Reminders served up today of key events which took place four years ago but many Hong Kongers still feel deeply affected by

  

Four years ago today, there were many people out on the streets

with umbrellas on account of it having been a super rainy day

 

There were thunderstorms and heavy rain in many parts of Hong Kong this morning.  The sky was so dark that, at 11am, it looked like it was much closer to midnight than noon.  It almost felt like the heavens were sending out reminders of August 18th, 2019, and some 1.7 million Hong Kongers having gone out on the streets to protest for democracy and against police brutality despite a veritable deluge four years ago today.

As it so happened, I had scheduled a dinner with friends this evening who had been at the protest that day.  Early on, I reminded them of what this was the fourth anniversary for.  Amusingly, one -- who I had not met at the time -- later jokingly remarked that we may well have walked by or been in the vicinity of each other at some point that day or some other day of protest in 2019 or 2020.  And that's the thing about Hong Kong protestors: we may not actually know one another and yet we were united and probably would be friends if we did get together to hang out for fun (rather than to protest)!

 

The same friend also remarked at another point in the evening that there are times when she looks back to 2019 and can hardly believe that what happened then really did so.  So different is the Hong Kong we now live in compared to that that the Hong Kong of 2019 can feel like a fever dream.  And yet, as I said to her, our memories of 2019 can be stronger and more vivid than many a day in 2020, 2021 or 2022.  It's strange how things can be.  And so important to remember and document lest we forget.    

 

Among the reasons why certain dates in 2019 are days I can't forget is that so many things happening today or this week (or this month, etc.) relate to what took place four years ago.  For example, this Monday's appeals court decision that I blogged about earlier this week actually pertained to the involvement of Jimmy Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, Cyd Ho, Margaret Ng and Martin Lee in the protest that took place four years ago today.

 

And what happened at the appeals court this afternoon concerns a defendant's involvement in the gangster attack on innocents in Yuen Long on July 21st, 2019.  As per a Hong Kong Free Press report: "Decorator Ching Wai-ming, 64, appeared at the Court of Appeal [earlier today]. He was convicted of rioting and conspiracy of causing injury and sentenced to four years and three months in jail in October 2022 for participating in an indiscriminate attack against protesters, commuters and journalists at Yuen Long MTR station on July 21, 2019."

 

In appealing his guilty verdict, "[s]everal times, Ching told the court that he wanted to “share the truth about what happened that day”.  “If I don’t say it today, I won’t have another chance,” Ching told judge Anthea Pang in Cantonese."  And in so doing, he dropped a bombshell of sorts -- in that it's something many people have long suspected but the individuals concerned had not admitted, until today.

 

Specifically, "“I thought the government was telling me to do it. It was that simple,” Ching said."  That is, take part in a mob attack against innocent people: some of whom had returned from taking part in a protest on Hong Kong Island earlier in the day, some of whom hadn't (even) done so!

 

A reminder (again, from the Hong Kong Free Press article):  "On July 21, 2019, over 100 rod-wielding men stormed Yuen Long MTR station leaving 45 people injured – including journalists, protesters, commuters and pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting. Police were criticised for responding slowly to the incident, with some officers seen leaving the scene or interacting with the white-clad men. The official account of the incident evolved over a year, with the authorities eventually claiming it was a “gang fight.”"

 

After Ching made his statement/allegation, justice Pang told him: "“I have to stop you now”" because, she said, "an appeal hearing was not a retrial and the court did not allow for expressions of personal feeling."  You be the judge if what Ching said was "an expression of personal feeling" or a factual statement.  

 

In any case, here's serving up another reminder that "The attack in 2019 sparked anger and distrust against authorities, with some suspecting the men in white shirts – many of them villagers from Yuen Long – were supported by pro-establishment forces."  And I think it's safe to say that there are many Hong Kongers who will have come away from hearing or reading what Ching said thinking that what he said was indeed the truth, and very revealing indeed.