For members of the Yellow Economic Circle (and their supporters), this really is not "Our Time" -- alas!

  

A yellow Hong Kong phoenix that I'll take as a sign that there are

yellow Hong Kongers who have not given up on their hopes and dreams

 

Last week, I had my final meal at a member of the Yellow Economic Circle that had announced that it would close at the end of the week. Sadly, closing announcements have become all too frequent in the past year or so.  Yesterday, I walked by another "yellow shop" and saw that it had a notice up that its last day will be on September 25th.

 

The fact of the matter is that the Hong Kong economy's not doing well, and hasn't been doing well for some time now.  So, as the case of such as the "blue" (i.e., pro-Beijing) Jumbo floating restaurant's closure showed, it's not just the Yellow Economic Circle that's been struggling to stay afloat and even sank (in the case of the Jumbo, literally!).     

Still, there can't be denying that members of the Yellow Economic Circle also face extra obstacles in the case of such as de facto harassment by the authorities by way of their going and doing such as checking on a variety of issues.  And while there no longer are Covid restrictions to worry about, the visits by such as the police or other government branches have not ceased.  

 

Perhaps, it's not surprising, then, that those behind not one but two "yellow"/"blue" maps have decided to halt operations today.  Also today, it was reported that the authorities had gone after a "yellow" restaurant located inside a industrial building for operating inside said industrial building (despite there being other restaurants doing the same).  And it additionally came to light today that a "yellow" restaurant chain had all their branches -- located in various parts of Hong Kong (not just Kowloon but also Hong Kong Island, and the New Territories) -- visited by the fire department at the same time under the guide of licence checks!

 

By the way, the "yellow" restaurant chain in question's name translates into English as the Kwong Wing Catering Company but also is known in English as Glory Cafe.  And in the wake of the whole Glory to Hong Kong insanity, one can't help but wonder if this very existence of this restaurant chain in question was irritating the authorities by way of the name it had as well as it being openly "yellow".  This particularly after another eatery with a similar name attracted the attention of the authorities in recent days. 

The case of Glorious Fast Food is another one that shows how surreal -- and ridiculous life in -- Hong Kong has become.  Specifically, for at least a decade, its walls had featured art work of construction workers in yellow hard hats eating -- because "[c[onstruction workers are commonly customers at the restaurant", its owner told the Hong Kong Free Press: "There is actually no other meaning."  But the powers that be decided that "the image “may violate” the 2020 national security law" as yellow hard hats were associated with pro-democracy protestors (not just construction workers) "since construction helmets were often used as protection by protesters during the 2019 demonstrations and unrest"!

 

Speaking of surreal and ridiculous, here's another example for you that comes by way of a report by Quartz's Mary Hui: 

Gongjyuhok, a Hong Kong advocacy group that promotes the use of Cantonese, announced on Monday (Aug. 28) it is shutting down after national security police last week entered the founder’s former home, where his relatives now live. The group—whose name translates to “Cantonese study”—was founded in 2013 with the mission of “protecting the language rights of Hong Kong people." 

 

In a statement (link in Chinese), Gongjyuhok founder Andrew Chan said authorities conducted a warrantless search of the home and accused the group of violating Hong Kong’s national security law by publishing a fictional story.

In an email to Quartz, Chan confirmed that the story in question is “Our Time,” by an author named Siu Gaa. It was one of 18 shortlisted entries in a 2020 writing competition hosted by Gongjyuhok and sponsored by the Hong Kong government. Citing legal pressures, Chan took down the story from the Gongjyuhok website, but an archived version (link in Chinese; translation here) is still available.

"Our Time" is very much worth your time to read.  But if you prefer to have the short story summarized, Mary Hui's done that too in five paragraphs that I'm hereby quoting in their entirety:

The short story accused of violating the national security law, “Our Time,” is set in a dystopian 2050. It tells of an authoritarian future in which vast swaths of Hong Kong history have been erased from both the city’s structures and the public consciousness, and all aspects of life are subsumed under the Chinese Communist Party.

One of the two characters is a twenty-something named Gwong Zai, whose parents emigrated to the UK in 2020—the year the national security law was enforced. The parents recently passed away due to health complications caused by “[inhaling] too much Chinese-made tear gas in their youth.”

After finding an old notebook filled with his parents’ writings from decades prior describing pre-authoritarian Hong Kong, Gwong Zai travels to the city for the first time to retrace his parents’ footsteps.

He encounters a young woman, Siu Sze, who is surprised by how much he knows about Hong Kong’s past. “I have not seen local people so familiar with Hong Kong’s stories for a long time,” she tells him, hinting at a mass state-enforced amnesia.

Before they part, she gives him a book she had been reading. In the book is a poem that reads: “The struggle between man and totalitarianism is the struggle between memory and forgetting.”

I also think the following lines from "Our Time" is worth sharing: "We live in this city, and every street and every building around us tells its own stories".  And as I continue to live in Hong Kong, I take these words to heart and feel that it's important to know and tell and remember the stories of that which a friend recognized long ago was, and remains (despite it often hurting to be so -- including today, when there's also been news of two more national security law arrests and ), my "heartplace".