Sunday 17 November 2019

We Be Water… ‘keeping calm and carrying on’

That was the mantra of the protest movement early on, drawing on the wisdom of Bruce Lee. Be flexible, move around obstacles, "Be Water".

That's the mantra for the Hong Kong population now. We have apps to tell us where the blockages are and where the latest demos and violence are taking place. So, when I went into town the other day, I reported that "if you didn't know you wouldn't know"… i.e. you wouldn’t know that there are violent protests on the streets every weekend. 

Now, of course, it's weekdays too. The mornings after, the public are getting out to clean up and clear the streets. With the PLA at their side! So perhaps the public have had enough.

Meantime, in town, I can’t help but notice that the luxury malls, like the IFC Mall I walk through on the way to work, nothing has been attacked, nothing trashed. And I’m wondering why.  Is it that they fear the reaction from the taipans who own them, who might  call on some unsavoury types to extract revenge?  What they are attacking are the working classes, trashing their areas, trashing their shops, trashing their MTR stops...