station which thousands, if not millions, of Hong Kongers witnessed via live streams by, among other others, Gwyneth Ho (who was a Stand News reporter at the time) and then legislative councillor Lam Cheuk-ting -- both of whom were physically attacked on the night and now have been denied bail, and thus behind bars for more than a year now after being arrested on February 28th of last year for taking part in pro-democracy primaries held in July 2020.  

To be sure, so much has happened in the past three years.  But I remember.  I can't not.  Earlier today, I read a Tweet (NOT by a Hong Konger) which expressed the following: "You know how when you’re eating spicy food, your mouth eventually goes a little numb and your brain assumes it’s normal for everything to tadte like fire now? That’s how I feel about current events."  My reaction: No, I don't know how that is.  I.e., my mouth never goes a little numb from eating spicy food. I just feel pain, sometimes horribly so, until I do something to stem it... like drink milk, or eat yoghurt or bananas! And actually, I'm still feeling pain from, and pained, by current events -- as well as those which feel like they took place just yesterday even though it actually was three years ago.

 

On the subject of anniversaries: today marks one year since five speech therapists were arrested after they were adjudged to be national security threats on account of having produced illustrated children's books about sheeps and wolves.  One year on, this idea still seems farcical and would get one laughing except that they have been behind bars since July 2021, denied bail even though they now are charged with sedition rather than breaking the national security law (since, at a pre-trial hearing back in September of last year, the presiding magistrate said that "although they were not charged under the national security law, the allegations in the case relate to the national security legislation").   

 

This past Wednesday, the court heard the closing arguments by lawyers defending General Union of Hong Kong Speech Therapists committee members Lorie Lai, Melody Yeung, Sidney Ng, Samuel Chan and Fong Tsz-ho, all of whom have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to print, publish, distribute and display three books between June 2020 and July 2021 with seditious intention.  Instead, the defence argued, the children’s books – alleged to be “indoctrinating” readers with separatism and inciting “anti-China sentiment” – were only printed to recount what happened in Hong Kong, including the 2019 extradition bill protests, the detention of 12 Hong Kong fugitives by mainland Chinese authorities and a strike staged by local medics at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak.

 

Should you wish to decide for yourself whether the books published are seditious, do check out a Twitter thread by Niao Collective that recounts one of the stories in English, complete with a selection of illustrations from the actual publication.  To learn about The Sheep Village Defenders (whose title can also be translated as The Guardians of Sheep Village), start here.  And for the record: the other books that have got the five speech therapists into such trouble -- and which were meant for children aged between 4 and 7 years of age to read -- have The 12 Heroes of Sheep Village, and The Garbage Collectors of Sheep Village as their titles: rather innocous and non-seditious sounding, one would have thought; but, then, our minds are not like that of those in the Hong Kong government!