Civil protest runs amok in Mong Kok

By Giovanni Roverso

Editor’s note: This article was originally titled “Civil protest runs amok in Hong Kong”

Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrators are still in the streets. The protests started out peacefully on Sep. 28, 2014 under the Occupy Central movement banner, clogging key areas of Hong Kong Island amidst government buildings, businesses and elegant storefronts. The situation escalated as riot police began using pepper spray and tear gas the following day.

In October, demonstrators expanded north into Mong Kok, a busy commercial district in Kowloon Peninsula, where the first serious injuries occurred. The protests have been dubbed the “Umbrella Revolution” as umbrellas have been used extensively by demonstrators as a means of defense.

Nathan Mauger, son of PC’s Anthropology Professor Jeff Mauger, has covered the intense frictions between police and the protesters in a pair of videos named “The Battle for Mong Kok” and “20 Meters in Mong Kok.” Young Mauger lives in Shanghai and has been doing freelance photojournalism in and around China for CNN for years.

“[I] went to Hong Kong specifically to cover the protests. I was planning on staying four days and ended up staying four weeks,” he said in an email.

“I’ve filmed many protests in mainland China,” he said, “which is totally different from filming them in Hong Kong. On the Chinese mainland, the police and hired thugs are there to stop you from filming, and to stop the complaints of the protesters from being heard or reported. But in Hong Kong, even in the middle of violent confrontations, the police are protecting freedom of the press,” he said.

No-one made any attempt to stop him from filming while inside police lines while they were pepper spraying and using batons.

“Once a cop yelled at me to step back, but that’s about it. Several times they asked to me to please be careful. It’s an open, transparent system — completely the opposite of mainland China. The goals of the police on the mainland and in Hong Kong are at odds as far as press freedoms go. One is there to prevent it, one is there to uphold it,” said Mauger.

Largely made up of students, protesters are more divided than they’ve ever been, making negotiations with the government difficult at best. Students at Peninsula College are also divided.

Chongyang Hu, 23 who goes by Tina, is a PC student from Guiyang in mainland China. She is taking a break from college this quarter since she had trouble getting back into the country after returning to China for summer vacation.

“Sometimes I’d like to be from Hong Kong. I’d like to just renew my visa once every five years instead of once every year, I would like a better passport, I can’t even go to Canada,” she said.

Still, Hu said she doesn’t see the point of all the complaining since Hong Kong already has it so much better than mainland China.

“If you’re from Hong Kong, you have your own passport, your own rules, even your own Olympic games teams, even though you’re part of China. And those people are afraid? For what? I don’t understand,” she said, “so many things are way more expensive in China.” She said that Hong Kong is lucky it isn’t taxed like the rest of the country is.

“Hong Kong people are hurting themselves, they’re hurting the city, people visiting, people living there and people working there,” she said.

Hu’s still proud of being Chinese and doesn’t feel the need to vote on issues herself, a right that pro-democracy advocates are fighting for in Hong Kong.

“Life is good for me and my family, borders are open. The government is doing a fine job by me,” she said. She pointed out that the Chinese government does things for its people in ways that other countries don’t.

Anson Ng, 19, is a PC student from Hong Kong. He personally supports the protests. “I don’t know why older people don’t want to talk about it. They are not interested in that topic,” he said.

There was an exception however.

“My grandpa kind of hates the government. He always tells me that as a British colony, life was tough but he didn’t hate the government, but that now, even though life is much better in some ways, he doesn’t like the government. He says that when the British still ruled, at least everyone still had rice, water, stayed warm and everyone had good workforce opportunities,” Ng said.

He also lamented how difficult it is for young people in Hong Kong to get a decent job, with most of them limited to the big business and real-estate sectors, and that the current government was doing little to stem rising income inequality.

Want to know more about what’s going on in Hong Kong? Read the analysis from the 2014 December issue which sums up the key points of the conflict as of the date of publication.