An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army, nor any government.Originally Posted by 69360
If the people of Hong Kong want to be free, they will be free. Nothing can stop them. Only themselves.
It is the same, incidentally, for the people of San Francisco. Or the people of Toledo. Or....
I should clarify that I do not agree with, and do not know anything about, whatever Occupy conspiracy theory Cdn is positing.
I just agree that the protest leaders may largely be socialists/anti-capitalists. And that's too bad. But the protests still show a desire for liberty from government oppression, even if the understanding is not perfect.
Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 10-03-2014 at 08:31 AM.
China is censoring about 90% to 99% of the protest in Mainland.
Weibo (The chinese version of twitter) got turned off last week. Instagram got turned off..Facebook is already banned.
And on Wednesday during NATIONAL DAY, the pictures of people standing in the streets in HK, were being portrayed as, "HK citizens celebrating national Day!!!" Not protesting.
There is a ton of censorship going on. In fact I have a client who after a week in HK, was in China for 2 days and just called me frustrated..He said it's impossible to find any news about the protest. Not on TV, not on the internet...Nothing...It's all censored.
There's tons of rumors going around and a few pictures of tanks rolling on the streets of HK.
Those are only rumors and those are old pictures of some training exercise or something from before. There are no tanks or armies running around. After the tear gas last week Sunday everything has been civil.
Technically they are fighting for their voting rights. During the '97 handover there was a PROMISE of the right to vote for their CEO of the city (or like the mayor or governor). They have never had this, not during British rule either. That promise was cut and dry and as of 2007 the promise was still being told they will get it.
Then Beijing recently started saying...Yay....We'll keep the promise but we are going to pre-approve the list of candidates you get to vote for. Then the protests starting happening this summer.
So a lot of the people on the side of the students are saying....They won't even let us have our own vote? Is China going to going back on their promise one by one? Are HK's rights and freedoms SLOWLY going to start to erode?
On the other side of the coin....The older folks are HAPPY with the ECONOMIC FREEDOMS and in general the whole 1 country 2 systems philosophy. No censorship, right to protest, and a gov't that pretty much is Laissez-faire. Beijing pretty much leaves HK alone and let's it be. The older folks are saying, "We got it pretty good. Let's not rock the boat." So they are disagreeing with the protest. They don't want to piss off China. They don't want to lose what they have, they got it pretty good. They think, we have a lot to lose and it's useless to go against China, nothing good will come out of this.
Another ECONOMIC issue that people don't realize. HK has no duties, not taxes, no import taxes, no export taxes, no sales taxes, no other crazy ass taxes (besides on hard liquor and cigs). It has made it a trading hub, financial hub. It has also made it a HUGE tourist hub for mainland China. Mainland has TONS of taxes and HIGH luxury taxes. 35 to 50% luxury taxes (think perfumes, cosmetics, beauty products, purses, handbags, every high end brand product, etc.)
So HK with the rise of the $$$ in Mainland China is now a Tourist NIRVANA. Millions of dollars are spent EVERY WEEK by mainland Chinese who bus in for the weekend or weekday...Buy crazy amounts of stuff...Then head back to China.
HK is the benefiter of these taxes. If China were to create TAX FREE ZONES within China, Hong Kong would suffer. HK economy would take a big hit. So the people who's livelihood depends on these advantages aren't crazy about China taking action and screwing HK when many in HK know we have an artificial advantage that's helping the economy.
Last edited by Mani; 10-02-2014 at 11:40 PM.
Thanks for that!
HK students are extremely polite and well mannered.
This is a pretty good article about how they keep things clean and tidy.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29423147
There are tons of people also helping out on the sidelines. I know of an expat HK moms group that is coordinating donations. A few moms went to Shenzhen and bought 10,000 Umbrellas for when it rained earlier in the week. People are helping to donate all over the place with supplies. It's happening through social media.
Back to the manners thing. We were discussing last night, how Central has a shopping district with some of the biggest fashion stores and high end goods in HK. These stores are simply a cracked window away from being pillaged. Yet there's not even a realm of possibility that anyone would consider throwing a rock and looting the heck out of these stores with millions of dollars worth of stuff just sitting there.
Anyone who would try to instigate a riot and looting would definitely be a NON-STUDENT and I don't think the students would tolerate that behavior at all, they'd probably tie him up and hand him over or something....I just don't see those kinds of acts happening at all.
Another thing, the biggest fear with the old timers who say don't rock the boat. Is that China won't let it happen because they have a huge population and if everyone starts asking for voting rights, it becomes a huge problem. What if they give in to HK, then one by one it starts a domino effect. Others think Mainlanders already know HK is a unique situation, 1 party 2 systems, so it won't matter if they give in to HK.
Last edited by Mani; 10-03-2014 at 12:00 AM.
I guess he doesn't use a VPN (usually bandwidth on the mainland makes that difficult or excruciating anyway).
You don't think the censorship is actually going to work, do you Mani? I mean, the Chinese are going to hear and know something's going on just by word of mouth! It might be totally distorted, but they'll know there's protests afoot. Learning about it by rumor might even cause them to look like a bigger deal than they are, via the "fish story"/telephone effect. What do you think?
It would mean there are WAY too many police.
Here's an article on the WSJ that I think is pretty fair and it talks about the motivation of the protestors.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/in-ho...&mg=reno64-wsjHONG KONG—Late one night, 23-year-old Near Chiu came back to his family’s apartment, tired and needing a shower after days on the streets with pro-democracy protesters who have occupied parts of the city this past week.
His father’s first words, Near recalled, were: “So, did you get a taste of the tear gas?” Angered by the derisive tone, Near retreated to his tiny bedroom, set off from the living room with a curtain, and followed news about the protests on his computer.
Such confrontations between young and old have been playing out in crowded, shoe-box apartments and on the streets across this teeming city.
The generational divide was evident Friday when crowds of mostly middle-aged men confronted the demonstrators in one busy shopping area, leading to clashes. Many counter-demonstrators appeared to be shopkeepers and street vendors, who complained that their businesses are suffering as a result of the chaos.
Student leaders, accusing the police of failing to do their job, pulled back from proposed talks with the local government.
Many of the teenagers and young adults who form the core of the protests have an aspirational vision for Hong Kong as a Western-style democracy in which the public has a say in politics. Many elders feel lucky to have climbed out of poverty to make a decent living on mainland China’s doorstep and don’t want to put their gains at risk by upending the status quo with Beijing.
Near’s father, Chiu Kin Ming, said he felt the protests—which swelled dramatically after the police tear-gassed demonstrators on Sept. 28—were harmful to the city, hurting his and other businesses. “There will be problems,” he said.
The dispute centers on the election of Hong Kong’s top leader, who has the title chief executive. Under a new plan, Hong Kong residents would be allowed to vote for chief executive for the first time—but only from candidates approved by a nominating committee that Beijing largely controls.
A poll last month by the Chinese University of Hong Kong showed that three-fourths of people age 15 to 24 opposed the plan, compared with less than half of people aged 40-59.
The poll also found that the city’s best-known pro-democracy group, Occupy Central, had more support among the young: 47% of people under 24 said they backed it, compared with about 21% of those ages 40-59.
The generation gap is a byproduct of Hong Kong’s ascendance from developing-world status to a sleek, wealthy financial hub.
Though there is wide income disparity—most Hong Kongers live far from the skyscrapers overlooking Victoria Harbour—the city’s rise has created expectations among the young for possibilities that would have been unimaginable for their parents.
Near’s father—a stocky man in his 50s with receding hair—would like his son to take over his jade shop. He said he is proud that he has earned enough through his business to raise two children and buy a home.
Near, who wears his hair in a long black fringe, would like to become a commercial photographer, like one of his heroes Steven Meisel, an American fashion photographer. He wears a black shirt that reads, “I shoot people” with the image of a camera on it. But he doesn’t want to look for a job right now because he wants to keep protesting.
“I will not do sales,” Near said in a recent interview before preparing to go back to the protests. “That’s not the world that belongs to me.”
The differences are intensified by another prevalent factor of Hong Kong life: entire families live together, even when the children are well into adulthood. That is partly out of custom and partly because real-estate prices in this densely populated city of seven million are among the highest in the world.
Many young protesters said they were sneaking out of their houses to join rallies without telling their parents, hoping they wouldn’t find out.
A day earlier, in their cramped apartment in the Fanling area, near the border with the mainland, Near and his sister and parents watched TV. Images of protests flashed on; the conversation turned to politics.
“Before, the Communist Party wasn’t democratic,” the father said. “But in recent years, from being not very democratic at all, it’s improved,” he said.
“The Communist Party hasn’t changed,” his son responded.
“The economy has improved,” his father said. “The mainland in a lot of ways has gotten really developed. Not like before, when life was harsh and bitter.”
Mr. Chiu grew up in the poverty-stricken northern countryside of Guangdong province, where the family farmed corn. During the turmoil of the Mao Zedong era, Mr. Chiu’s father left for Hong Kong and started Tak Lee Jade & Jewelry, on busy Canton Road.
In 1978, in his 20s, Mr. Chiu followed. At the time, China’s per capita gross domestic product was only about $200. He said he was impressed by Hong Kong’s shopping malls and eager to enjoy the more-modern ways of life in the flourishing British colony.
For years, the family lived in a space where they had just one bed and shared a toilet and kitchen with other families. But the jade shop did well, especially after Beijing loosened rules on mainlanders traveling to Hong Kong to shop. Mr. Chiu was able to buy an apartment—now the family home—as a government-subsidized rate in 1994 for 300,000 Hong Kong dollars ($38,700).
The family started to use air conditioning, a big luxury. Mr. Chiu bought Near his first camera when his son was 16. The son spent hours wandering through the city taking photographs. But his father hammered home a simple message: “You need to be a useful person,” he said. “You need to make money. More, more money.”
The son, whose birth name is Chiu Sung Tat, began calling himself Near after a Japanese cartoon character. He said that as he got older, he became more interested in politics and civic society than in earning money.
He started watching Hong Kong’s legislative sessions online. He felt drawn to a legislator known as Long Hair (because he vowed never to cut his hair unless the Communist Party was overthrown) and Wong Yuk-ming, who is nicknamed Mad Dog for his fiery speeches on behalf of the city’s pro-democracy movement and its working class.
“I started to see the real problem is that people in government don’t have the peoples’ votes. They don’t need the support of the local people,” Near said. About half of the city’s legislature is now directly elected; the other half is voted in by broad constituencies such as the commercial and legal sectors.
Near began turning up at rallies. He also enrolled at City University of Hong Kong to study creative media. His family’s apartment was so crowded that he worked with the lights off so others could sleep. His father still held out hope his son would follow him into the jade trade.
His son replied: “I think this generation wants to chase their dreams rather than just using traditional methods to follow their ancestors.”
Near joined the current protests early, hanging out on Sept. 26 near a government square that had been sealed off with a 10-foot fence. Some students scaled the fence but were then corralled by police.
Near said he and other students grabbed barricades and started setting up roadblocks to prevent more police from rushing in. He slept outside that night and spent long hours at the protests over the following days, taking pictures.
Later at home, he and his father quarreled over the impact of the protests, which have kept major thoroughfares paralyzed.
Mr. Chiu complained business was slow at his jade store, saying it hadn’t made a single sale for weeks. Father and son sparred over whether the protest activity—or China’s recent anticorruption crackdown, which has dented sales of luxury goods—was to blame.
Talk shifted to his son’s career. Since graduating in June, Near said he has focused on protests, though he mused that someday he could become an assistant to a famous photographer, making perhaps HK$13,000 ($1,675) a month.
“So low,” his mother said. “I can’t believe it,” added his father.
After sleeping a few hours, Near stayed up until the early morning, processing photos from the protest. The next day, he returned to the streets.
It's pretty much economic concerns that drives this movement. There's definitely that class warfare aspect not just the poor vs rich people but the kids vs their parents' generation.
WHO on RPFs was Ok with police beating Occupy? I saw no such thing on this board.
VPN sucks in Mainland. My son has some friends that moved to mainland that love to game and stuff or watch american TV, and they always cry it's worthless.
Regarding the censorship working. YES to some extent. My customer said he asked everyone he could talk to about the protests while in Mainland and most had no clue.
The only thing China showed about the protests is people in HK celebrating National Day. Of course the sample size is extremely small! One client of mine walking around China for 2 days asking people if they knew about the protests and most if not all were clueless. Again, small sample size, but scary to think that my client is ON A BORDER TOWN to HK, and everyone he talked to had no clue.
Again very small sample size. I'm sure some stuff gets out. But Beijing is pretty much censoring every website from CNN to whatever. They are just wholesale blocking everything.
I'm sure people who are sensitive to this issue find a way to know more, but a lot of people in Mainland are clueless to what's happening.
I'm on the mainland and right now and haven't heard anything about it from a local, although my Chinese is Very Bad and I don't know many people yet. Granted a lot of people are home right now with their families for the national day (week) holiday so there's probably some discussions starting there.
I use VPN every time I'm in China (February was the last time). It might get a little slow at times, but it's always worked for me. I can't stand not having access to Youtube and some other resources. Going back around springtime. I've used VPN for about 10 years now from China.
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