Yes, I still think Hong Kong is really beautiful!
Today is the 1,885th birthday of my hero, Funassyi, the Pear (Fairy) who is the unofficial mascot of the Japanese city of Funabashi (where it made its home after "coming down to Earth" from the Pear Fairyland around 11 years ago). It also is the 20th anniversary of my leaving the USA and returning to Asia.
Happily, today was a largely uneventful day in my world -- with the biggest "event" being that Funassyi -- yes, the actual Funassyi -- actually liking my Tweet wishing it a happy birthday! Which is how I like it. ("May you live in interesting times" may neither be Chinese or ancient -- despite what many people think -- but it certainly can feel like a curse, especially when one is living in national security law era Hong Kong!)
Sadly, however, yesterday was far more eventful as far as Hong Kong was concerned. The following are the first three paragraphs from an Associated Press (AP) report on the matter:
Hong Kong police on Monday accused eight self-exiled pro-democracy activists of violating the territory’s harsh National Security Law and offered rewards of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($127,600) each for information leading to their arrests.The rewards are the first for suspects accused of violating the Beijing-imposed legislation since it took effect in June 2020. It outlaws subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism.The eight activists are former pro-democracy lawmakers Nathan Law, Ted Hui and Dennis Kwok, lawyer Kevin Yam, unionist Mung Siu-tat and activists Finn Lau, Anna Kwok and Elmer Yuen [aka Yuan Gong-yi], police announced at a news conference.
As Hemlock (of the Big Lychee, Various Sectors blog) observed today: "For many Hongkongers, at least some of the individuals in the mug shots (apparently taken from HKID cards) are instantly recognizable." And many of those individuals in the mug shot-like photos (which, in the case of Anna Kwok, was taken when she went to get a new Hong Kong Identity Card shortly after she turned 18!) are people that many Hongkongers admire, respect and/or voted in legislative council and other elections for in the past. And are otherwise just a few degrees of separation from.
Take, as an example, current pro-Beijing legislative councillor Eunice Yung -- whose father-in-law is Elmer Yuen! (And while she may have gone on the record as having "cut ties" with him, the fact of the matter is that Elmer Yuen still is the pro-Beijing politician's husband's father!) Also, for my part, I've voted in the past for one of the eight and have personally interacted with two of them as well as am currently "mutuals" (i.e., they "follow" me as well as I "follow" them) with two others on Twitter!
A reminder from the AP piece I quoted earlier: "Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese city, has come under increasingly tight scrutiny by Beijing following months of political strife in 2019. Authorities have cracked down on dissent with over 260 people, including many pro-democracy figures, arrested under the National Security Law."
And while then chief executive Carrie Law had declared that the National Security Law would affect only a small minority of people back in June 2020, such as the closure of various unions and other organisations, newspapers and media sites, the emigration of hundreds of thousands of people since that law came into effect on June 30th, 2000, and the effective banning and censorship of a number of films, books, slogans and songs would get one thinking otherwise.
All this with the passing of Article 23 still to come. Speaking of which: last week, a senior journalist friend divulged that when (not if, alas) Article 23 finally gets passed, he may feel obliged to leave Hong Kong (for his safety). In the same conversation, a lawyer friend joked that some parts of our casual conversation -- in a bar, I might add! -- might be deemed to be "seditious" and thus cause us to be sentenced to life imprisonment after the passing of Article 23!
The stuff of nightmares -- and more than incidentally, nightmares are what I've been having in recent nights, thanks to the Hong Kong government but also Elon Musk! But never Funassyi -- who I wish more inhabitants of our planet could be like. If so, what a better world it would be... *Sigh!*
By the way, call me sad all you want but I do take some comfort in Funassyi having said back in August 1st, 2018 (when it came over with its band, Charamel, for a concert): "I will never forget you, Hong Kong". And wouldn't it be nice if the world at large -- and powerful governments (including those of the countries where the eight Hong Kong individuals with a HK$1 million bounty on each of their heads) -- did the same and stood with Hong Kong? :S
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