text:
Section 1 of 3: Recommended Photos/Videos/Reading
|Global (in English)
|Greater China (in English)
|Greater China (in Chinese)
Inside Peter Thiel's mind
Eza Klein, Vox
The Business of Lords WSJ
American Exceptionalism and Its Discontents David Bromwich, TomDispatch.com
'White on Pumpkin Crime': Mainstream Riot Coverage from Ferguson, Missouri to Keene, New Hampshire Common Dreams
On Excess: Susan Sontags Born-Digital Archive Jeremy Schmidt & Jacquelyn Ardam, LARB
Two Trains Running: Benny Tai and the Students Take
Separate Tracks China Matters
宋家父子看「雨傘運動」 馮睎乾,蘋果日報
我讀《宋淇傳奇》 馮睎乾
Section 2 of 3: Brief comments
[This is a collection of information on the Occupy Central movement/revolution (also known as the Umbrella movement/revolution) in Hong Kong. This is not comprehensive coverage by any means. Many perspectives are already available in abundance in English, so there is no need for me to duplicate them here. Instead, the focus here is on popular Chinese-language materials that are not otherwise available in English. Most of the information is gathered from mainstream media, social media (Facebook, YouTube, discussion forums (mainly Hong Kong Discussion Forum, Hong Kong Golden Forum, HKGalden, Uwants and Baby Kingdom), blogs and polling data). The YouTube/Facebook videos have people speaking in the Cantonese dialect and the discussion forums often use uniquely Hong Kong Internet language that is not even comprehensible to mainland Chinese citizens. My contribution is to compile and translate into English these otherwise unknown materials to provide a fuller view of the Occupy Central movement.]
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/29) (Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at Chinese University of Hong Kong) 803 respondents aged 18 or above were interviewed by telephone from 20 to 24 November 2014.
Q1. Have you been unhappy over the increasingly severe social conflicts?
26.0%: No
73.0%: Yes
1.0%: Don't know/hard to say
Q2. How unhappy were you? (Among those who said that they were unhappy in Q1)
24.9%: Slightly unhappy
37.7%: Somewhat unhappy
36.7%: Extremely unhappy
0.7%: Don't know/hard to say
Q3. Have your relationship with other people gotten worse due to differences in political opinion?
80.0%: No
18.5%: Yes
1.5%: Don't know/hard to say
Q4. With whom has relationship gotten worse? (Among those who said that relationships have gotten worse)
58.8%: Friends
27.0%: Immediate family members
22.3%: Colleagues
19.6%: Relatives
9.5%: Fellow students
4.1%: Neighbors
6.8%: Other
1.4%: Don't know/hard to say
Q5. Do you accept the increasingly radical behaviors of anti-government people?
68.8%: No
19.3%: In-between
8.7%: Yes
3.1%: Don't know/hard to say
Q6. Do you accept the increasingly radical behaviors of pro-government people?
61.8%: No
21.4%: In-between
12.9%: Yes
4.0%: Don't know/hard to say
Q7. Are you concerned that these social conflicts will frequently take place in Hong Kong?
22.7%: No
19.5%: In-between
54.8%: Yes
3.0%: Don't know/hard to say
Q8. What is the trend for these conflicts over the next years?
40.4%: More severe
25.8%: About the same as now
19.1%: More moderate
14.7%: Don't know/hard to say
Q9. Do you agree that only extremely radical methods can make the government respond?
62.6%: Disagree
22.6%: In-between
12.4%: Agree
2.4%: Don't know/hard to say
Q10. How should one fight for social/public rights?
14.4%: Hold on to the principles, never yield
76.3%: Both sides should take a step back and seek common ground
2.6%: Neither
6.6%: Don't know/hard to say
[Permalink] The Doppelgänger Effect in Media Coverage (2014/11/28) (Wikipedia) In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger, doppelgaenger or doppelganger (literally "double-goer") is a look-alike or double of a living person who is sometimes portrayed as a harbinger of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person's relative or friend portends illness or danger while seeing one's own doppelgänger is said to be an omen of death.
Watch this video of the Mong Kok clearance on November 27: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwOBd4fkIyw. At 1:51, a young man told the TVB reporter: "After work, I came to stroll in the streets. The Chief Executive asked us to come and shop. I bought a cup of ice cream when I got here. Without any cause, a police officer grabbed me on the chest."
An Internet user pointed out that a doppelgänger was previously seen in a Scholarism t-shirt handing out Occupy Central leaflets.
In another case, a taxi driver was first interviewed about business conditions after the Mong Kok clearance. "There was no traffic jams prior to the clearance. There are now traffic jams after the clearance. (During the Occupy period), people waited for taxis. Now my taxi is waiting for people. Things have gotten worse." Later, the same individual was photographed by Oriental Daily walking his dog in support of Occupy Central.
These are the second and third instances of TVB interviewing people without disclosing the conflict of interest. The first case is at #OccupyCentral_1.htm#013. Why is TVB so "lucky"? These events cannot be happening on a random basis, because the probability of three lightning strikes in a row is infinitesimally small.
[Permalink] Post-Occupy Occupy Mongkok (2014/11/27) After the clearance took place, local Mong Kok businesses took a sigh of relief under the belief that some semblance of normality will return. They were wrong.
(Oriental Daily)
The Luk Fook Jewelry Group has three branch shops in Mong Kok. They re-opened for business at 1pm. During the Occupation, "our workers would shutter the shop whenever there seems to be trouble on the street. This was bound to affect business. Mong Kok should have been cleared after the first couple of weeks. But it went on for two months. Our losses are tremendous."
The manager of Hai Yun Pharmacy on Shan Tung Street said that tourists disappeared during the Occupation, and they lost about 20% of their business volume.
At New Town Mall and Mongkok Centre, the shop owners had previously petitioned the landlord to reduce rents due to smaller crowds. Our reporter observed that there were about 20 customers on the third floor of New Town Mall, which was triple the number during the Occupation. At Mongkok Centre, there were also more customers.
New Town Mall accessory shop owner Mr. Yan said that this autumn was the worst in terms of business volume across the eight years that his shop has been in business. Mongkok Centre accessory shop owner Ms. Yang said that she was glad about the clearance, and said: "I hope to make up the business during the Christmas season. I am worried that those Occupy people may return. If this goes for another six months, I would have to close the job and go out to look for a jog."
By the evening, clashes began to break out. Shan Tung Street Kowloon Tax Free Pharmacy manager Mr. Yeung said, "I lowered the shutters twice today already. With so many people around, no customers would dare enter!" The pharmacy usually closes at midnight, but he decided to close early today.
The demonstrators returned in another form for the next couple of nights. This time, they did not pitch tents on Nathan Road. Instead, they stood around the pedestrian mall of Sai Yeung Choi Street South and pretended that they were shopping. When the store managers saw the large crowd outside, they shuttered their stores and so they did zero business. The crowds chanted loudly in the streets until 4am. It was a great party for them. The residents upstairs got no sleep. This is why the Occupy movement is not welcomed in high-density commercial/residential districts. The demonstrators either don't know or don't care, and they wondered why public opinion is swinging against them, or why resident throw objects down the street at them.
Here are some videos of the night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4MrOJ2nFUQ Chants of "Spend money, spend money, spend money ..." in Cantonese and then "Buy things, buy things, buy things ..." in putonghua.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QHiHV-yNNs November 26, 2014 1130pm. Police woman asked people to leave because the situation is getting dangerous, but she is booed by the crowd. At 0:48, the crowd chants "I want genuine universal suffrage." At 1:02, the crowd raised their middle fingers to salute. From 1:22, there is a series of make-believe games by the people. A 1:23, happy-looking people raised ostensibly lost-and-found objects in search of their owners. At 1:35, the crowd chanted "Spend money, spend money, spend money ..." in Cantonese. At 1:44, a man yelled "I want to buy a telephone." At 1:54, the crowd chanted "Buy things, buy things, buy things ..." in putonghua. Of course, they were just standing around and all the shops are shuttered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9LUzc7CEtQ&list=UUD6ApgB89vPuRplh6y5GjEw&index=2 Street fighting. Once upon a time, the movement began as the organization named "Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP)". The love and peace have long gone since.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXyiz8PL1Hw A group of demonstrators have trapped a small number of police officers in a cul-de-sac. The police just stood there, while the demonstrators chant obscenities at them. At 1:27, they began chanting "Fuck your mother, fuck your mother, fuck your mother ..."
This brings us to Friday, for which a much larger turnout is expected. After all, people work during the week and protest during the weekend.
The front page A1 story in The Sun is: "Battle sure to restart in Mong Kok tonight."
(The Sun, Wen Wei Po) Yesterday, the self-proclaimed Facebook group "Hong Kong V-mask team" called for a "people's arm insurrection". They called the masses to show up to do "shopping" in Mong Kok. They made a list of protective gear such as helmets, goggles, body armor, and umbrellas which can be purchased at hardware stores, war game shops and bicycle stores. Shields cannot be purchased at this time, but they can be converted from pot covers, luggage or large wooden boards.
The V-mask banner says:
"November 28 Friday
Armed insurrection by all the people
The people of Hong Kong ... defend firmly ... counter-attack"
[The description is puzzling. What is being defended here? The cleared Nathan Road tent city? The Sai Yeung Choi South pedestrian mall? The original goal of genuine universal suffrage? And what is the objective in counter-attacking? Set up a tent city on Nathan Road/Sai Yeung Choi South and defend it until the end of time? Beat up a few police officers? By the way, what percent of the people will support an armed insurrection?]
The explanation for this event is:
"We are not violent thugs ... we wear protective gear solely in order to protect ourselves.
In the face of powerful authorities, we have no other choice but to resist with our blood and flesh."
[This explanation is incoherent. First of all, "全民武裝起義" "armed insurrection by all the people." According to Google, an insurrection is "a violent uprising against an authority or government." An "armed insurrection" is an insurgency, "an organized rebellion aimed at overthrowing a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict." If insurgency is the action, you need offensive weapons and not protective gear.]
Reference reading: Manual for an Armed Insurrection (1866) by Auguste Blanqui.
The police already have 4,000 officers in and around Mong Kok, and they intend to bring in another 3,000 on Friday night.
[Permalink] How To Escalate (2014/11/27)
(SCMP) Students threaten to target government buildings after night of clashes in Mong Kok. November 27, 2014.
The Federation of Students has threatened to target government buildings in response to the police clearance of the Occupy camp in Mong Kok following violent clashes overnight. "I think we have made it very clear that if [the police] continue the violent way of clearing up the place, we will have further actions," Federation of Students core member Yvonne Leung Lai-kwok said on an RTHK radio programme this morning. "The further actions include a possibility of some escalations pointed at government-related buildings or some government-related departments," she said. Leung, president of the University of Hong Kong students' union, said details would be released later but not before tomorrow.
Here is a priority list of Occupy targets as graded by perceived strategic importance.
Level 1 (top): Chinese People's Liberation Army Forces Hong Kong Building, Central district, Hong Kong Island. This building is the symbol of the rule/sovereignty of the Chinese Central Government in Hong Kong. An Occupation (or even an attempted assault) is an open declaration of rebellion/war, and will likely bring the PLA into the fray.
Level 2: Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Sai Wan, Hong Kong Island. This is the representative of the Chinese Communist Party/Central Government in Hong Kong. This is like occupying the consulate of a foreign country against which one has complaints. This is an open declaration of hostility.
Level 3: Police stations, such as the Hong Kong Police Headquarters at Arsenal Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong Island. If the police are the tools of repression, then it is logical to counter-attack their home base. More importantly, everybody knows that there are guns and ammunition inside. There are many possible consequences, not all of them favorable. If this happens, it will probably a bunch of guys in V-masks charging in, seizing the guns and handing them out to the following students. Then the V-masks guys will disappear in a hurry, leaving the students holding guns that they don't know how to use and looking down at the Special Duties Units (Flying Tigers) rushing in.
Level 4: The major traffic hubs/arteries: Hong Kong International Airport, the tunnels and bridges and the Mass Transit Railway. The airport is different from the rest because its security is operated along the Airport Authority Bylaw which means security units carrying H&K MP5 A3 sub-machine guns and Glock 17 pistols. The tunnels and bridges are easy to block but impossible to hold due to supply problems. That is to say, you can block a tunnel/bridge by blowing the tires of a few trucks. If you are few in numbers, you will be arrested and the trucks towed away. If you bring one thousand friends with you, then you won't have a continuous supply of food and water. Then is why Legislative Councilor Leung Kwok-hung once suggested a four-hour block of the Hung Hom Tunnel only. The MTR is easy to stop. You can just jump on the tracks and the authorities will have to shut down the system to avoid electrocuting you. The storm of public opinion backlash will be incredible, because there is no other way for some people to get around at all (e.g. a truck delivering perishable goods from the airport to Hong Kong Island). You will have inconvenienced a lot of people, but this won't bother CY Leung and the Central Government.
Level 5: Major government buildings: Government House, Chief Executive's Office, Government Headquarters, Legislative Council, High Court. There is some symbolic value (e.g. "today we have taken over the heart of the government"), but the government won't stop running as a result. Government workers will go to back-up locations to continue to work.
Level 6: Major financial institutions: IFC (which houses the Hong Kong Monetary Authority; Mandatory Provident Fund Scheme Authority; Hong Kong Mortgage Authority), also tallest building on Hong Kong Island; Exchange Square (which houses the Hong Kong Stock Exchange); ICC, also tallest building in all of the Hong Kong SAR; Bank of China Tower; HSBC Building; Citibank Plaza. The major financial institutions should all have contingency plans in place to bring their operations off-site.
Level 7: Major pedestrian/vehicular hubs, major commercial/residential centers: Admiralty, Central, Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok have already been occupied before with the result of having a massive public opinion swing against those actions. Right now, more than 80% of the people want the Occupy people to retreat. It hurts the local businesses and vexes the local residents, and it inconveniences almost everybody. It does not hurt CY Leung and the Central Government. The initial targets were the most obvious ones, and others can only be lesser targets.
Level 8: Government departments: Immigration Department; Inland Revenue Department; Land Registry; Security Bureau; Food and Health Bureau; Independent Commission Against Corruption; etc. Much less symbolic value than Level 5. Like, so what if you block foreign visitors from extending their visas? How does that hurt CY Leung and the Central Government?
Level 9: Major tourist attractions: Golden Bauhinia Square; Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre; Ocean Park; Disneyland; Wong Tai Sin Temple; The Peak. It will hurt those who make a living at those locations, but not CY Leung and the Central Government.
Level 10: Government institutions: Hong Kong Public Library; Hong Kong Cultural Centre; Hong Kong City Hall. It will inconvenience some citizens who use these facilities, but not CY Leung and the Central Government.
If the students want to escalate Occupy actions, then there is nothing here that will simultaneously (A) win public support for the actions because they won't hurt people and businesses and (B) force CY Leung and the Central Government to come to the table and give concessions on "genuine universal suffrage."
Two months ago, the Hong Kong Federation of Students issued a statement (see BBC) that if the government does not respond by midnight on September 28, then they will escalate their protest movement. Specifically, they called for work strike (罷工), business strike(罷市) and class strike(罷課) for an unlimited time period until "victory for the people" is achieved. Some students went out on strike for a period of time; a hundred or so workers at the Swire Beverages Factory went on strike for one day; and no business was known to have joined the strike. That was then, and it will be even harder now.
[Permalink] Sun Hing Building, Mongkok (2014/11/26) This legendary commercial building is one good reason why Mongkok should never have been Occupied. It is more trouble than its worth. Hong Kong's most famous crime-ridden building is the Chung King Mansion, but Sun Hing Building is up there.
According to The Sun (2013 June 6), the Sun Hing Building has a concentration of Finnish bath houses and mahjong houses. According to resident Mr. Tong, who has lived there for more than a decade, "all sorts of people come and go here. I never answer any knocks on the door!" She constantly reminds her children never to open the door for strangers. There are multiple entrances to the building. The Sun reporter waited around one security post for more than 20 minutes, but did not see any security guard.
According to Wen Wei Po (2007 February 26), Portland Street is the centre of the local sex industry. The Sun Hing Building used to be the base for solo brothels (note: In Hong Kong, prostitution is legal on a one-to-one basis between prostitute and client, but not if someone else makes money off the activity). The building is 18 storeys tall, with 19 units per floor. At the peak, there were more than 50 solo brothels. The building was erected in 1966, and most of the residents are elderly. Through soft persuasion of landlords to rent selectively, there are only about 10 solo brothels left.
Here are the recent search results at Oriental Daily about this building since October.
October 19: http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/news/20141019/00176_011.html A 34-year-old dim sum chef named Yeung was returning home with his wife and mother after a company dinner. When they got to the front of the Sun Hing Building, they found a file of garbage cans and metal barriers erected by the Occupy people in front of the entrance. So he moved the materials aside in order to go home. Suddenly five men wearing surgical masks with long hair and dyed-blond hair rushed up and accused Yeung of being an anti-Occupy person. There was some arguing and shoving, and Yeung was beaten up with a metal rod and an umbrella. Yeung said that he was hit eight to ten times. He suffered a broken bone in his right hand. Yeung said that his family depends on his salary, but now he is worried that he won't be able to work until the bone heals.
October 19: http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/news/20141019/00176_015.html At around 3am, three water bombs were thrown down the street from high up on Sun Hing Building, seconds apart with loud bangs. The demonstrators thought at first that the police had fired tear gas canisters at them. The demonstrators attempted to enter the Sun Hing Building to find the perpetrator(s). But some tough-looking men working as bouncers for the night clubs chased them out.
October 23:
http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/news/20141023/00176_002.html At around 2pm, about 50 taxis drove down to Argyle Street to support counter-demonstrators removing the barricades. There were violent physical clashes. The police formed a human war to separate the two sides. At around 5pm, there were further clashes outside Langham Place. As precaution, the Sun Hing Building erected a wooden wall to close down the main entrance.
October 28:
http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/news/20141028/00176_008.html At 10pm, someone threw glass bottles from the Sun Hing Building. A female demonstrator was cut by the broken shards.
October 29:
http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/news/20141029/00176_016.html Another glass bottle was thrown down from the Sun Hing Building. Nobody was hurt.
October 31:
Last time, Crime Investigation Department officers arrested a man and a woman who were suspected of throwing glass bottles down on the street from the Sun Hing Building. There have been at least three incidents stemming form the Sun Hing Building over the past two weeks. The two individuals are believed to have been "high" on drugs.
November 1:
http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/news/20141101/00176_010.html A 36-year-old man and a 42-year-old have posted bail after being detained on suspicion of throwing objects from above at the Sun Hing Building. The Occupy volunteers have decided to erect nettings in the area to catch flying objects from above.
November 6:
Early in the morning, a drunkard entered the tent city and yelled: "You are not allowed to sleep in this street ... I don't want your parents to worry about you." The man was taken away by the police.
November 14:
http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/news/20141114/00176_037.html A Sun Hing Building night club mama-san was beaten up by a papa-san after one of the girls complained that a customer was hard to "please."
November 26:
Such being the case, what happened today was expected. On this day, when Nathan Road was being cleared by the police, the demonstrators began retreating south. The Sun Hing Building owners/tenants blocked off its front entrance with a wooden wall. The guards behind the wall got into a verbal fight with the demonstrators, and objects were thrown before the police showed up.
[Permalink] Police Arrested Now TV Engineer (2014/11/26) SCMP mentioned this briefly: "Police said that as of 8pm, 80 people had been arrested, among them a Now TV engineer who allegedly assaulted an officer. "
Now TV described the incident as follows (see the news video too):
At around 9pm, the police used pepper spray again on Shan Tung Street. An engineer who was reporting for our station was subdued by the police. They accused him of assaulting the police and arrested him.
After warning the demonstrators to leave, the police used pepper spray on people again and drove the demonstrators onto the sidewalk.
The demonstrators retreated to Shanghai Street. More police pushed forward. During this time, a engineer working for our station was suddenly pulled away by the police, who accused him of shoving a ladder at the police.
The engineer attempted to explain, but he was pressed onto the ground by several police officers. The accompanying reporter went up to identify himself and explained that the engineer was gathering news with him. The police ignored him. Our station's engineer was held down on the ground, and our reporter was chased away.
Statement from the Hong Kong Journalists Association:
- The police accusation is incredible
- No motive to assault the police
- No cause for arrest, quite shocking
- Release the arrested news reporter as quickly as possible
You can watch the Now TV video. The relevant action occurs around 0:34. Was there an assault? Two extreme opposite types of conclusions are being made by Internet users. They see what they want to see.
There is a slow motion version at https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=837786186262755
A backup of that video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H4TjPxE41g&feature=youtu.be where the relevant action occurs around 0:09. The backup was made by an Internet user who thinks Now TV cannot be trusted with making the full crime evidence available.
Another angle of the incident is at https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=759957907413162&fref=nf. The relevant action is around 0:23.
Follow-up: The police have unconditionally released the individual.
[Permalink] The Clearance of Mongkok - Part 1 (2014/11/26)
Oriental Daily News:
Big Chaotic Battle in Mongkok
They talk about fighting for universal suffrage, but they are deliberately destroying rule-of-law
Hong Kong riot police arrested 80 pro-democracy protesters on Tuesday in running clashes after several thousand demonstrators erected street barricades following clearance of part of a protest hotspot.Several thousand police were deployed after a court ordered the reopening of a blocked street in the working-class district of Mong Kok, scene of some of the most violent confrontations in the two-month long "Occupy Central" civil disobedience campaign. They met with little initial resistance but protesters regrouped in the evening to block traffic on side streets in the bustling Kowloon district across the harbor from the main protest site at Admiralty on Hong Kong island. Riot and tactical unit police rebuffed the crowds with pepper spray, batons and direct force, making 80 arrests according to a police statement. Protest leaders or perceived ring leaders chased down, wrestled to the ground, zip-tied and bundled into waiting vans.
"They want to arrest key people on the frontline to sap the resistance of the movement, but they will fail," said Vincent Man, a 26-year-old activist in a blue T-shirt and bandana. We will keep fighting and win new streets to expand the occupation zone," he added. "Tomorrow will be another big battle," he said, referring to a second court order to clear away a major protest encampment on a major road in Mong Kok. "We won't allow them to do that. Many people will come out."
Or you can watch the videos of the freedom fighters versus Darth Vader and his minions:
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/26) (Facebook: Mongkok Small Business Survey) 160 small businesses were interviewed in early November. The study was conducted by a group of Hong Kong citizens as non-profit volunteers.
The distribution of the locations of the small businesses was:
4%: Fa Yuen Street
13%: Tung Choi Street
12%: Sai Yeung Choi Street
18%: Nathan Road (including Mongkok Centre, New Town Mall, Hollywood Plaza and Bank Centre)
11%: Portland Street
6%: Shanghai Street
11%: Dundas Street
1%: Soy Street
9%: Shantung Street
2%: Nelson Street
13%: Argyle Street
The distribution of tenure (=number of years in business) was:
26%: 0-2 years
51%: 2-10 years
14%: 10-20 years
6%: 20-30 years
2%: 30 years plus
Type of establishment:
33%: Establishment with street-level entrance
19%: Establishment in upper floors above street
43%: Establishment in shopping mall
2%: Tung Choi Street (Women's Street) stall
3%: Newspaper vendor stall
Type of business:
8%: Restaurant/food
4%: Snacks/beverage/buns/fruits
3%: Bookstores
11%: Accessories/shoes
11%: Fashionable items/decorations/toys
12%: Mobile telephony/maintenance/repair/spare parts
1%: Groceries
3%: Eyeglasses
3%: Massage/beauty salon/nail salon
4%: Construction materials/interior design
4%: Pharmacies
3%: Newspaper/magazine vendor stall
7%: Music/video/sound equipment/studio
1%: Furniture
2%: Sports/health products
22%: Other
What is your business volume in October 2014 compared to the same month last year?
4%: Increased
76%: Decreased
20%: Same
How much was the change in business volume?
(Among the 76% which saw decreases)
4%: less than 5%
10%: 5%-10%
12%: 10%-20%
16%: 20%-30%
21%: 30%-40%
34%: 40%+
What was(were) the main reasons(s) for decreases (among the 76% which saw decreases)?
89%: Occupy Mongkok
12%: Increased competition in area
2%: Product-related factors (lack of new products, unpopular products, deteriorating quality)
2%: Less promotion/advertising
44%: Consumer demand
8%: Other
How did the Occupy Movement affect business volume (among the 76% which saw decreases)?
6%: Occupy Mongkok has nothing to do with it
65%: Traffic blockage/jam made customers stay away
11%: Suppliers unable to provide merchandise
69%: Customers stay away out of concern for personal safety
50%: Fewer mainland individual travelers
40%: The Occupy Movement reduced overall desire to consume
17%: Other reasons
What is(are) your main source(s) of customers?
42%: Mainland individual travelers
41%: Local residents
78%: Regular customers
54%: Passersby
10%: Other
What do you expect your November business to be, compared to last year?
11%: Increase
54%: Decrease
31%: Same
1%: Other
[Permalink] Factionalism/Sectarianism (2014/11/25)
(Wikipedia) Sectarianism
Sectarianism, according to one definition, is bigotry, discrimination, or hatred arising from attaching importance to perceived differences between subdivisions within a group, such as between different denominations of a religion, class, regional or factions of a political movement.
The ideological underpinnings of attitudes and behaviours labelled as sectarian are extraordinarily varied. Members of a religious or political group may believe that their own salvation, or the success of their particular objectives, requires aggressively seeking converts from other groups; adherents of a given faction may believe that for the achievement of their own political or religious project their internal opponents must be converted or purged.
Sometimes a group that is under economic or political pressure will kill or attack members of another group which it regards as responsible for its own decline. It may also more rigidly define the definition of orthodox belief within its particular group or organization, and expel or excommunicate those who do not support this new found clarified definition of political or religious orthodoxy. In other cases, dissenters from this orthodoxy will secede from the orthodox organisation and proclaim themselves as practitioners of a reformed belief system, or holders of a perceived former orthodoxy. At other times, sectarianism may be the expression of a group's nationalistic or cultural ambitions, or exploited by demagogues.
(The Free Dictionary) Factionalism
1. A group of persons forming a cohesive, usually contentious minority within a larger group.
2. Conflict within an organization or nation; internal dissension: "Our own beloved country . . . is now afflicted with faction and civil war" (Abraham Lincoln).
Within the Occupy movement, a number of factions/sects have come out to speak on behalf of the movement. There is a so-called "five party platform" in which some (but not all) of the factions/sects get to meet, make decisions (sometimes, decisions not to make decisions) and announcements.
Here is a partial list of the factions/sects:
Legislative Council pan-democrat parties (27 in total)
Democratic Party (6)
Civic Party (6)
People Power (3)
Labour Party (4)
League of Social Democrats (1)
Neighbourhood and Worker's Service Centre (1)
Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (1)
Neo Democrats (1)
Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union (1)
Independent democrats (3)
Other political parties without elected members in the Legislative Council
Next Media (Apple Daily/Next Magazine)
On this night, there is news related to possible sectarian/factionalism clashes:
(Oriental Daily News)
At around 7pm, Legislative Councilor Albert Chan Wai-yip came down to the Occupy Mongkok area along with other People Power members. They were ready to speak at 8pm. But a group of Civic Passion supporters showed up, some of them wearing surgical masks. They said that they were not happy with the League of Social Democrats saying that anti-Occupy elements have infiltrated Civic Passion as well as condemning Civic Passion members for attacks against the Legislative Council.
About 40 police officers came to separate the two sides. Chan was surrounded by certain people, and there was some physical action. Citizens supporting the sides got into argument. Some people accused People Power of: "Keep telling us to charge, but you never charge yourself!" and "When will you pay the bill?" Meanwhile, other people said that if Civic Passion were up front and open, they wouldn't be wearing surgical masks.
Other citizens raised placards in front of the People Power members, with photos of League of Social Democrats' Andrew To Kwan-hang and the People Power's Stephen Siu, Erica Yuen and Chan Wai-yip to denounce them for "helping to arrest citizens, aiding the police to persecute dissidents and being undercover police."
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-c2KlXJzu8
(Apple Daily)
At around 11pm, Stephen Siu left after finishing an Internet radio show. He got on to the car driven by his chauffeur. Suddenly, another car cut in front of his and people jumped out with knives and rods to smash the windshield of Siu's car. The chauffeur tried to reverse gears to leave, but another car came in from behind to stop progress. The chauffeur alertly drove onto the sidewalk and got away. The police was called for assistance.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV0qVsrFKf4
[Permalink] Reaching Out To The Local Communities - Part 3 (2014/11/25)
(SCMP) Occupy Central co-founders hold 'community dialogue day' November 24, 2014
Occupy Centrals founders may have become less visible at the protest sites, but they have been planning ways to take the fight for democracy beyond the occupied zones starting with a community dialogue day today.
The news emerged after a three-hour discussion involving over 100 volunteers yesterday, which also addressed when or if the three co-founders, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, Reverend Chu Yiu-ming and Dr Chan Kin-man would turn themselves in to police.
While Tai, Chu and Chan declined to comment, others said the trio favoured turning themselves in early next month, although no consensus was reached as some felt they should focus on doing the groundwork for democracy first. Some were concerned that if they followed the trio and turned themselves in, they wouldnt be able to contribute any more, a volunteer said on condition of anonymity.
Today, Occupy volunteers, students and pan-democrat lawmakers will be stationed at 21 locations across the city to share their views on universal suffrage.
Ideas discussed yesterday included sending volunteers to knock on doors and set up street booths in neighbourhoods to explain more about democracy. Others involved encouraging people to patronise small shops instead of chain stores to break the economic dominance of conglomerates and developers.
This entry is a collection of news and video links to the reception of the Occupy volunteers, students and pan-democrat lawmakers at the various locations on November 23.
Po Lam
http://news.now.com/home/local/player?newsId=118648 Now TV news report on how a number of water bombs were dropped on the station. Nobody was hit. At the time, Scholarism convener Joshua Wong was at the location. Passersby stayed away from the location to avoid being hit. Scholarism decided not to summon the police.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmGeuLWbUV4 Scholarism volunteers follow the two men who took their leaflets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0uifjD2phg This is a later development as the students were surrounded by screaming citizens and the police was called. Scholarism convener Joshua Wong was allegedly pushed to the ground by a telecommunications service salesman. The police asked for eyewitnesses to the incident. Wong declined to pursue the matter with the police.
But that doesn't mean he wouldn't pursue the matter. On his Facebook, Wong has posted the photo of the man and a mobile telephone number.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYUK9OXhCPo Police protect Joshua Wong from citizens.
Hung Hom
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10202170087133728&set=o.725310540815680&type=2&theater Democratic Party legislative councilor Helena Wong Pik-wan uses a megaphone to tell people how the Occupy movement came about. The megaphone was turned up to a high volume, because otherwise nobody could have heard her over the chorus of loud boos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdJGLI4SRmU A student uses a megaphone to address the crowd, but they refused to listen and just yell back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=748i7iQNIAI More people yelling at the students in the evening.
Tuen Mun
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10203356731016339&set=o.312693275508654&type=2&theater Labor Party chairman Lee Cheuk-yan uses a megaphone to address the citizens. But the megaphone is not loud enough, and it is hard to hear him. At 1:43, a young man is trying to explain that this was about justice. A woman's voice came in loud and clear: "Justice? If justice is the thing, then don't sleep in the streets. Don't give the leaflet to me. Justice? If you want justice, then you shouldn't be blocking the streets and preventing us from earning a livelihood. Justice! He should come clean about his 'black gold' (secret political contributions) first. He took money from people. You tell him to come clean about his 'black gold.' He took so much money."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we7DRIi6y7M A woman kept yelling "Running dog!" at Lee Cheuk-yan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEGrcDyeMdY A female yellow-ribbon supporter of Lee Cheuk-yan yelled back at the citizens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgH6WUvgwlo Obscenity-laced cursing from unseen men
Lok Fu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzWFbri_6r8 Students surrounded by angry mob.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-GLtQY3GcI Video uploaded by Hong Kong Federation of Students supporter
Tung Chung
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_t2_CgH0HM Students surrounded by screaming citizens who want them to leave. Earlier someone overturned the table containing the propaganda material.
Tai Po
0:02 (Man) Nobody in the world likes you. Nobody in the world likes you.
0:07 (Man) You leave! You leave!
0:10 (Woman) Not welcomed.
0:11 (Man) Tai Po does not welcome you. Go away!
0:15 (Another man) Hey, you bastards have come to Tai Po to cause trouble!
0:24 (Another man) If you want to cause trouble, you go to Mongkok! You are coming to Tai Po.
0:27 (Another man) Fuck your mother!
[A young woman clearly became emotionally distraught, wrapped herself in a yellow banner, turned against the wall and shut her ears.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkBFjtEE_Gc Labor Party legislative councilor Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung and his companions leave the site to the cheering of citizens: "Have a good journey! Have a good journey!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcQdDKwIb70 Cacophony!
Tsuen Wan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GqC2gDEC8o Students (including two Scholarism celebrities and Civil Human Rights' Jackie Hung) surrounded by citizens. The police was called.
Fortress Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZRcq40Spts Democratic Party legislative councilor Albert Ho is handing out leaflets outside the MTR station. Not many people are taking whatever he is handing out, except for one person in a blue-striped yellow shirt whom Ho refused to give a leaflet to. Democratic Party member Yeung Sum is trying to address the passersby but this man is yelling at his side.
(Wen Wei Po) November 24, 2014
Many street stations were faced with spontaneously organized boycotts and harangues from citizens.
Democratic Party legislative councilor Helena Wong Pik-wan is also a Whampoa district councilor. Yesterday, she was cursed out by many citizens who told her to leave: "Please leave! You caused chaos for Hong Kong! I won't vote for you!" The police separated the sides and kept order.
Hong Kong Federation of Students standing executive committee members Yvonne Leung and Tommy Cheung were at the Mongkok East Station handing out leaflets. Some citizens took the leaflets and ripped them up immediately to show their disapproval. Tommy Cheung said that because the various street stations were being besieged by citizens, they will adjust their strategy and have volunteers visit buildings instead.
At around 3pm at the Lok Fu MTR Station, student volunteers were surrounded by a large number of citizens who wanted them to leave. The citizens said: "If you want to make trouble, you go back to your own place and make trouble," "We don't welcome you," "Have you asked us first whether you can be here?" The police was summoned.
In Sham Shui Po, before the students even began, some business owners asked them to fold up. A business owner said: "We support democracy, but we don't want you to cause trouble for us! Some business owners heard about what you are up to and are very angry. They want to come here and curse you out!" This street station was closed after 45 minutes.
Labor Party legislative councilor Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung and a bunch of Occupy people set up a street station opposite the Tai Po Market East Station. They were surrounded by a group of citizens, and engaged in verbal arguments. The citizens chanted that the Occupy people wanted to create chaos in Tai Po and they cursed Cheung for "not being a Chinese person." Some citizens threatened to charge at the volunteers, but fortunately there was no physical clash.
In Tuen Mun, Labor Party legislative councilor Lee Cheuk-yan was besieged by citizens who told him that he was not welcomed and they wanted him to leave.
At the Po Lam MTR station in Cheung Kwun O, Scholarism convener Joshua Wong was cursed out by citizens. Some citizens attempted to remove the leaflets at the street station. Some citizens threw water bombs at the street station. Joshua Wong was also pushed to the ground by an individual wearing a Hong Kong Broadband coat. Wong got up and said that he did not wish to pursue the matter. The man was taken away by the police.
(Sky Post) Reflections after the Clearance. BY Wat Wing-yin November 26, 2014
The Federation of Students, Scholarism, Occupy Central, the pan-democrats and various civic organizations made November 23 an Umbrella Community Day so that they can promote their ideas and unite the communities all over Hong Kong. But everybody can see the citizens waiting for them with glee. If the Occupy people hoped to see flowers bloom everywhere, then what they got was their backsides kicked.
The Occupy people came out claiming to represent public opinion. They referred to "the people of Hong Kong." After more than one month and after 1.83 million signed the petition against them, recent public opinion polls have shown that more than 80% of the people want them to leave. But they refuse to listen. An outfit that claimed to represent the people turned out to be the most disdainful of public opinion.
They don't want to believe in the numbers. So they decided to reach out to the local communities. I am all for them setting up stations in 19 districts quickly, instead of hiding in the Occupy areas and feeling good about themselves. The true public opinion in the local communities can manifest itself.
On the day when the Yellow Ribbons went out to the communities, my phone kept receiving videos from various districts. It must be the first time that these young people have been surrounded and cursed out with obscenities this way. They were at a loss. In Tai Po, a woman wrapped herself in a yellow "genuine universal suffrage" banner, covered her ears and turned to face the wall in order to escape the crowd. Hey, didn't you come out to listen to public opinion? How can you communicate if you cover your ears? Anger is a form of public opinion.
After being hounded around like rats in the street, the Occupy people have now tested the temperature of the water. Will they learn even more? They used to run around demanding so-and-so resign and so-and-so apologize. Will they now understand that it is really not easy to apologize; and even harder to step down from the dais?
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/25) (New People's Party press release and appendix) Survey period: November 13-19, 2014. Sample size: 1,738. Sampling plan: 36 sampling locations, including many public housing estates and middle-class private housing estates. This is not a random probability sample.
Table 1. How would you characterize your overall position with respect to the Occupy movement?
66%: Oppose
16%: So-so
10%: Support
8%: No opinion
Table 2. So far, has your daily life been affected by the Occupy movement?
65%: Yes
35%: No
Table 3. If "Yes", then in what way?
92%: Transportation
39%: Emotions/moods
33%: Daily shopping
29%: Social life
28%: Study/work
18%: Family relations
1%: Other matters
Table 4. By what methods did you learn about Occupy Central
87%: Radio/television
67%: Newspapers
34%: Social media (Facebook, Internet discussion forums, etc)
23%: Friends/groups
5%: School/teachers
1%: Other methods
Table 5. Since the Occupy movement started, have you gotten into arguments with families and/or friends due to difference in politics?
37%: Yes
63%: No
Table 6. How has the Occupy movement affected the relationship between you and your family and friends?
8%: Positively
30%: Negatively
63%: No impact
Table 7. Have you been emotionally affected by the Occupy movement?
53%: Yes
47%: No
Table 8. What do you think is the impact of the representatives of the Hong Kong Federation of Students going to Beijing?
8%: Positive
35%: Negative
35%: No impact
22%: No opinion
Table 9. Do you agree that the Occupy people should retreat as soon as possible?
82%: Agree
6%: Disagree
12%: No opinion
Table 10. Do you agree that if the Occupy people ignores the court injunction, then that would be a blow on rule-of-law in Hong Kong?
83%: Agree
17%: Disagree
As the Occupy Movement enters its 57th day, many people wondered if the Occupiers "feel good about themselves" and therefore fail to appreciate the reversal of public opinion. But many students have indeed gone into the local communities to reach out to citizens.
Over the past 3+ weeks, about 80 volunteers have visited 230 buildings and spoke to almost 500 families. At past 7pm on November 20 (Thursday), more than 20 volunteers divided themselves into teams of twos or threes, with each team responsible to visit two buildings. Hong Kong Institute of Education fourth-year student Ah Chu did this for the first time. Previously, she had been making umbrella decorations at Admiralty to support the Occupy movement. But after a while she began to wonder what she was doing. A week ago, the reversal of public opinion in the Chinese University of Hong Kong poll woke her up. "Obviously, people inside the Occupied area support the movement. But we have to see what opponents are thinking, and hence continue in reaction." So she decided to visit the local residents after she saw the call for volunteers.
Her partner Ronnie graduated in England and came back to Hong Kong to work as an accountant. He has participated in six previous visits. He has the same idea as Ah Chu. His company is located near Admiralty and he goes there often. But he feels that the movement is stuck. Most of his colleagues are indifferent to the Occupy movement. Sitting on the pavement, he asked: "Is there something an ordinary person can do?" So he finally took the questionnaires and leaflets to visit people. The third member of the team is Hong Kong University third-year Social Work students Johannie.
In two hours, the three-person team knocked on more than 20 doors in a private building. Most of the families either did not answer the knock, or said they were eating, or gave other reasons of refusal. Some just slammed the door on the team. They left the leaflets at the door, and recorded the result for future reference.
On that day, two families were successfully spoken to. In one case, a middle-aged man said that the Occupy movement has affected traffic and demanded the demonstrators to withdraw. His wife joined the discussion and said that the Occupied area was dangerous and she was concerned about the safety of her son who is tutored nearby. She said: "Your grandfathers and your fathers are Chinese people. The Central Government are your parents. They don't want you to die. If my children are like you, I would jump out the windows and commit suicide." The volunteers responded: "That is not good. There is no need to get so excited." The two sides kept interrupting each other. Finally, the resident said: "I am not going to argue with you. I don't care who you are. If you enter the Occupy area, you are a member of Occupy Central." Then they slammed the door. From behind the door, the couple continued to say aloud: "No matter what we say, you just don't get it. You are just bums." Afterwards our reporter followed up with this couple. They said that they were willing to spend some time to listen to the students' opinion. But in the end, "After talking for so long, I understand what they are saying but they don't understand us." They decided that it was pointless to talk and they will not welcome the volunteers to come back.
Afterwards, the team discussed their experiences. Ah Chu was glad that she got out of the Occupied area. She thought that the couple was self-contradictory. On one hand, they said that the decision of the Central Government cannot be overturned. On the other hand, they said that they want democratization. But she was too anxious and did not know how to rebut them with accurate information. Johannie said that the opponents always used to be all "Blue Ribbon" people. So visiting them helps to reduce the gap. As for this experience," Johannie said: "We share their feelings. We understand you in that Occupy Central has had some impact. But I have my faith and values, which you don't understand."
According to the person in charge Kwan Man-lun, "I don't know if this was a special case." Previously, most volunteers encountered positive experiences. About one-third of volunteers will continue with their work. "During the visits, mistakes will be made. The volunteers are not professionals and they do not have enough techniques. It is difficult to get them to communicate according to set ways." He also said that according to imprecise statistics, about half of the people support universal suffrage, but they have different opinions about the ways of achieving that. About 30% with that Occupy Mongkok will stop, but they accept occupying government buildings or Admiralty because that doesn't affect residents. Another 30% are opposed or don't care about universal suffrage one way or the other.
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/24) (Chinese University of Hong Kong, The Centre for Quality of Life) From November 11 to 13, 2014, 507 Hong Kong residents aged 18 or above were interviewed.
Q1. Compared to one year ago, how is the financial situation of you and your family?
15%: Better
21%: Worlse
63%: The ame
2%: Don't know/hard to say
Q3. Looking ahead to the next year, how will the financial situation of you and your family be?
17%: Better
22%: Worse
51%: The same
10%: Don't know/hard to say
Q4. Looking ahead to the next year, what do you think is the overall business environment in Hong Kong will be?
9%: Good
34%: Bad
51%: So-so
6%: Don't know/hard to say
Q5. What do you think of the overall economic situation will be in Hong Kong over the next five years?
21%: Optimistic
41%: Pessimistic
31%: Same as now
6%: Don't know/hard to say
Q6. What do you think the unemployment situation will be in Hong Kong for the next year?
11%: Improve
36%: Worse
45%: Same as now
8%: Don't know/hard to say
The published report also contains the poll results of the June and September waves. The major impact of Occupy Central is captured in this statement; The survey also found that 36% of the respondents expected the employment situation would "deteriorate" in the coming year and 11% thought it would "improve". Comparing with the survey in September, those choosing "deteriorate" sharply increased by 6 percentage points and those choosing "improved" remained the same. This reflects that the occupy movement might have negative impact on people's perception about the employment situation in the coming year."
[057] More on the Assault on the Legislative Council (2014/11/20) (Oriental Daily)
On the night before yesterday, someone made the call for people to escalate. At around 10:30pm, several dozen masked men got together outside the Legislative Council demonstration area. Some of them went to Harcourt Road and used a megaphone to summon citizens to "escalate." In less than 10 minutes, almost 200 persons followed them.
During that time, several masked men tried to charge out onto Lung Wo road, but the Occupy Admiralty monitors stopped them. After discussing among themselves for 20 minutes, they used the megaphone to announce that the Legislative Council will be voting on the Internet Article 23 bill and they wanted people to lay siege to the Legislative Council. (In truth, the bill is not up for discussion until the middle of next year). Several dozen masked men responded and quickly moved iron barricades to block the various entrances to the Legislative Council. Some of them tapped on the glass doors to test the hardness of the glass. This caused Occupy Admiralty people to angrily ask: "What do you want to do? The Legislative Council has so many entrances. How many do you expect to block." The masked men replied that the Movement cannot sit there and die, so they must escalate.
After the masked men set up the metal barricades, they tried to run guerilla warfare. By late night, the masked men realized that things were not working out in their favor. They went to the Harcourt Road main stage and wanted to use the stage to issue a general call to action. But the Occupy Admiralty people refused. There was a rumor that the monitors beat up some of the masked men. This caused a large number of masked men to rush to the stage. Some of them tried to get on stage and seize the microphone. But the monitors defended the stage. Failing to seize the stage, the masked men turned to assault the Legislative Council.
The police arrested six men during the incident. About a dozen more are being sought.
Arrestee #1 is named Tai, who claimed to be a 24-year-old Japanese restaurant chief.
Arrestee #2 is named Chang, who claimed to be a 23-year-old unemployed person.
Arrestee #3 is named Cheng, who claimed to be an 18-year-old Chinese restaurant chef.
Arrestee #4 is named Shek, who claimed to be a 24-year-old unemployed person.
The above four were arrested on suspicion of causing criminal property damage.
Arrestee #5 is named Yuen, who claimed to be a 18-year-old salesman.
Arrestee #6 is named Auyeung, who claimed to be a student studying in the United States.
The above two were arrested on suspicion of assaulting the police.
Of the six, only one had a prior police record, namely having sexual intercourse with an under-aged girl.
Although the six wore masks, they left plenty of traces behind them on the Internet (namely, Facebook). In particular, one of them thinks that he looks like Bruce Lee and therefore idolized his look-alike. However, his statements on Facebook appears somewhat logically confused. For example, he makes anti-Occupy statements like saying that the Occupy people are worse than triad members. He inverted the Occupy statement "We will save our own Hong Kong" into "We will destroy our own Hong Kong." He also says that his philosophy is "Don't be rash. Be patient and peaceful in everything."
The police investigation shows that the masked gang that assaulted the Legislative Council was had the same methods and ideas as the masked men who were causing trouble in the Occupy Admiralty area two weeks ago. Back then, they charged onto Lung Wo Road late night but retreated due to lack of numerical strength. They also blocked the overpass from Admiralty Centre to prevent government workers from going to work. They also laid siege unsuccessfully to the Occupy Admiralty main stage to seize the "microphone."
What seems amazing to me is the photos of these arrestees (see the page for all of them). Here is one of them:
If this was what you are going to do and you are all going to wear surgical masks, then shouldn't you all wear the same non-descript black sports suits and black sneakers so that you become indistinguishable from each other? As it stands, there is going to only one person in the whole scene dressed like this, and the arrest (and eventual trial) is a no-brainer (see 0:20 @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAbUX9WIbF8 for evidence).
In the videos, it can be seen that one (and only one) person made it into the Legislative Council after an opening was created in the glass window (see 4:36 @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAbUX9WIbF8). Here are the screen captures from videos. That person is the one in the red jacket with white letters on the left sleeve, with a red hat.
Here is the screen capture from the closed circuit television inside the Legislative Council building. The man in the red jacket also wears red shoes.
Caption: A demonstrator has entered inside the Legislative Council
Internet users quickly found a person wearing the same red hat, red jacket with white letters on the right sleeve and red shoes doing a street Internet radio show earlier in Mongkok. His nickname is "French guy" and he hangs around with the radical Civic Passion party. Does this person have any other clothes other than this amazing combination of red clothing/accessories that no other person in Hong Kong can be wearing?
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/19) (Ming Pao, Oriental Daily)
Over the past couple of days, the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme interviewed 513 Cantonese-speaking citizens aged 18 or over.
The results showed that about 54.7% oppose the Occupy movement while 27.8% support it.
82.9% think the Occupy movement should stop, while 13% think it should continue.
68% think the government should clear the sites, while 25% want to maintain the present conditions.
With respect to sincerity to solve the current problem, the interviewees were asked to give a rating between 0 to 10 (with 10 being perfection).
The Hong Kong SAR government: 29.7% gave 6-10, 66.1% gave 0-5.
The Central Government: 24.9% gave 6-10, 67.2% gave 0-5.
The Student organizations: 31.6% gave 6-10, 64.3% gave 0-5 (with 24.6% giving 0).
[Note: In the above, there are two results that seems contradictory. 27.8% support the Occupy Movement but only 13% think it should continue. Conversely, 82.9% think the Occupy Movement should stop, but only 54.7% oppose it. Shouldn't they be the same? Not necessarily. Here is one interpretation: 27.8% think that the Occupy Movement was a great idea and also an exhilarating experience at first. 13% still feel that way and believe that victory will be achieved if they persisted. However, 27.8% - 13% = 14.8% now think that the movement has gone astray due to lack of focus and internal dissension, caused economic misery to innocent people and/or received no hint that the Central Government will relent. Therefore it is time to stop. In some other polls, the interviewees are actually questioned about their reasons.]
(Bastille Post) November 20, 2013
The two newspapers above did not report it, but the average rating for the Hong Kong government, the Central Government and the student organizations were 4.3, 3.9 and 4.1. The students led on the number of zeros at 24.6%.
Also, of the 82.9% who said that Occupy Central should stop, 40.4% said that they should look for some other way of fighting for what they want while 31.2% think that Occupy Central should not have taken place at all.
(Bastille Post) November 19, 2014.
Public opinion is eroding for Occupy Central. The court issued a temporary injunction and instructed the police to assist. On Tuesday, the area around CITIC Tower was cleared in a somewhat smooth manner. But it does not require too much political smarts to know that the radical elements will come out to counter-attack. The radicals surrounded the Legislative Council. When some Occupy Central people tried to dissuade them, they charged at the main stage and went back to plot their assault. This was an internecine struggle between the moderates and radicals. The same type of thing was seen in the 1989 Beijing student movement as well as the Sunflower movement in Taiwan.
As Occupy continued, more and more people are wavering. But the roads are occupied by the radicals. The more radical they are, the more vocal. When Occupy Central Trio member Chan Kin-man called for a de facto referendum tied in with a withdraw, the radicals said that the three Trio should withdraw.
Some people say that the radicals were sent in by the Chinese Communists. I think many demonstrators will disagree and consider that to be a smear. On television, we see girls in school uniforms help move metal barricades to assault the Legislative Council. No matter who is the instigator, there are surely plenty of sincere people who take radical actions.
At this time, the pan-democrats, Federation of Students and Scholarism feel that the movement is beyond their control. They may even harbor thoughts on how to withdraw. But nobody can stand the ignominy of calling out to surrender. Therefore, some student leaders even wish for the government to clear the sites. They would be heroes if they get arrested. They would be bums if they stood up and tell people to withdraw.
As some pan-democrat describes it, "The Trio invited people to dinner, the Federation of Students/Scholarism ordered the food, the civil organizations waited at the table, and the pan-democrats will pay the bill." My question is that since the pan-democrats feel so innocent, why don't they stand up and call for a withdrawal? The answer is that when the pan-democrats supported Occupy Central, they lost a number of moderate supporters. If they stand up and call for a withdrawal, they would lose the radical supporters as well, so that they lose everyone. In the final analysis, they look after their own interests and not after everyone in Hong Kong.
Why should the government hurry to clear the sites? If Occupy continues and becomes increasingly radicalized, the resentment of the citizens will build and the pan-democrats will pay. Who do you think wants to see this happen?
[Permalink] The Assault on the Legislative Council (2014/11/19) I was sleeping last night when the telephone rang. "Turn on the television set! They are assaulting the Legislative Council building!"
(The Standard) November 19, 2014
Hong Kong police clashed with pro-democracy demonstrators Wednesday after a small group attempted to break into the city's legislature, with tensions spiking as court-ordered clearances of protest sites get under way.
Around 100 police used pepper spray and batons as they battled hundreds of protesters, some in helmets and waving umbrellas -- a symbol of their movement -- in an angry confrontation that broke out in the early hours. Officers made four arrests.
"Police strongly condemn such acts by the protesters, which disrupted public order,'' the police force said in a statement.
The clashes were sparked when a group of around a dozen protesters smashed their way through a side entrance to the southern Chinese city's Legislative Council using metal barricades as improvised battering rams.
"Smash it open then get inside,'' one protester was heard saying in footage aired by the local TVB channel.
"We want to escalate our protest,'' a masked protester told TVB. "The government has not responded to the demands of protesters and residents.''
Police scouring the building on Wednesday took away at least one demonstrator who remained on the site as the working day began, according to the Apple Daily newspaper.
(New York Times) Protesters Attempt to Break Into the Hong Kong Legislature November 19, 2014.
Demonstrators attempted to break into Hong Kongs legislature late Tuesday night and early Wednesday by smashing windows. Police officers in riot gear used pepper spray to help quell the protest and arrested four men. Witnesses said the attempted break-in was in retaliation for court-ordered clearances of some parts of the protest area that began on Tuesday.
Behind a police cordon at the legislatures building were two smashed windows, one with a hole large enough for people to slip through.
For weeks, the main protest area in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong has been largely peaceful, as a festive tent city gradually spread out over a wide thoroughfare and demonstrators filled their new occupied zone with art. The overnight clash marked a shift and involved at least some people from the more militant protest zone in the Mongkok neighborhood, across Victoria Harbor in Kowloon. They wore the characteristic hard hats and surgical masks of those protests.
On Wednesday morning, a group of helmeted demonstrators huddled together near the police lines outside the Legislative Council, watching news reports of their attempted break-in on their cellphones.
One man, a 23-year-old employee at a Japanese noodle shop who called himself Kuroros, said the action was aimed at taking over the building, just as protesters in Taiwan occupied the legislature there earlier this year. If we keep sitting here, doing nothing, nothings going to change, he said. Kuroros, who said he helped smash the windows with concrete blocks and metal rods, declined to give his real name because he feared arrest. This isnt about law, its about politics, he said.
Posts on HKGolden, an online message board, rallied people to take part in the break-in. One post used thinly disguised code words, calling the Legislative Council the Garbage Council, for example. The words sound similar in Cantonese. The forum has been a popular place for more radical groups to organize rallies and is closely monitored by the police. Those who champion peace, reason and nonviolence are the governments agents, one person wrote on the forum Wednesday morning.
Here are the videos:
Apple Daily http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAbUX9WIbF8
Oriental Daily http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycnik3RxhWA
Cable TV News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VFcFJ0Xzs0
TVB Jade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpPABhJJjrY
Phoenix Satellite TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3snpQEZjTw
InMediaHK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDqEPxCqLvM
(Post852.com) Seven suspicious points about the assault on the Legislative Council building. November 19, 2014.
(1) After some demonstrators broke the glass door, they did not seem to want to enter and occupy the building. According to the InMediaHK video, the demonstrators rammed the glass door and created a whole. But nobody went through. A demonstrator yelled: "Go in! Get someone to go in!" But nobody responded. One demonstrator went through and came back out shortly afterwards. Then the police came and nobody could go in again. Also, the first group of assaulters wore masks. Nobody knew who they were.
(2) The most important requirement for escalation is "numerical strength." But these demonstrators chose to escalate in the early morning hours when most people are asleep and the buses/MTR have stop running. They couldn't rally any backup forces. By 10am in the morning, fewer than 10 people remained at the scene. The whole action has just fizzled off.
(3) The first group of demonstrators who assaulted the Legislative Council and told the press that they are escalating in order to prevent the Legislative Council from discussing the so-called Internet Article 23 bill (formally known as Amended Copyright Bill). But this subject was not on today's meeting agenda. So who spread the misinformation? Labor Party legislative councilor Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung went to the scene in the early morning and kept telling people that the Internet Article 23 was not on the meeting agenda today. He asked people to get on the Internet to check. But the demonstrators pushed him aside and kept ramming the glass windows.
(4) Senior Hong Kong SAR government reacted to this incident quickly. Secretary of Justice Rimsky Yuen said that the rule of law must not be destroyed. Meanwhile, mainland party media such as Xinhua and People's Daily labeled the assault as being committed by the Occupy people. In other words, the authorities have assigned the responsibility of this assault to the entire Occupy movement.
(5) Legislative Council chairman Jasper Tsang came in the morning to inspect the damage to the building. The police has the situation under control and the atmosphere was peaceful. But Tsang canceled today's session, including the presentation of a new report from the Audit Commission.
(6) The most perplexing thing was that the electronic media had reported early on that people were planning on an assault. When the action started, the media were able to take close-up videos. However, the police who were nearby took a long time to arrive. Thus the assaulters had ample time to break the glass windows. Scholarim convener Joshua Wong said that it was unusual for the police to have too few numbers in the early morning and to fail to stop the assault immediately.
(7) Yesterday the pro-establishment camp was said to be planning to build a 3-meter tall wall around the Legislative Council, just like the one in Civic Plaza. Then the early next morning, there was an assault. Subjectively speaking, this gave the pro-establishment camp the reason why a wall is needed.
No matter what, the students and the pan-democrats have indicated to various degrees that they disapproved of this assault incident. Joshua Wong said that he does not understand the purpose of this action, and he doesn't understand why these people didn't notify him first. The pan-democrat Legislative Councilors condemned people for spreading the news about debating the Internet Article 23. The pan-democrats also opposed violent assaults. Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung said that this action may determine whether the Occupy movement will fail.
Ultimately, irrespective of the Internet discussion over whether those assaulters are agents provocateurs and even if we believe that they were acting sincerely on behalf of the movement, their actions this morning were definitely ill-conceived/ill-prepared.
The Occupy movement originally began with the full name of "Occupy Central with Love and Peace."
But on this day, what people are seeing is this:
This will probably lead to another 10 point swing in public opinion. On this day, the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme said it found 83% of the people wanted Occupy to stop and 13% wanted it to continue. Those interviews were conducted before this incident took place.
Addendum: (This is the most detailed account of what happened.) (Ming Pao) November 19, 2014
Those who supported the action tonight said that they were unhappy that the team of Occupy Central monitors were preventing them from escalating to break the stalemate and fight for universal suffrage. They said that the Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan also took over the Parliament, so why can't Hong Kong people too? They criticized the Occupy people for holding double standards in that they approved of the assault on Civic Plaza by the Federation of Students/Scholarism but not in this case? They also demanded the the team of monitors been disbanded and the Occupy Central stage be dismantled.
Those who opposed the action tonight said that the Sunflower Movement and the Federation of Students/Scholarism took over the institutions purposefully in an organized fashion. But the action tonight was a blind charge that was all destruction and provided the police with an excuse to clear the sites. They said that using "stopping the Internet Article 23" as the reason to assault will make it hard to win public opinion.
The quarrel between the two sides continued on the Internet discussion forums after the physical one ended.
Here are the details about what happened:
At around 10pm, a group of demonstrators calling themselves "Internet users" gathered near the Legislative Council. Some of them had participated earlier in the Lung Wo Road action. They came prepared with surgical masks and plastic strips. Several dozen attempted to charge into the Legislative Council building but failed. They rocked the metal barricades for about a minute. The Occupy people at the scene condemned these Internet users as doing something meaningless. The Legislative Council security guards locked all the doors to the building.
According to an Internet user, they wanted to charge into the Legco building and blocked all entrances/exits so that the Legislative Councilors won't be able to come and go. This will put pressure on the government as well as respond to the court injunctions to clear the sites. He condemned the Occupy Central monitors for blocking these activists, including calling them agents provocateurs on behalf of the government/police.
At 11:04pm, a group of demonstrators started a second wave of assault. They now had a different motive. They said that they are surrounding the Legco building to prevent the passage of the so-called Internet Article 23 bill. But this was a mild effort, moving the metal barricades forward by just a little.
At 11:40pm, an Occupy Central volunteers said that they a group of Internet users went to the main stage in Admiralty and demanded to make an open plea on stage for people to support the assault on the Legco building.
At 11:45pm, several dozen Internet users clamored to get on stage to speak. The monitors told them that must remove their surgical masks if they want to speak. A demonstrator wearing a blue coat used his own megaphone and spoke from down stage. He explained that they were wearing surgical masks to protect themselves. These Internet users then took turns addressing the assembly. They called for people to assault the Legco building. They said that while people have different methods to fight back, they should respect each other. They questioned why the Occupy Central monitors keep hampering their actions.
One Internet user claimed that the monitors pushed him around. He accused the monitors of spreading rumors. He demanded the Occupy Central monitors be disbanded and the stage be dismantled. "These politicians are pretending to act on behalf of the people!" The two sides argued until past midnight. These Internet users said that the monitors are the same as the evil cops. Some say that it was pointless to occupy the stage, because they are better off dismantling it. Someone remove some of metal barricades around the stage. Shortly afterwards, someone attempted to seal off the entrance into the Legco Building near Civic Plaza.
At around 1am, several dozen persons wearing surgical masks launched an attack a glass door and a glass window in the Legco Building, using metal barricades and bricks. Among these were the Internet users who demanded the monitors be disbanded.
During this time, someone kept yelling "Go!" and someone else yelled "Quick! Not much time left!" When an opening was finally made in the door, someone kept urging other demonstrators to charge into the Legco Building. According to eyewitnesses, only one person entered. Other demonstrators who helped to create the opening just stood outside and yelled. They did not enter en masse as they promised beforehand. This lone "Internet user" eventually withdrew. One assaulter then said: "Enough! Enough! Let's leave quickly!"
During this time, Legislative Councilor Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung and others tried to stop the action, but they were pushed aside. These Internet users who took part in the assault said that they were doing so to prevent the passage of the Internet Article 23 bill. Cheung told them that the meeting agenda did not include such an item, but to no avail.
Several policemen arrived. The demonstrators held them off with metal barricades. Three policemen used pepper spray. A large number of police reinforcements came, and they also used pepper spray to disperse the demonstrators. Many demonstrators were sprayed, and so were reporters. The demonstrators held up umbrellas, and the police clubbed the umbrellas. The police hoisted the red warning signs at least twice. Someone complained about being injured by the police. The police subdued some demonstrators and took them away.
Afterwards, there were some sporadic clashes between the police and the demonstrators. The police asked the demonstrators to stay calm, and they were only enforcing the law while public property was being destroyed. They asked the demonstrators not to incite others. Some demonstrators shone flashlights in the policemen's faces, threw debris at them and used obscene language to curse them out. The police charged many times to counter-attack. Many demonstrators fell to the ground, so were subdued. Many claimed to be injured. The demonstrators said that they were dissatisfied with the police pushing forward without cause and pressuring their defensive line.
As of 6am, the sides are still engaged in a tense stand-off.
{Addendum: By 10am, fewer than 10 demonstrators can be seen.}
This harks back to this Oriental Daily story on November 9, 2014. That is, these "Internet users" start something dramatic, run off before the police arrive and leave the Occupy people to deal with the consequences.
A group of masked demonstrators suddenly attempted to block anew the access to Government Headquarters. They used metal barricades and garbage cans to block the pedestrian overpass from Admiralty Centre to Government Headquarters. They said that they wanted to escalate the action and prevent government workers from going to work.
Another group of people who claimed to be Occupy Central rushed over to quarrel with the masked demonstrators. These Occupy Central complained that the masked men had planned to take over Government House initially but came over here after that attempt failed. One of them cursed out the masked demonstrators for only inciting others to block the roads, but quickly vanish when the police show up.
More than 50 police officers were dispatched to the scene. They quickly removed the barricades. The masked demonstrators proceeded to the main stage, where they demanded to speak but were told that the speakers' schedule was already fully booked. They said that they would charge the dais, and they accused the Federation of Students, Scholarism and the pan-democrats of "all talk and no action." They demanded a more intense resistance effort. Scholarism convener Joshua Wong bowed to these demonstrators in apology, for having denied them the opportunity to speak.
[054] Clearing CITIC Tower (2014/11/18) (RTHK) The authorities on Tuesday cleared part of a key area that has been occupied by pro-democracy demonstrators for several weeks. About 30 court bailiffs arrived at Citic Tower in Admiralty and started removing barricades around the building shortly after 10am. There was no resistance from protesters although there was verbal abuse at a roundabout on Lung Wui Road. The court injunction applies only to the area outside Citic Tower. The bailiffs finished the clearance by late afternoon.
Here are some YouTube videos about Occupy CITIC Tower:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ox0mKiIF6U Police and demonstrators clashed on the footbridge leading to CITIC Tower, September 27 2014.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF_68Bc9NMA Police and demonstrators clashed on the footbridge leading to CITIC Tower, October 3 2014.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og5K5_uPbj4 Demonstrators refused to obey court injunction, October 21, 2014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8Loritlw0M "Students" guarding the barricades, November 10 2014.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl7tCvJGD0I Bailiffs removed obstacles outside CITIC Tower, November 18, 2014
For a change, let me tell you a personal story. I was having dinner with some friends, most of whom are restaurant workers. Here is what one of them told me. The Victoria City Seafood Restaurant is located on the fifth floor of CITIC Tower. It has approximately 200 seats. Its monthly revenue should be about HKD 3 million, and it generates a steady monthly profit of a couple of hundred thousand. When Occupy Admiralty began, the road in front of CITIC Tower was blocked with metal barricades. Cars could not enter or exit. Business-wise, the restaurant did not lose much during lunch. After all, its patrons are office people from the higher floors of CITIC Tower or nearby office buildings. Evening dinner is a completely different story, and business was non-existent. CITIC Tower is located in a central commercial district. There are no residents who live near by and can walk over for dinner. Instead, the evening patrons have always drove by car and parked in the building garage. Per capita spending is lower during lunch than dinner. October-November was also hairy crab season which is usually the year's peak period for a seafood restaurant. So this was a big hit on income.
The restaurant tried to adapt to the situation. Manpower-wise, they hire a number of part-timers, who do so by choice. Full-time workers put in 9 hours a day (for example, 10am to 3pm and 6pm to 10pm, with rotation by day of week and time of day). The restaurant pays relatively well. For example, the standard rate for an evening-shift part-time waitress is $55/hour for four hours (6pm to 10pm) compared to the minimum wage of $30/hour. But a housewife may choose to work only Monday to Friday 10am to 3pm at $45 per hour, twenty hours per week, leaving enough time for childcare, food shopping and cooking. The restaurant laid off all its part-time evening workers. The full-time workers were told to use up their unused vacation days. If there are no more vacation days left, they were told to schedule unpaid time-off. Salaries are only a small part of the business expenses.
In the restaurant business, you can order less raw materials when business is slow. That helps somewhat. But some fixed costs must be paid. For example, rent and utilities. The net result was that the restaurant was losing money at the rate of several hundred thousand dollars a month during Occupy Admiralty. This restaurant is part of a chain which was recently acquired by a renowned commercial real estate speculator. So this restaurant will not go out of business in the short run. Not so lucky are the part-timers who were laid off or the full-timers whose hours (and therefore wages) were cut.
Now that the bailiffs have cleared away the obstacles in front of CITIC Tower, will business pick up? That is hard to say. Another restaurant worker told a story. Since it has no details, it appears to be an "urban legend" which becomes reality if enough people repeat it. On September 28, someone parked his car in an Admiralty garage. When he came back from dinner, the road was blocked and he could not retrieve his car. The car has been in the garage since that time, at the rate of $500 per day (or $15,000 per month). Whether the person will have to pay in full remains to be seen. But what is for certain is that he lost the use of his car during this period. This being the case, would you still park and dine in Admiralty? If the roads are blocked again, you will become like that poor guy. It may take a long time before consumer confidence comes back.
At our dinner, the restaurant workers expressed bewilderment at the whole Occupy movement. They don't know anything about the details of this "genuine universal suffrage". I offered to explain but they told me not to bother. They were saying, "In Hong Kong, people can protest all they want. If you want to cause trouble, do it to CY Leung and his government. Why are we being victimized?" and "Democracy is 民主. That is, the people are the masters, but how come we the people are being bossed around by these Occupy people?"
The Occupy movement does not have a clear message for these restaurant workers. According to the polls, public opinion is changing quickly and inexorably. Various Occupy people have acknowledged this shift in public opinion, and they emphasized the need to reach out beyond the now shrinking Occupy areas to the outside communities. But what do you say when you come face-to-face with the people? Before you try to decide which district to cover next Sunday, why don't you formulate an effective message first? And if you really do have an effective message, you wouldn't even need to go out there because the media will broadcast it for you.
Later on this day, there was a news story in Oriental Daily. East Lake Seafood Restaurant located on Paterson Street is closing down tonight after a 20-year run. The restaurant is only 100 meters away from the Occupy Causeway Bay area and has 720 seats. According to a restaurant worker, business volume is down by 50%. For the month of October, the restaurant ran up a loss of $1 million. The number for the month of November is expected to be similar. On this final evening at 9pm, there were only eight seated tables.
Internet comments (mostly sarcasms):
Plenty of restaurants close before the end of the year. Nothing to see here. Move on.
On the last night, restaurants are usually packed with regulars coming to say goodbye. Only eight seated tables tonight? This shows that they have no loyal patrons. This restaurant is doomed anyway.
The restaurant closed down after losing money for only one month? Something is wrong with its operations.
The restaurant made enough over the last 20 years already. Losing money for a couple of months should not have been fatal. The SARS-related recession lasted even longer, but they made it through. So something is fishy about this seafood restaurant closure.
It can't be due to the Occupy movement. The rental contract was probably up and the landlord raised the rent by an astronomical amount. So this was a convenient moment to close while blaming the Occupy movement for everything.
The restaurant owner is not business savvy. If they switched over to selling hamburgers immediately, they would be doing a booming business with the Occupy crowd.
It is the fault of CY Leung and the government. If only they surrendered to the students, the restaurant would still be in operation. The unemployed workers should ask CY Leung for compensation.
During a revolution, some people are inevitably going to be inconvenienced. Ten years after genuine universal suffrage is implemented, happy days will be here.
Happy Birthday song: Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, I wish you a day like today for every year ...
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/17) (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey; PDF in English) This third wave of telephone interviews was conducted November 5-11. 1,030 Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong citizens aged 15 or over was interviewed at a response rate of 42%. The results were weighted by gender, age and education level as published by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department. The weighted percent of persons 15-17 is only 4% of the total, and therefore will not affect the overall results too much.
Q1. Do you support the Occupy Movement?
November 5-11 October 8-15 September 10-17 Very much support 17.2% 18.6% 14.2% Somewhat support 16.7% 19.2% 16.9% So-so 19.5% 23.2% 20.5% Somewhat not support 8.1% 8.7% 12.5% Very much not support 35.4% 26.8% 33.8% No opinion/refused to say 3.1% 3.5% 2.2%
Q2. Do you think that the Occupy people should withdraw completely from the Occupied areas?
48.9%: Very much should
18.5%: Somewhat should
16.3%: So-so
7.1%: Somewhat should not
6.8%: Very much should not
2.4%: No opinion/refuse to say
Q3. Do you think the response of the government after the dialogue with the students is adequate?
15.0%: Very much adequate
14.5%: Somewhat adequate
24.2%: So-so
17.2%: Somewhat inadequate
22.5%: Very much inadequate
Q4. Do you think the government should make further concrete concessions to resolve the present situation?
52.1%: Yes
38.3%: No
9.7%: No opinion/refuse to say
Q5. Are you satisfied with how the government has handled the Occupy movement?
7.5%: Very satisfied
13.6%: Somewhat satisfied
28.1%: So-so
19.7%: Somewhat dissatisfied
28.8%: Very dissatisfied
2.3%: No opinion/refused to say
Q6. Do you think the Legislative Council ought to pass the 2017 Chief Executive universal suffrage proposal?
November 5-11 October 8-15 September 10-17 Pass 36.1% 37.1% 29.3% Reject 46.7% 48.5% 53.7% No opinion/refused to say 17.2% 15.4% 17.0%
Q7. If the nomination committee eliminates voting by companies and company directors and uses only individual votes, do you think the Legislative Council should pass the 2017 Chief Executive universal suffrage proposal?
45.4%: Yes
35.0%: No
19.6%: No opinion/refused to say
Here are the weighted distributions of political affinity:
September 10-17
3.7%: Radical democrats
35.8%: Moderate democrats
24.1%: Middle/neutral
4.1%: Pro-establishment
1.9%: Business/industry
3.1%: Pro-China
21.5%: No political affinity/party affiliation
5.8%: Don't know/hard to say/refused to answer
October 8-15
3.1%: Radical democrats
33.3%: Moderate democrats
27.1%: Middle/neutral
4.8%: Pro-establishment
1.0%: Business/industry
3.7%: Pro-China
22.7%: No political affinity/party affiliation
4.3%: Don't know/hard to say/refused to answer.
November 5-11
2.1%: Radical democrats
28.0%: Moderate democrats
30.0%: Middle/neutral
5.4%: Pro-establishment
0.9%: Business/industry
1.8%: Pro-China
26.2%: No political affinity/party affiliation
5.5%: Don't know/hard to say/refused to answer.
In the 2012 Legislative Council election, the pro-establishment DAB party received 20.22%, the pro-China Federation of Trade Unions got 7.06% and the pro-business Liberal Party got 2.69% of the votes. The total was (20.22% + 7.06% + 2.69%) = 29.97%. This is ignoring certain "hidden Red elements." Yet in the November 5-11 survey here, the sum total of (pro-establishment, pro-business/industry and pro-Beijing) was only 5.4% + 0.9% + 1.8% = 8.1%. This can't be true, unless people don't understand the question or the selected sample was skewed If people don't understand the question, then only the cross-tabs are affected. If they don't get enough pro-establishment respondents, the results would be skewed towards the pro-Occupy Central side.
Internet comments on these poll results:
- According to Commercial Radio, Hong Kong Federation of Students general secretary Yvonne Leung made the comment that public opinion is always in flux, and therefore the drop in public opinion support is not the sole indicator. She believes that public opinion may shift after the attempted Beijing trip by Federation members. She acknowledged that the Occupy movement has affected people's lives, but it was more important to let society know what the Occupy people are doing.
- According to Ming Pao, Hong Kong Federation of Students secretary-general Alex Chow acknowledged more people are having reservations about the Occupy movement, including questioning the effectiveness of the current actions as well as looking for alternate methods. But Chow said that withdrawal is not even the main issue here. Instead, they need to do more community work to explain to people the motive behind the Occupy movement and how the benefits behind will outweigh the current losses.
- With respect to 67% wanting the Occupy movement to withdraw completely, Scholarism convener Joshua Wong said that Scholarism will not retreat unconditionally without find some other way to compensate for the political chips that will be lost as a result of withdrawal.
- What have we got so far?
Chinese University of Hong Kong poll: 67% said Occupy should withdraw completely, 14% said not to withdraw
Hong Kong University POP: 70% said to stop Occupy, 24% said to continue Occupy
Polytechnic University: 73.2% said to stop Occupy, 26.8% said to continue Occupy
Ming Pao: 38.8% said to withdraw completely, 36.1 said to stay away from major thoroughfares, 16.5% said to stay
Hong Kong Research Association: 70% said not support Occupy, 24% said support.
- When public opinion is on your side, you pound on public opinion. Thus you criticize the government for ignoring public opinion. When public opinion is not on your side, you move the goal posts around to divert attention. Thus you say public opinion can be ignored.
- When a democracy can ignore public opinion, then how is it different from a dictatorship?
[Permalink] Scholarism Reaches Out To Local Communities (2014/11/16)
Scholarism announces the first Umbrella Movement community day at 4pm-6pm November 16 (Sunday). They will set up promotional stations in five districts around Hong Kong to gain citizen support for the Umbrella Movement and ask the government to withdraw the August 31 decision by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
Hong Kong street station: Paterson Street, Causeway Bay
Kowloon East street station: Kowloon Bay pedestrian overpass
Kowloon West street station: Mongkok Sai Yeung Choi Street
New Territories East street station: Shatin East Rail station
New Territories West street station: Kwai Fong MTR station
Go among the people, immerse into the local communities, more to come
(Oriental Daily) Kowloon Bay
At around 4pm, a woman came to challenge them. She accused them of blocking the passageway with their table and summoned the police. There were about 10 Scholarism members at the time. They had set up a table and they used a megaphone to promote their cause. The police heard the complaint and told them to remove the table, although they could continue to hand out leaflets. At around 5:20pm, six or seven anti-Occupy citizens showed up and got into an obscenity-laced shouting match with the Scholarism members. The police came back. By this time, the number of anti-Occupy citizens had increased to about 50, and they were booing the Scholarism members. Upon advice from the police, the Scholarism members packed up and left early at 530pm.
(Oriental Daily) Causeway Bay
[Note: this is supposed to be friendly territory because it is already Occupy zone.]
Scholarism set up a street station around 330pm. About 50 citizens watched alongside 15 police officers.
Anti-Occupy citizens showed up with banners saying: "We demand that the police arrest Occupy Movement leaders," "We beg the students to return the roads to the people and the rule of law to Hong Kong, and go home soon." They also said: "No thinking person could possibly block the roads for fifty days." They accused the Occupy people of having no conscience and not worth of being a decent Hong Kong person of Chinese descent. The police used barriers to separate the two sides. They stopped a person who tried to push aside Scholarism's megaphone.
At around 5pm, Scholarism convener Joshua Wong showed up to hand out leaflets. Some citizens shook hands with them. An anti-Occupy person cursed him as "Neither human nor ghoul."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_G5HTIJgiI (anti-Occupy birthday song wishing the students to sleep in the street every day just like today)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuU8vlbCPUQ&feature=youtu.be (female counter-demonstrator speaking in English)
(Oriental Daily) Shatin and Kwai Fong
Five Scholarism members set up a street station outside the Shatin East Rail station. They were prevented by more than a dozen anti-Occupy people. These people said that the Scholarism members have been goaded by others and should leave. They also told them not encourage other citizens to join the Occupy movement. At the peak, there were were 50 spectators. The Scholarism members did not object to what the anti-Occupy people said. Some pro-Occupy people supported the students and said that they were not wrong. It was stalemate with no body contact. The police was not present.
Elsewhere, several Scholarism members handed out leaflets outside the Kwai Chung MTR station. They were cursed out by pedestrians who accuse them of not studying and participating in the illegal Occupy movement. One Scholarism member got into a heated shouting match with a citizen.
Scholarism convener Joshua Wong said that many of their volunteers encountered verbal abuse from anti-Occupy people. He admitted frankly that many student volunteers were emotionally depressed over their experiences. But this only shows that they need to do their community work better. Therefore, Scholarism will continue to reach out to the communities next Sunday.
[Permalink] The Students' Petition Trip (2014/11/16) This is what you may be reading in English:
(TIME) Hong Kongs Pro-Democracy Student Leaders Refused Entry to Beijing. By Rishi Iyengar. November 16, 2014.
Entry, like democracy, denied
Student leaders of Hong Kongs pro-democracy protests are officially persona non grata on the Chinese mainland after they were not allowed to board a flight to Beijing where they planned to press their demands for free local elections.
Alex Chow, Eason Chung and Nathan Law of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) were booked to fly to the Chinese capital on Saturday but were refused entry after their return-home cards equivalent to a permanent visa given to Hong Kong residents of Chinese ancestry were revoked by the mainland authorities.
Chow told reporters that the trip was to voice the opinion of Hong Kong people to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. The movement in Hong Kong will be ongoing, he adds. Hong Kong people have been pursuing democracy and democratic reform for more than three decades and we are still on our way to restructure the concept of democracy.
The HKFS trio intended to urge Li to reconsider an Aug. 31 decision by the Chinese Communist Party that said all candidates standing for election for Hong Kongs top job of chief executive in 2017 must first be vetted by a 1,200-strong nominating committee perceived as loyal to Beijing.
Democracy activists see this as a betrayal and tens of thousands of protesters have occupied three main thoroughfares of Hong Kong since Sept. 28, although numbers have dwindled significantly in recent weeks. Pressure is mounting on student leaders to clear the streets as discontent grows about the ongoing disruption to transport and local businesses.
According to local media, the Hong Kong government may enforce multiple injunctions against the protesters as soon as Monday or Tuesday, and the Beijing foray was seen as something of a last resort after discussions with city officials mired.
We dont want to go to Beijing, but [Hong Kong's top civil servant] Carrie Lam says not all of Hong Kongs problems can be solved by the Hong Kong government, Chung told media the night before their scheduled departure. Lam said Tuesday that there was no need for the students to go to Beijing if they were going to repeat the same demands they have made of the Hong Kong government. The HKFS received a similar response from former Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, after they sent an open letter beseeching him to set up a meeting with Beijing authorities.
The entry denial was largely expected; a member of Scholarism, another student group championing the protests, was denied entry into the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong, earlier in the week, according to local news channel RTHK.
The following is some of what is written in Chinese:
(Bastille Post) Magnanimous Act or Showboat Act. November 16, 2014.
The Federation of Students trio went to Beijing to see Premier Li Keqiang. But the mainland authorities had already canceled their mainland travel permits, so they could not even get beyond the Hong Kong International Airport. As I have heard beforehand, the Chinese authorities did not even want them to land in China because it would be troublesome if there was any demonstration with pushing and shoving.
I went to a dinner with former fellow students. This turned into an argument fest. Those who support Occupy Central said that this was an magnanimous act for the sake of public good (namely, fighting for genuine universal suffrage on behalf of the people of Hong Kong). They said that it was unimaginable that a grand nation like China would be scared of letting some students come in and hold discussions.
The anti-Occupy Central side immediately countered: If some Americans want to fight for better treatment for Guantanamo prisoners and want to meet with the president, do you think Obama will see them? They think that the Occupy Central is slowly waning. So the Federation of Students is changing the subject and want to meet with state leaders in Beijing. The pan-democrats knew that this was infeasible, but the Federation insisted. This was just a show which provided daily updates for three weeks. First they said that they would go during the APEC meeting. Then they said that they would go afterwards. One day they said that they want Tung Chee-hwa to help. The next day they said that they want Rita Fan to forward the message. There were plenty of news items, none of which was practical. All of it was done for the sake of keeping the fervor up for Occupy Central. Why would we want to go crazy together with them?
The two sides argued incessantly and the dinner ended in sour mood. Now that the flow of news on the Beijing trip has stopped, what will the Federation of Students/Scholarism do next?
(Oriental Daily) Hidden "B" team once again deceived the public. November 16, 2014.
The Hong Kong Federation of Students has a record of deceiving the public many times before. Once again, they lied about the Beijing trip. The Federation publicly stated that they would not secretly send members to Beijing, but they actually arranged for several lesser known members to take a later flight to Beijing. The goal was to sneak these people through while there is confusion over the "A" team at the Beijing International Airport. However, the Chinese authorities were aware of the ruse and knew of the identities of both teams. Since the "A" team had their mainland travel permits canceled, the "B" team decided not to go through with the boarding process. However, the information was that the "B" team also had their mainland travel permits canceled as well. But "A" team member Eason Chung insisted that there was no "B" team.
After the "A" team was turned away and left the Hong Kong International Airport, several other Federation members (including Lester Shum and Yvonne Leung) who came to see them off did not leave immediately. They realized that our reporter was following them, so they strolled around the airport. Then they went into the underground parking garage and spoke to someone in a van. Afterwards, they went off in a different direction to take a taxi.
The following is a collection of Internet comments about the students' petition trip. These are mostly negative, because I am seeking a balance here. One side is "pro-democracy" and their voices are readily heard in English-language western media reports (see, for example, the TIME article in the beginning). The other side is not "anti-democracy" as such. You need to understand that the two sides are talking on different planes (or levels).
The "pro-democracy position is basically this: We want "genuine universal suffrage" which means civil nomination, and Occupy Central is a way of forcing the government to yield.
The other side is better called "anti-Occupy" and its position is basically this: We support the demands for democracy, but we object to the Occupy method which inconveniences everybody and devastates the livelihoods of many citizens, some much more so than others; therefore we want Occupy Central to stop and seek some other way that doesn't hurt people. This "anti-Occupy" position is seldom heard in English-language western media reports, even though it is in the majority by a wide margin. Western media will have you believe that there is only "pro-democracy" versus "anti-democracy."
Now for the comments:
- President Xi Jinping is in Brisbane (Australia) to attend the G20 meeting while Premier Li Keqiang is in Myanmar. And the Federation of Students trio want to travel to Beijing to meet them!? Do the students keep themselves up to date with the news? Or are they going to Beijing precisely because they want to make sure that there would be no meeting?
- Why does Alex Chow keep saying that he is representing the people of Hong Kong? Who elected him? The pan-democrats gave Chief Executive CY Leung the nickname of "689" because he was elected with 689 votes from a committee of 1,200 electors. Alex Chow was elected secretary-general of the Federation of Students by a vote among some 300 student delegates from the student unions at eight universities. Unfortunately for Alex Chow the name "300" is already used for a movie.
- Hong Kong Federation of Students general secretary Yvonne Leung made some remarks in English (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfquyYnsiKQ beginning at 0:49). Backup at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXQcVV0-flY
Reuters transcript: "Cathay has confirmed that their (students') return home card has been canceled by the mainland authorities, so they could not get the required certificates to get on to the plane," Yvonne Leung, the representative of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, told reporters.
Internet discussion forum transcript: "Ok, I will now recap in English. And then we will need. Ok, ok, so. Ar ... dee ar ... Cathay Pacific has confirmed from ... ar dee ... Mainland Chinese Authority that ... ar dee ... ar ... ar dee ... foreign persons they've got their ...ar ... card ... their ar ... like return home card ...ar ... cancelled by dee Mainland Authority, so they could not get ... dee ar ... required ... ar ... certificates to get into dee ... get onto the plane. Ar ... we will announce further details after discussing with ... ar ... different organizations and will have a press conference in ... ar ... at 7:30 in dee Legislation Council. Thank you."
Leung was self-conscious, giggled before starting and made some lousy grammatical mistakes. What she really fumbled were certain terms, such as the "Return Home Card" (which is the Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macao residents, also colloquially known as Home Return Permit or Home Visit Permit) and "certificates" (which are "boarding passes" to everyone who has taken a commercial flight). How can she be so ill-prepared given that this event was known to happen? Leung should have brushed up on the relevant English vocabulary instead of improvising with instant word-for-word translation.
As it stands, she only shows that she has no understanding about traveling (boarding pass?), especially about between Hong Kong and Mainland (return home card?).
Also, how can a third-year Hong Kong University student majoring in Government and Laws speak such poor English? And to think that the students are saying that they represent the future of Hong Kong!
Why should Yvonne Leung's English-language skills be a subject of discussion? At the Hong Kong Discussion Forum, the post "Pretty person, proper English, sure win" has already collected 163,738 page views and 1,196 comments within a day or so. This is just one post among many at one of many discussion forums. The term "Where is your Return Home Card?" is trending hot right now and will probably become an Internet cultural milestone.
Here is another post at the same forum with 59,010 views and 600 comments:
- Every day, you get something completely different from the Hong Kong Federation of Students. First they demanded (1) the government withdraw the political reform page; (2) the resignation of the Chief Executive CY Leung; (3) the resignation of the three persons in charge of political reform: Carrie Lam, Rimsky Yuen and Raymond Tam; (4) an apology from the National People's Congress. Then they called for a general school/work/business strike for an indefinite period of time. Some students went out for a while, one hundred workers at a beverage bottling plant went out for a day and the businesses went on with business as usual. Then they demanded the government talk to them on their terms. Then they said that they wouldn't talk to the government which must make concessions before a certain deadline. Then they met with the government representatives anyway. Then they said that they won't talk to Hong Kong government representatives anymore. Instead, they said that the Central Government has been misled by the Hong Kong government officials and they wanted to speak directly to the national leaders to tell them about what the people of Hong Kong are really demanding. Then they wanted to hold a Plaza Referendum among Occupy participants, but they were shouted down. Then they want the pan-democrat Legislative Councilors to resign and use the by-election for replacement as a de facto referendum. Then they asked former Chief Executive and current vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Tung Chee-hwa to arrange for meetings with national leaders. Tung told them not to bother because they are not saying anything that the leaders are not aware of. Then they asked former Legislative Councilor Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai and current Hong Kong deputy to the National People's Congress to arrange for meetings. Fan also told them not to bother because they are not saying anything that the leaders are not aware of.
And whom did they want to meet with? So far they have gone through a list including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang who is the CPC Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of Hong Kong affairs, Li Fei who is deputy secretary-general of the National People's Congress in charge of Hong Kong affairs, and other unnamed state leaders (National People's Congress in general terms).
Now they tried to go to Beijing but couldn't even get out of Hong Kong. So many ideas, but no results yet. There are many more ways to stay in the limelight. For example, the students can go to the United States and testify in front of congressional committees. They can get the United States Congress to pass a Hong Kong Relations Act with sanctions against China if the demands of the pro-democracy students are not met.
- It has been said that a Hong Kong citizen is a Chinese citizen and therefore has the right to enter/exit his own country as he pleases. Well, let's accept that. Hong Kong is part of China, just as the mainland is part of China. Would it also be okay if all mainland Chinese citizens can enter/exit Hong Kong as they please? Well, right now, some of the demonstrators don't even want individual mainland tourists to come to Hong Kong, much less the 1.4 billion behind them.
- Legislative Councilor Regina Ip says that China may have a no-fly list, and this led people to cry "How appalling!" But this is just following international standards. For comparison, see the American No Fly List. In 2012, about there are about 21,000 names on that list. Anyone on that list is not permitted to board a commercial airplane to or within the United States. Once you are put on the list, possibly by mistake (such as a typographic error), it is hard to get off. The Transportation Security Administration does not disclose its reasons for putting someone on that list. Senator Ted Kennedy was once put on the No Fly List because a certain "T. Kennedy" was a security threat and it took him two weeks to get off even with top-level help.
- What might be the reason(s) for not permitting the someone to enter/exit mainland? According to the People's Republic of China laws (in Chinese) on entering/exiting the country, Chapter 2, Article 10: "The administrative details shall be determined by the State Council." Article 10(1): "Not holding a valid entry/exit document." Article 10(2) "... a defendant in a criminal case." Article 10(5) "May endanger national security and interests, and not allowed by the relevant department of the State Council to exit.
In this case, the students do not have valid mainland travel permits. Their existing ones had been canceled. The students want the Hong Kong government to explain why. Under "One country, two systems," the Hong Kong government has nothing to do with these permits. A Hong Kong citizen who wants one goes to the local China Travel Service to file an application. The application is sent to the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau for approval. When approved, the Hong Kong citizen is given a mainland travel permit, which is a smart card. When the Hong Kong citizen wants to go to the mainland, he first passes through Hong Kong border control with his Hong Kong ID card to exit. Then he passes through mainland border control using his mainland travel card to enter. When he returns, he does things in reverse. A person with a Hong Kong ID card but no mainland travel permit cannot go to the mainland, because he has no valid travel document. If the airline carries the students to Beijing, they will be turned back to Hong Kong at the responsibility of the airline. The Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau does not automatically approve all applications, and they do not have to disclose their reasons for rejection. If the foreign press ask them, they will probably reply that they do not comment on individual cases.
Secondly, the students have openly declared that they are violating Hong Kong laws by illegally occupying streets and public areas. It is a matter of time before they face the legal consequences.
Thirdly, the students have caused instability and economic losses. These are certainly matters of national security and interests. Many other persons (such as pan-democrat politicians and activists) cannot go to the mainland for that reason.
- Perhaps the students are lucky that they did not reach Beijing. They made a big fanfare announcing that they would be taking the 5 o'clock Cathay Pacific flight CX 312 from Hong Kong to Beijing. Some mainland Internet users issued calls for a general mobilization to "welcome" these Chinese traitors at the airport. That would have been one helluva welcoming party.
- The students want to meet with the national leaders because the latter are unaware of public opinion in Hong Kong. Chances are that the leaders are very aware of public opinion in Hong Kong: for example, the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme recently found 70% want Occupy to stop while 24% want Occupy to continue; Polytechnic University Department of Applied Social Sciences found 73% want Occupy to stop while 27% want Occupy to continue; most recently, the Chinese University of Hong Kong Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey found 67% want Occupy to come to a full stop and 14% think Occupy should continue. Public opinion could not be clearer. The students are the ones who are either unaware of or indifferent to public opinion.
[Permalink] The Coming of the Neighborhood Committees (2014/11/15) As the court injunctions come into effect, it is likely that several Occupy areas will be cleared of barriers and demonstrators next week. The court injunctions refer to very specific locations (such as particular street sections). Therefore, some demonstrators have vowed that they will simply block some other locations instead.
Now, consider yourself a business owner in some other district. You can see from recent history that when an area is Occupied, sales will plummet, possibly down to 10% of normal volume initially and then holding at 50% in the long run. As much as you might support genuine universal suffrage, you still have to pay the bills.
You can also see from recent history that when your area gets Occupied and your business is in dire straits, the Occupiers won't care, the Hong Kong SAR government won't care, the police won't care, the Legislator Councilors won't care, the District Councilors won't care and the Central Government won't care. You are on your own.
So your best solution is to get prepared to stop it before it happens. If you try to do it by yourself, you will be outnumbered. So it is best to get together with your neighbors and do it together, because you are in this together.
The Occupy Mongkok zone runs along Nathan Road between Argyle Street and Dundas Street. Nathan Road is the main north-south thoroughfare in Kowloon, and Argyle Street is a major east-west thoroughfare. Therefore, the Occupy Mongkok zone is choking north-south and east-west vehicular traffic, which has to take detours through smaller streets (e.g. Nathan Road has three lanes in both directions, but unidirectional parallel-running Portland Street has only one south-north lane).
If the Occupy people have to leave Mongkok, then where will they go? Northwards are the Prince Edward and Shum Shui Po districts, which are high-density, low-income residential areas. There are some small businesses such as the Golden Plaza arcade with their computer accessories/repair shops, companies dealing with recycling, used mobile phones, wholesale clothing, tea restaurants, etc. An Occupy Shum Shui Po movement would probably raise public anger (see, for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9_y9Q5DcQM which took place outside the Golden Plaza). Westwards is Tai Kok Tsui and eastwards is Ho Man Tin, both residential areas with little strategic value. You can occupy them, irritate the residents but the government and the real estate hegemons won't feel any pain.
Immediately south of Mongkok down Nathan Road is the Yau Ma Tei district, which runs from Dundas Street in the north down to Austin Road in the south. It covers two major east-west thoroughfares, Waterloo Road and Jordan Road. An Occupy Yau Ma Tei movement would choke east-west traffic and force everything to go through Argyle Street, as well as the north-south traffic through Nathan Road. The area is mainly mixed residential and commercial.
(Ta Kung Pao) November 15, 2014.
Anti-Occupy Roads volunteers wearing red ribbons
The Yau Ma Tei Neighborhood Association met on Wednesday to discuss how to deal with a potential Occupy Yau Ma Tei movement. They came up with a plan whereupon each business is asked to provide one volunteer and each night club is asked to provide ten volunteers for the purpose of making sure that no roads are blocked. They expect to have a total of 400 to 500 volunteers. Businesses which cannot provide manpower can make monetary contributions instead.
Beginning Thursday night, the volunteers will work three shifts a day around the Jordan Road area. 60 people will be assigned outside the Yue Hwa Chinese Products Emporium at the corner of Nathan Road and Jordan Road. Another 20 to 30 are assigned along Kansu Street. Each store will be patrolled by one or two volunteers. These volunteers will wear red ribbons for identification purposes.
Local residents say that they have spotted people with yellow ribbons roving around the Jordan area. There are also Internet discussions about an Occupy Jordan movement. On the evening of the day before, a dozen or so persons believed to be in the Occupy movement were spotted around Jordan Road looking around and making gestures to each other. Yesterday around 4pm, our reporter spotted a suspicious-looking man with a map in hand at the intersection of Jordan Road and Nathan Road. Then the man looked around the Yue Hwa Chinese Products Emporium for around a minute and taking photos of the intersection. It would seem that the man was scouting for the "southern immigration."
Earlier, about eighty wooden pallets mysteriously appeared outside the Chi Wo Commercial Building at Number 20 Saigon Street. According to a security guard in a nearby commercial building, the nightshift guard saw some men wearing surgical masks unloading about 80 wooden pallets in a back lane between the Chi Wo Commercial Building and a nearby hotel for unknown reasons. Because the wooden pallets were blocking the fire lane, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department was summoned to remove the pallets. Some people think that these wooden pallets were going to be used to block the Yau Ma Tei roads after the police clear the Mongkok area.
(Oriental Daily) November 15, 2014.
Wooden pallets outside 20 Saigon Street
Yesterday evening at the intersection of Jordan Road and Nathan Road, more than a dozen anti-Occupy Roads signs with red ribbons were posted. An explanatory note said that if they will take action against anyone who attempts to block the roads.
According to Temple Street Chamber of Commerce chairman Chan Kam-wing, "Nothing has happened so far, but we are obviously very concerned. Many of us Temple Street vendors live from hand to mouth. If we stop working, we stop eating. If they really come down here, we will fight back."
If you are really careful about reading the above, you may have noticed that I said that there are two east-west thoroughfares in the Yau Ma Tei district -- Waterloo Road and Jordan Road. So far, all the news reports are about actions by Jordan residents and businesses. What about Waterloo Road? Well, Waterloo is legendary in Hong Kong because the wholesale Fruit Market is located there. Every night, hundreds of workers load/unload cartons of fruit from lorries and carts. In other words, these people already occupy the roads and the police have never tried to interfere. The general rule-of-thumb if you drive through Waterloo at 1am is that you should roll up the window, look straight ahead and never at the workers, inch along slowly along the single passing lane in a three-lane road and never ever honk your horn. If the Occupy people try to block Waterloo Road, they would be looking down at thousands of raging laborers. Here is a sample blog post: Drugs, triads and a bit of fruit on the side.
Addendum: (Oriental Daily) November 17, 2014. With respect to the suggestion to shift the Occupy area from Mongkok to Jordan, Hong Kong Federation of Students secretary-general Alex Chow said that people have to consider the meaning and effectiveness of relocation.
[Permalink] Reaching Out To Local Communities - Part 2 (2014/11/14) There are different ways to reach out to local communities outside the Occupy areas. One way is to set up a table outside MTR stations to hand out promotional materials as well as proselytize. Reaching Out To Local Communities showed how this has generally encountered lynch mobs. The reason is that the locations are chosen to be pedestrian traffic hubs. Even if the proportion of anti-Occupy people is small in the population, dozens will be drawn within minutes. Things get out of control, and the police are called to escort the Occupy people out to safety.
Another way is to send out small teams of students to knock on doors and speak to residents in a more amiable atmosphere. The group dynamics are different when it is one small group chatting with another without any specific agenda, as compared to one small group facing a large group of strangers including some very angry people. But of course the number of people who are reached is relatively small.
Here are several press reports on the results of this kind of effort effort.
(Now.com via Yahoo.com.hk)
A Concern Group for the effect of the Occupy movement on small businesses has been spontaneously organized by social workers, teachers and students. The members have different attitudes towards the Occupy movement. Early this month, they interviewed more than 140 businesses in shopping malls near the Occupy Mongkok area, including Sino Centre, Mongkok Centre and New Town Mall. They found out that at least 40% of the businesses said that their business volume has fallen by at least 50% during the Occupy period. Another 30% said that their business has fallen by 30% to 40%.
The concern group said that 70% of the businesses hope that the landlord can give them rent reductions in the short run. More than 20% of the people wish the Occupy people would retreat in a hurry.
(Oriental Daily)
The Occupy movement has gone on for 48 days. A concern group about small businesses in Mongkok has been formed by university students, teachers and social workers has studied the effect of the Occupy Mongkok movement on nearby small businesses. They interviewed about 150 small business between November 5 and 13. They found out since Occupy Mongkok began, there were fewer citizens and tourists and business volume has fallen down by 90%. They hope the landlords would consider rent reductions and the government would render aid.
Due to the tremendous losses, the businesses want the landlords to reduce the rent by 30%, or even 100% in order to pass through the hardship together. They hope the government would actively take measures to help the small businesses through.
The Concern Group recommended that the government should carefully consider the demands of the Occupy movement and urge citizens to support small businesses. Also District Councilors should actively facilitate communication within the community and spend more time understanding and solving people's livelihood problems.
Jointly share the responsibility, reduce rent by 30%
(Apple Daily)
While the Occupy movement is going on, nearby residents and businesses are affected. In view of this, the University Political Reform Concern Group and the Hong Kong Federation of Students established the "Occupy Mongkok Propaganda Team". They hope to explain the ideas of the Occupy movement to residents through personal visits at home.
Victor is a member of the Hong Kong Federation of Students Standing Committee and he is a member of the team, and Ah Q is studying for an associate degree at Polytechnic University. They spoke with our newspaper on their experiences.
Victor pointed out that many small businesses were affected during the Occupy period. Some vendors told them heatedly that their businesses were heavily impacted.
Victor has attempted to speak to the street cleaners who work near the Occupy area in order to understand how they feel. During the process, he drew the attention of the nearby vendors and senior citizens. These people said that they all opposed Occupy. One said that businesses have suffered 70% losses and called for others to condemn the team. Another said that two restaurant chefs were "laid off" and got those two to come over too to join the argument. Victor was even concerned because "I was afraid the chefs would bring their kitchen knives with them when they came out to scold us."
Victor pointed out that the conversation with the restaurant chef was unforgettable. The chef opposed Occupy Central. He smeared the next door neighbor's child for taking money to join Occupy Central and he also insisted that Next Media chairman Jimmy Lai gave iPhone6's to the Hong Kong Federation of Students. However, his daughter who is a teacher is pro-Occupy Central and even took her students to the Occupy Admiralty site. As a result, there were disagreements, arguments and even fights in the family.
Upon further discussion, the chef criticized CY Leung's governance: "CY Leung said terrible things, such as people would make less than 14,000 dollars a month are less than human." This made Victor realized that many citizens share common views with the students in their disaffection with the CY Leung government. However, they disagree on using the Occupy method to fight for democracy.
Some (mostly negative because hardly anyone could find anything nice to say) Internet comments:
- When you can't even buy food to put on the table, do you still fucking want to talk about grand ideas? The bastards just don't get it!
- If your action is fine, there would be not fucking need to soothe local residents. You have a big fucking problem now. By your actions, you have hurt many people and businesses, and you still can't own up to that fact.
- You can talk nice to the business owners about your sympathy with their plight, but in the end the question that they want the answer for is: "How to pay the expenses (including rent, utilities and salary) now?" Democracy (civil nomination of Chief Executive in 2016!) won't do it. Alex Chow argues that things would eventually be a lot worse for everybody if civil nomination of Chief Executive does not occur. Well, Alex, how do I pay the rent on December 1st? That's the immediate problem. Here and now.
- Why should the landlord accept responsibility and split the bill? Why don't you guys fucking pick up the bill, given that you are responsible for Occupy and the landlord is not?
- Young people need to realize that the masses do not oppose civil nomination. They just object to the Occupy approach. People always do the wrong things for the right reasons.
- The Chinese have a saying: "Breaking someone's rice bowl is like killing their parents." You broke their rice bowls and you still want to sell democracy to them. You are lucky that the chef did not chop you up into ground meat.
- Basically many people agree with democracy, but they don't agree with Occupy. These students are trying to say that Democracy = Occupy. Not true.
- Stop acting as if you are too stupid to know! For weeks, people have been saying that they don't agree with your method, because you are sacrificing people's livelihood in order to achieve your political goals. It does not matter how noble you make this sound, because people won't support this. But you refuse to listen and you use all sorts of reasons to prettify your ideas. It is shameless to quote citizens hating CY Leung's government to make as if they must also agree with Occupy Central. You still haven't accepted the fact that you have done wrong. The first step for an alcoholic is to admit that you have a problem. A next step is to make a list of people who you have hurt and make amends to them. Finally, you promise that you will never repeat the action. You haven't even taken the first step.
[Permalink] English Proficiency in Hong Kong (2014/11/12) In Sky Post today, there is a report on the latest English Proficiency Index (EPI) from Education First. This is a ranking of countries by adult English skills.
Hong Kong came in with an EPI score of 52.50, which is considered "moderate proficiency." But the introductory fact sheet says:
Adult English skills in Hong Kong are at a delicate point.
The citys proficiency scores have declined steadily since 2007. Hong Kongs English skills are on par with the world average, and only slightly above average for Asia, calling into question the citys reputation as an English-speaking hub for business. Meanwhile, major cities in Mainland China have made consistent progress. This year, for the first time ever, adults in Shanghai have higher English proficiency scores than those in Hong Kong. Adults in Beijing and Tianjin score as well as their Hong Kong counterparts.
For China, the scores for the top five provinces/cities are: Shanghai 53.75, Beijing 52.96, Tianjin 52.73, Taiwan 52.56 and Hong Kong 52.50. The introductory fact sheet says:
Adult English skills in China remain weak , but proficiency levels are slowly rising.
Our most striking finding is that, for the first time, adults in Shanghai have on average higher English proficiency scores than their counterparts in Hong Kong. Women in China speak English better than men, although the gender gap is slight. The differences in English skills between adults of various age cohorts is in line with regional and global averages, with Chinese adults aged 25 to 44 speaking the best English among Chinas age cohorts.
Between 2007 and 2013, the EPI for Hong Kong went down by 1.95 whereas the EPI for China went up by 2.53.
This news report drew comments at the discussion forums about the relative positions of Hong Kong and Shanghai as the business centre of China. Some commentators point to this YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuDmn7-u9fQ in which an Occupy Central university student got interviewed on CNN as an example of Hong Kong's deteriorating English language skills.
But that is only one example, and it doesn't mean that all Hongkongers speak lousy English. Here is Civic Party chairperson Audrey Eu being interviewed on ATV World about genuine universal suffrage. She is fluent and articulate in English. Then there is also the famous moment when pro-establishment DAB legislator Gary Chan responded that "it is a little bit of a surprise for us ... but we will try our breast ... er... er ... still try our breast to ... not just criticize the government's policies but also make some good suggestions in order to improve the people's livelihood."
[Technical note: (SCMP)
The annual study, known as the English Proficiency Index, is compiled by the Swedish-owned global language instruction company EF Education First. This year's index is based on test results gathered last year from about 750,000 people across 63 countries and regions.
...The index is based on results of a free online test and the enrolment tests for those taking the company's courses. Both tests include grammar, vocabulary, reading and listening sections. Only countries and regions with a minimum of 400 test-takers were ranked.
... The Education Bureau said the rankings might not reflect English proficiency in different regions because the samples could not represent the whole region. In many other local and global tests, the city scored better than neighbouring regions, the bureau said.
EF Education First conceded that the scores could have been skewed because only those who wanted to learn English or were curious about their language skills might have taken the test.]
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/12)
(Chinese University of Hong Kong Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey) November 2014.
The survey respondent is asked to choose among four different answers on Hongkonger/Chinese identity:
(1) Hongkonger;
(2) Hongkonger but also Chinese;
(3) Chinese but also Hongkonger.
(4) Chinese;
Year HongKonger Hongkonger
but also Chinese
Chinese but
also Hongkonger
Chinese Other 1996 25.2% 32.9% 14.7% 25.7% 1.5% 1997 23.2% 31.9% 11.6% 32.1% 1.3% 1998 28.8% 30.0% 15.6% 24.5% 1.2% 1999 22.8% 35.8% 17.0% 23.5% 0.9% 2002 24.8% 36.0% 14.5% 23.6% 1.1% 2006 21.5% 38.1% 21.2% 18.6% 0.5% 2008 16.8% 40.0% 25.0% 17.8% 0.4% 2010 17.3% 44.1% 21.9% 16.5% 0.2% 2012 23.4% 41.8% 22.1% 12.6% 0.2% 2014 26.8% 42.0% 22.3% 8.9% -
(South China Morning Post) Poll finds fewer Hongkongers identifying as Chinese, thanks to Occupy. November 11, 2014.
Hongkongers' sense of Chinese identity has hit a record low, a Chinese University survey conducted during the Occupy Central protests found, as local student organisers plan their overtures to state leaders in Beijing.
Only 8.9 per cent of the 810 people polled last month identified themselves as "Chinese", according to the telephone survey carried out by the university's Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey.
That was one of four options presented to respondents of the poll, 26.8 per cent of whom chose "Hongkongers" as their identity. Forty-two per cent chose "Hongkongers but also Chinese" and 22.3 per cent went with "Chinese but also Hongkongers".
(Ta Kung Pao) Selective reporting with ulterior motives. By Guan Zhao. November 12, 2014.
(in translation)
The Chinese University of Hong Kong Communication and Public Opinion Survey Center conducted a telephone telephone on national/ethnic identity. The results were that 42% think that they are "Hongkongers but also Chinese" while 26.8% think that they are "Hongkongers."
Such public opinion polls have been done quite often in recent years. But the survey questions and topics are often biased and misleading, such as forcing people to choose between either "Hongkonger" or "Chinese."
Yesterday Apple Daily used the headline "8.9% Hongkongers feel that they are Chinese, new historical low." Meanwhile the so-called intellectuals' newspaper Ming Pao highlighted that 40% of the post-80's generation feel that they are Hongkongers.
After reading these headlines and not reading other news sources, you may become very worried. After all, less than 10% of Hongkongers think that they are Chinese. Doesn't that mean that more than 90% of Hongkongers think that they are not Chinese? So what is going to happen to Hong Kong? What happens to "One country, two systems" and the SAR government?
But if you pore through the contents carefully, you will find that this is not what is happening. There is an option for "Hongkonger but also Chinese" -- this was chosen by 42% of all respondents and 44.5% of those in the 18-34 age group. So why did Apple Daily and Ming Pao isolate and play up the lowest item (namely, 8.9% of people chose "Chinese")? Apart from playing up the subjective unspoken message that "Hongkongers don't want to be Chinese citizens", what other explanation can there be?
News reporting must be objective and fair. This is what those two newspapers often say. On this very serious issue of national identity, they tossed objectivity and fairness out the window and produced biased, partial reporting. An overwhelming majority of Hongkonger are Chinese, and that is a fact that nobody (including Apple Daily and Ming Pao) can alter.
A somewhat different question was used by (Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme):
In their original Chinese-language questionnaire, they have:
I translate from Chinese into English as:
Q. You would identify yourself as a (Interviewer to read out the first four choices)
(1) Hongkonger
(2) Chinese
(3) Chinese in Hong Kong
(4) Hongkonger in China
(5) Other (Please specify)
(6) Don't know / hard to say
(7) Refuse to answer).
But their own English translation is as follows:
Q1-You would identify yourself as a : (Interviewer to read out the first 4 choices) (1) Hong Kong Citizen (2) Chinese Citizen (3) Hong Kong Chinese Citizen (4) Chinese Hong Kong Citizen (5) Others (Please specify) (6) Don't know / hard to say (7) Refuse to answer
Date of survey Hong Kong Citizen Chinese Hong Kong Citizen Hong Kong
Chinese Citizen
Chinese Citizen Other DK/HS 6-12/6/2014 40.2% 27.1% 11.6% 19.5% 0.2% 1.3% 9-12/12/2013 34.8% 27.6% 15.0% 21.8% 0.8% 0.1% 10-13/6/2013 38.2% 24.3% 12.0% 23.0% 1.1% 1.6% 14-17/12/2012 27.2% 33.1% 16.1% 21.3% 0.6% 1.7% 13-20/6/2012 45.6% 22.8% 11.5% 18.3% 1.1% 0.7% 12-20/12/2011 37.7% 25.3% 17.8% 16.6% 0.6% 2.1% 21-22/6/2011 43.8% 21.3% 10.3% 23.5% 0.4% 0.6% 13-16/12/2010 35.5% 27.6% 13.8% 21.1% 0.4% 1.5% 9-13/6/2010 25.3% 31.3% 14.8% 27.8% 0.4% 0.5% 8-11/12/2009 37.6% 23.9% 13.1% 24.2% 0.2% 1.0% 8-13/6/2009 24.7% 32.0% 13.3% 29.3% 0.2% 0.4% 9-12/12/2008 21.8% 29.6% 13.0% 34.4% 0.5% 0.7% 11-13/6/2008 18.1% 29.2% 13.3% 38.6% 0.1% 0.7% 11-14/12/2007 23.5% 31.5% 16.0% 27.2% 0.7% 1.1% 8-12/6/2007 23.4% 31.8% 16.7% 26.4% 0.3% 1.4% 6-12/12/2006* 22.4% 24.3% 20.1% 31.8% 0.6% 0.7% 13-15/6/2006* 24.8% 25.1% 14.9% 34.6% 0.3% 0.3% 9-14/12/2005 24.8% 26.5% 16.9% 30.7% 0.0% 1.1% 6-8/6/2005 24.0% 21.2% 14.7% 36.4% 0.5% 3.3% 6-9/12/2004 25.9% 23.1% 16.2% 31.6% 0.4% 2.8% 7-11/6/2004 28.0% 21.2% 14.3% 33.0% 0.4% 3.1% 10-14/12/2003 24.9% 23.4% 15.6% 32.5% 0.3% 3.3% 13-18/6/2003 36.7% 19.2% 11.9% 29.0% 0.7% 2.5% 1-4/3/2003 28.5% 22.3% 15.0% 32.3% 0.3% 1.6% 13-18/12/2002 31.1% 21.3% 14.3% 29.7% 0.6% 3.0% 2-5/9/2002 28.9% 22.0% 15.0% 32.5% 0.4% 1.2% 4-5/6/2002 32.2% 18.1% 13.0% 32.5% 0.4% 3.9% 12-13/3/2002 27.5% 23.3% 17.9% 28.3% 0.0% 3.0% 7-9/12/2001 31.9% 20.5% 10.4% 31.5% 0.3% 5.4% 13-21/9/2001 26.1% 27.9% 17.6% 25.8% 0.4% 2.1% 1-5/6/2001 36.1% 18.3% 13.3% 28.4% 0.0% 3.8% 22/3-2/4/2001 31.4% 21.7% 16.0% 28.2% 0.4% 2.3% 4-12/12/2000 35.6% 19.1% 13.8% 25.2% 0.9% 5.5% 21-25/9/2000 37.0% 26.8% 14.5% 17.4% 0.4% 3.9% 7-8/6/2000 35.5% 22.9% 14.0% 22.8% 0.7% 4.1% 6-7/4/2000 38.7% 21.4% 14.2% 20.4% 0.2% 5.1% 1-2/2/2000 38.3% 23.2% 19.5% 13.8% 0.5% 4.6% 13-15/12/1999 39.0% 20.9% 17.2% 19.9% 0.2% 2.8% 26-27/10/1999 31.2% 23.7% 16.2% 25.5% 0.7% 2.6% 6/8/1999 30.3% 23.3% 17.5% 25.3% 0.3% 3.2% 8/6/1999 39.9% 25.0% 11.2% 17.0% 0.6% 6.3% 15/4/1999 43.4% 20.0% 13.1% 18.0% 0.4% 5.1% 8-9/2/1999 41.0% 20.9% 15.3% 17.6% 1.2% 3.9% 21/12/1998 40.7% 22.3% 15.1% 17.2% 0.6% 4.2% 29/9/1998 39.4% 22.9% 15.5% 20.6% 0.4% 1.2% 14/8/1998 29.7% 25.2% 19.6% 22.0% 0.2% 3.2% 22-24/6/1998 30.2% 18.0% 16.1% 31.6% 0.4% 3.8% 3-4/6/1998 34.2% 18.6% 18.7% 24.8% 0.2% 3.4% 8-9/12/1997 35.8% 22.9% 18.9% 18.2% 0.2% 3.9% 28-29/10/1997 36.6% 22.6% 20.1% 17.5% 0.2% 3.0% 23-24/9/1997 36.2% 24.2% 20.3% 17.5% 0.2% 1.6% 26-27/8/1997 34.9% 24.8% 20.1% 18.6% 0.4% 1.3%
Now, if I were randomly selected and asked either the CUHK or HKU-POP question, I will have to reply: "I don't know what you are talking about!" They may have a point somewhere, but this is splitting semantic hairs too fine for me to discern.
Here is the blogger Kursk back on January 3, 2011 about the HKU-POP survey data:
When I first saw the question, I spent twenty minutes thinking before I figured out what the meaning of "Hongkong Chinese citizen" versus "Chinese Hongkong citizen" etc. Maybe I was over-thinking or maybe my understanding is poor. But I really wondered how many seconds the telephone respondent has to comprehend this test of academic skills or preferences.
Actually, the question of "Do you consider yourself as XXX?" has different answers in different situations. For example, when we see Chinese athletes in competition or a natural disaster in China, we call ourselves Chinese. When we are talking to a foreigner or someone from another Chinese province, we call ourselves Hongkongers. Furthermore, to claim to be a Hongkonger is not denying being Chinese. It doesn't really mean anything.
But the most dangerous part about this study is that it will serve the purposes of various special interest groups, to each his own reading based upon his hidden political agenda.
... I want to add that this survey topic does not mean much. It is not a sin to say that you are a Hongkonger, just as it is not a virtue to say that you are Chinese. As for being a "Chinese Hong Kong citizen" as opposed to a "Hong Kong Chinese citizen," there isn't much difference and doesn't deserve any deep reading. Most likely, the respondents have no idea what the difference is.
If I had to answer, I would say that I am Hongkonger as well as Chinese. That is to say, my answer is: "Other -- Hongkonger and Chinese."
Actually, if the issue is national identity, the international standard is the Moreno question, which was first developed in Spain and introduced to Scotland to ask respondents to balance the relative weight of two identities, usually a sub-state level against the state level (Scotland inside Great Britain, Catalonia inside Spain, Quebec inside Canada, etc):
In Scotland (Great Britain), the question is:
Which, if any, of the following best describes how you see yourself?
(1) Scottish not British
(2) More Scottish than British
(3) Equally Scottish and British
(4) More British than Scottish
(5) British not Scottish
(6) Other description
(7) None of these
In Catalonia (Spain), the Moreno question is:
Which, if any, of the following best describes how you see yourself?
(1) Catalan not Spanish
(2) More Catalan than Spanish
(3) Equally Catalan and Spanish
(4) More Spanish than Catalan
(5) Spanish not Catalan
(6) Other description
(7) None of these
In 1990-1995, the data showed:
12.5% Catalan not Spanish
18.9% More Catalan than Spanish
38.9% Equally Catalan and Spanish
9.8% More Spanish than Catalan
16.7% Spanish not Catalan
3.1% Don't know/no answer
I would have chosen "Equally Hongkonger and Chinese" in a Moreno question where my understanding of "Chinese"-ness is based upon cultural factors and not political factors.
After 45 days of Occupy Admiralty, the number of villagers at the "Harcourt Village" tent camp is estimated to be 400 to 500 each night after the last MTR train departs.
On the night of November 5 and 6, our newspaper interviewed 182 "Harcourt Village" residents who stayed the night.
Our survey found that 20% of the interviewers are students, 10% are office workers, 7% are teachers, 7% are in the finance industry, 6% in advertising design or arts, others include media workers, technicians, information technology workers, accountants, sales, import/export, healthcare, airlines/travel, insurance, etc.
More than 60% of the interviewees are under the age of 30; about 25% are age 31 to 40; 10% are over age 40.
69% have university degrees, of which 11% have masters or high degrees.
23% have monthly income less than HKD 10,000, nothing that many of them are students who are not working; 52.7% have monthly HKD 10,000 to 30,000; about 20% have monthly income HKD 30,000 to 50,000; 3.8% have income more than HKD 60,000.
Thus, the die-hards in the Occupy movement are mostly young educated people.
37% of the interviewees have stayed for more than one month; 35% have stayed between half a month and one month; 10% said that they have never left Harcourt Village since the Occupy movement began; 15% said that they have stayed two weeks or less.
85% of the interviewees said that they do not support withdrawal. Most of them explained that it would be a complete waste of their previous efforts if they leave without achieving any results while the government has not provided any sincere answers to their demands. Only by insisting to the end will this be a bargaining chip for the Federation of Students and others to apply pressure on the government. One interviewee said that he supports a partial withdrawal but not a complete withdrawal. Some villagers emphasized that they are staying to protect the students and they will not leave as long as the students are there.
As for the 10% who support a withdrawal, some of them are worried that the movement is not accomplishing anything this way and there needs to be a transition into the local communities for a long-term battle. Others said that they think that they would lose public opinion backing if this goes on. One student admitted frankly to be "tired."
Occupy Central founder Benny Tai called for the Occupy people to turn themselves in. Our survey found that 58% of the interviewees will not turn themselves in while 35% said they would. Another 8% said that they are undecided (or declined to respond to this question).
[Permalink] Xi Jinping, Shinzo Abe and Alex Chow (2014/11/11)
At the APEC meeting in Beijing, Associated Press reported on the encounter between Xi and Abe: "Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping hold a frosty handshake at APEC summit." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnFQmh1Xya8. This is an encounter not to have than have.
All of which leads to Hong Kong netizens to wonder what might have happened if the Hong Kong Federation of Students honchos Alex Chow, Lester Shum and Yvonne Leung actually get to fulfill their wish of meeting with Xi Jinping. How much more grim could Xi look? Here is the chronology of events about who to see.
On October 14, 2014. the Hong Kong Federation of Students wrote an open letter to Xi Jinping:
President Xi Jinping,
According to the International Monetary Fund, China will soon become the worlds greatest economy. For many, they will take pride in this extraordinary economic success of China. You proclaimed to pursue The China dream the dream of all people, which shall therefore be realized by the people, and for the people. We presume you would agree that real accomplishment can only be achieved from a bottom-up approach by the people. Now, Hong Kong people have made clear that the same dream for the previous 30 years: the implementation of genuine universal suffrage and the establishment of a system which respects equal rights and guards the well-being of Hong Kong people in the generations to come.
You once said, We shall always listen to the people, respond to their expectations and ensure equal rights of participation and development, so as to maintain social justice. Dont Hong Kong peoples persistence for an equal system echoes with your thought? Hong Kong peoples proposal of the abolition of Functional Constituencies and Civil Nomination within the Chief Executive electroal framework or the nominating committee aims at guaranting equal participation and rights, with a view to achieve an equal development and protect social fairness and justice.
Sadly, at this very moment, our Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying is acting exactly contrary to your vision. 700 thousand Hong Kong people vowed explicitly their support for the practice of civil nomination as the direction of political reform. Nevertheless, Leungs report to NPCSC failed to account faithfully Hong Kong peoples wishes. It is an outrage to witness how he manipulated our view to Hong Kong peoples disagreement with the Legislative Council reform and abolition of the functional constituencies. It is a complete disregard of public opinion and denial to Hong Kong peoples expectation. The framework of the political reform issued by the NPCSC is a result of the governments untrue report. If the Hong Kong government had been honest about public opinion, they would have confessed to their fault, rectify and, most importantly, include Hong Kong peoples genuine wishes in the direction of electoral reform. In mainland China, voters can nominate their local governments. Civil nomination, therefore, has its legal ground. There can be no reasons for the Hong Kong government to fear practicing civil nomination.
It is an agreed fact that the current Chief Executive election system is not capable of bettering Hong Kong any further. While anti-corruption campaigns are under way in mainland China, CY Leung, who has been keeping $50M in secrecy, remains unfettered. There will only be more citizens, disillusioned with our corrupted institutions, marching and protesting, as long as no genuine democracy is practiced in this place. It is our profound hope that none of our future generations shall repeat our path, but enjoy genuine freedom and democracy, and pursue their dreams.
The occupy movement today at Hong Kong is definitely not a colour revolution or its alike, but rather a movement for democracy. The class boycott initiated by students and occupy movements across the city are our response to CYs aversion towards public opinions. We demonstrated peacefully, but were confronted by violence; we howled, but were made silent by pepper spray and full-geared police. Yet the choking gas lingered in Central could not scare the citizens, but only triggered more to stand against this unscrupulous government and affirm justice. A genuine universal suffrage should never be drawn equivalent as subversion. It rather serves to exhibit the high degree of autonomy embodied in Basic Law. National defence and diplomatic matters have always been adminsitered by the Central Government. If the Central Government is confident of her governance, she need not be fearful of a Chief Executive elected by Hong Kong citizens. Genuine universal suffrage will only reaffirm such autonomy and be another exemplar of yours.
Our respect towards the principle of One Country, Two Systems is the precise reason to put forward that Hong Kong shall resolve Hong Kongs problems and citizens opinion must be given heavy weight. This is precisely the reason why HKSAR government should be guilty of misunderstanding us, and shall help to rectify the political reform by urging NPC to withdraw her decision. The current situation catches attention not only from Hong Kong, but also China, Taiwan and even the rest of the world. We have high hope for you to take this matter closely. It is by no means worthy letting a corrupted official jerpardizes One Country Two System and blemish the grand China Dream.
For the sake of a democratic political system, fellow students are willing to give up their studies or even risk their lives. Only at this moment can we realise how disgraceful our city is and how terrifying she has been suppressing us. It is only when a generation is sacrificing all of their time and efforts on street protest can we notice how CY Leung has antagonised this very generation. Some twenty or thirty years later, students fighting for democracy today will then become the pillars of the city. As 2047 approaches, any decisions today will cast a significant influence in our pathway towards democracy. We believe that nobody is eager to see his succeeding generation bet their lives for democracy and a better Hong Kong.
We, as students, urge to settle these issues of Hong Kong:
1) The HKSAR government must bear the sole responsibility, be accountable to Hong Kong citizens and rectify herself
2) To establish a democratic system that affirms equal rights
3) To uphold the principle of One Country, Two Systems: Hong Kong problems be settled in Hong Kong; Politics to be settled by Politics
Yours sincerely,
Hong Kong Federation of Students
11 October, 2014
(Los Angeles Times) Hong Kong student protest leaders seek talks with Beijing officials. November 5, 2014.
Student organizers of Hong Kongs pro-democracy protests said Wednesday that they will seek a direct dialogue with China's top leadership during an important international summit in Beijing next week. Three to five representatives of the Hong Kong Federation of Students are planning to travel to the Chinese capital to seek talks with Prime Minister Li Keqiang or another senior leader during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, said Yvonne Leung, spokeswoman for the group. The exact date of the trip is to be determined.
(Channel News Asia) HK protest leaders request formal meeting with Beijing. November 7, 2014.
Leading protest group the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) presented an open letter on Friday to the city's former leader Tung Chee-hwa and former Legislative Council President Rita Fan - both members of the National People's Congress Standing Committee - requesting their help to arrange a meeting with Premier Li Keqiang or the two top officials in charge of Hong Kong affairs, Zhang Dejiang and Li Fei.
(South China Morning Post) 'There is no point in talks with Beijing', ex-Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa tells students. November 9, 2014.
Tung, a vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, had read an open letter delivered to him by the Federation of Students on Friday, asking him to arrange the meeting, his spokesman said.
"[Tung] thinks they are just repeating their views and stance in the letter, which won't help to break the impasse," the spokesman said. "Mr Tung points out that the central government understands the different views in Hong Kong. The decision of the National People's Congress Standing Committee on August 31 will not change."
(The Standard) Students urge NPC deputies to intercede. November 10, 2014.
The Hong Kong Federation of Students is now hoping that local deputies of the Beijing body that passed the framework for the 2017 election will help them set up a meeting with state leaders. The federation said yesterday it will write to National People's Congress Standing Committee member Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai and the 36 local NPC deputies to intercede. "Because Fan is an NPCSC member, she is able to request the committee to call a meeting to handle this problem," said federation secretary-general Alex Chow Yung-kang. "I believe Fan is capable of handling the problem. She was one of the members to make the decision, which has led to citizens asking, will she do her duty?"
Why do they want to speak to Li Fei now? Here is what happened on September 1, 2014 when Li Fei came to Hong Kong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZJU9McfZ1M
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/10) (Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers) The Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers conducted an online survey of its members from October 31 to November 2. There were 392 completed surveys. An obvious limitation is that this is limited to Federation members (which Wikipedia says are pro-Beijing) and do not represent either all teachers or the whole population. The Federation is said to have over 26,000 members.
Q1. Support of the Occupy movement
10%: Support a lot
20%: Support
28%: Oppose
40%: Oppose a lot
2%: No opinion
Q2. Can the Occupy movement change the decision of the National People's Congress?
19%: Yes
68%: No
10%: Don't know
3%: No opinion
Q3. Impact of the Occupy movement on Hong Kong society
68%: Affected daily lives of citizens
66%: Paralyzed road traffic
53%: Affected social order
47%: Affected Hong Kong economy
46%: Increased social divisions
45%: Rocked the foundations of rule-of-law
37%: Affected international image
17%: Don't know/no opinion
12%: Other impacts
Q4. Has Occupy Central affected your confidence in Hong Kong's future?
20%: Became better
52%: Became worse
22%: Unchanged
6%: No opinion
Q5. Do you agree with the police's use of tear gas on September 28?
18%: Very much agree
38%: Agree
19%: Disagree
18%: Very much disagree
7%: No opinion
Q6. The performance of the government in the first round of talks
12%: Very satisfied
43%: Satisfied
19%: Dissatisfied
13%: Very dissatisfied
13%: No opinion
Q7. Should the Occupy people follow the court decision and withdraw from the occupied areas?
39%: Very much agree
32%: Agree
14%: Disagree
9%: Very much disagree
5%: No opinion
Q8. How will the Occupy movement end?
43%: The police will clear the sites
25%: It will go on for a long period of time
20%: Don't know
8%: The demonstrators will disperse peacefully
4%: Other
Q9. Do you support the police enforcing the law to restore social order and road traffic?
31%: Support a lot
32%: Support
17%: Oppose
12%: Oppose a lot
8%: No opinion
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/10) (Ming Pao, Ming Pao, Ming Pao) The newspaper Ming Pao commissioned the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme to conduct a survey. From October 31 to November 5, 1005 Hong Kong residents aged 18 or over were interviewed by telephone.
Q1. At this time, students and citizens are using the Occupy movement to fight for universal suffrage. Do you think the Occupy movement should continue or stop?
70%: Stop Occupy
24%: Continue Occupy
6%: Don't know/hard to say
By age group:
18-29: 55% continue Occupy, 42% stop Occupy, 4% don't know/hard to say
30-49: 22% continue Occupy, 72% stop Occupy, 6% don't know/hard to say
50 or over: 13% continue Occupy, 79% stop Occupy, 8% don't know/hard to say
Q2. How to continue/stop Occupy?
By occupation:
Students: 57% continue to Occupy, 39% stop Occupy
Housewives: 10% continue to Occupy, 79% stop Occupy
By education:
University education: 39% continue to Occupy. 57% stop Occupy
Secondary school: 22% continue to Occupy, 72% stop Occupy
Elementary school or lower: 11% continue to Occupy, 79% stop Occupy
Among those who want to continue Occupy
Participated in Occupy
19% continue Occupy but expanding its scale
36% continue Occupy at same scale
15% continue Occupy but reducing its scale (including reducing the number of occupied areas)
Did not participate in Occupy
3% continue Occupy but expanding its scale
8% continue Occupy at same scale
4%: continue Occupy but reducing its scale (including reducing the number of occupied areas)
Among those who want to stop Occupy
Participated in Occupy
23% stop Occupy and use different method to fight
2% stop Occupy because the goal has been reached
1% stop Occupy because it should not have occurred in the first place
Did not participate in Occupy
39% stop Occupy and use a different method to fight
9 stop Occupy because the goal has been reached
31% stop Occupy because it should not have occurred in the first place
Q3. Have you participated in the recent assemblies of the Occupy movement?
18% said that they have participated in the recent assemblies of the Occupy movement, for an average of 3.8 times.
The remaining 82% said that they have never participated.
By age group:
18-29: 44% yes, 55% no
30-49: 17% yes, 83% no
50 or over: 8% yes, 92% no
The link to the HKU POP report itself is here.
[Technical note: The participation rate and/or frequency are over-stated here. The adult population of Hong Kong is about 6 million. 18% of 6 million is 6 x 0.18 = 1.08 million participated in recent assemblies. If they averaged 3.8 times each, the total number of assembly participant occasions is 3.8 x 1.08 million = 4.1 million. There are 34 days from September 28 to October 31. So the average daily attendance = 4.1 million / 34 = 120,600. Do you have the impression that there were so many people on an average day? This is an average. So if there was one day with only 10,000 persons, then there needs to be another day with 230,000 persons in order to maintain that average. Nobody has been making such claims of this size. This point was already made in #022. But I am not saying that something is terribly wrong here. If you ask this sort of question, this is the kind of result you will get. The point is that the result should not be taken literally.]
- Hong Kong Federation of Students secretary-general Alex Chao said that he understands that those who have not participated in the Occupy movement may have different viewpoints. So the people in the Occupy areas will have to reach out to the local communities to explain and clarify the meaning of Occupy.
- Scholarism convener Joshua Wong said that those who have not participated in the Occupy movement and want Occupy to stop should go down to the Occupy areas and exchange ideas with the Occupy people to understand their thinking. He said that it would be irresponsible to stop the movement when no results have been achieved and no other direction is available.
- The Occupy founder Chan Kin-man said that the Occupy people should consider the reactions of the non-participants and seek a balance.
- Civic Party chairperson Audrey Eu said that she understands that the Occupy movement is causing inconvenience to citizens. Therefore, the Occupy should think about how to transform the movement. On one hand, they should reduce the impact on citizens. On the other hand, they need to increase the pressure on the government. For example, they can reduce the size of the Occupy area and turn to occupy Government House instead.
- Hong Kong Polytechnic University Centre for Social Policy Studies, Department of Applied Social Sciences deputy director Chung Kim-wah said that the HKU survey data are basically close to what he had previously found (see #033). Chung thinks that if the Federation of Students wants to reach out to local communities to explain the concepts behind Occupy, then "it is better than doing nothing at all but there won't be any big results." Chung analyzed that the longer the Occupy goes on, the more citizens will be dissatisfied with the inconveniences caused by Occupy. Perhaps the students can gain more support by visiting the local communities, but they cannot erase those daily inconveniences. Chung said that it will be difficult to reconcile those who want continuation and those who want stoppage, because they are extremes.
(Ming Pao editorial in English) November 10, 2014
It is a reality that the Occupy movement has antagonised Hong Kong people. It has lost much of the support it once enjoyed, and there will be widespread popular discontent if it persists. As more and more citizens feel the Occupy movement has adversely affected their lives and business, the Federation of Students will be deceiving itself and others if it thinks it can gain citizens' support by reasoning with them. Its representatives should pluck up enough courage to face citizens. If they resort to sophistry or try to obscure the facts deliberately as some politicians do, the purity of their movement will be tarnished. They should be honest to themselves and be responsible to citizens. They should now leave and restore to Hong Kong people the roads they have occupied.
[Permalink] Internet Crackdown In Hong Kong (2014/11/09)
This is the front page story in Oriental Daily. The headline is: "Internet youth attempted to take over Government House; police make lightning arrest."
Dissatisfied with the passive sit-in-style Occupy movement, a 25-year-old Internet user published on Facebook an 8-page document titled "Occupy Government House, Overthrow CY Leung" on the tactics for taking over Government House and the Chief Executive's Office which is the official "residence" of the Chief Executive. In this document, he called for brave warriors to support the Occupy movement by conducting a series of active attacks. Using the Hong Kong Botanical Garden as the home base, the target would be Government House and the Chief Executive's Office. The document contained a map of the area with the attacking and retreating routes being highlighted. There were also details on the entrances and exist in the target buildings. The document called for diversionary tactics that will force the police to hurry from one location to another.
On November 6, a 38-year-old Internet user with last name Lam went to file a report at the Tuen Mun police station. Lam provided the evidence in the form of the document on Facebook. The police determined that there was reasonable grounds to suspect that someone was using social media to instigate other persons to meet at a certain time at a certain location in order to engage in illegal assembly, blocking and charging at the entrance of certain buildings.
The case was turned over the matter to its Technology Crime Division, which locked on the Facebook user. At 745pm on the day before yesterday, the police arrested a 25-year-old security guard with last name Yau at his home in Mongkok. The police removed a computer for investigation. The suspect is said to have admitted posting the document on the Internet.
In the document, the call was for everybody to meet up at the Botanical Garden at 3pm yesterday to begin the action. Yesterday, the police were present at the location. According to one Internet user: " I went over to 'see'. There was plenty of police presence there. Anyone who admitted to be there to 'see' had their ID's inspected and recorded."
According to the police, 14 persons have been arrested since September 26, on suspicion of the offence of "access to a computer with criminal or dishonest intent" and/or "criminal intimidation." The police reminds citizens that the Internet is not a virtual world in which anything goes. Most real world laws are applicable to the Internet too, including calling for people to engage in illegal activities.
Here is the dilemma. On one hand, if you want to maintain top secrecy, you have to restrict access to the plan to just a few trusted persons and therefore you won't have a mass turnout. On the other hand, if you want a mass turnout, you have to publish the plan in an easily accessible manner and ask people to spread the message, and therefore you can't maintain secrecy.
[Permalink] When I Grow Up ... (2014/11/08) Here is a YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR6z0EoNoEc arguing for genuine universal suffrage.
0:05 When I grow up, I want to work non-stop everyday. I will be content with a monthly salary of not more than HKD 14,000.
0:09 When I grow up, I want to be a policeman who can hit people at will!
0:14 When I grow up, I want to be a triad gang member and I can work with the police.
0:17 When I grow up, I want to live in a room in a partitioned apartment. It will be quite nice!
0:23 When I grow up, I want to be a second-class citizen.
0:29 When I grow up, it will be enough just to be able to watch the CCTV channel.
0:36 When I grow up, I only want snake dinners, vegetarian dinners, autumn festival cakes and sticky rice dumplings!
0:42 When I grow up, I want to work for the government because for us corruption isn't breaking the law.
0:47 When I grow up, I won't have to speak Cantonese. It will be enough to speak putonghua.
0:52 When I grow up, I hope everything will meet the wishes of the central government and there won't be any arguments.
0:58 When I grow up, I want franchise stores all over the streets.
1:02 If you won't stand up anymore, then the future of your children will become even more unthinkable. Occupy now, save the future.
1:11 There is no need to wait for me to grow up. I want genuine universal suffrage!
This drew many scornful remarks from Internet users. Samples:
- When I grow up, I want to be a pan-democrat Legislative Councilor, because I can accept secret political contributions without making any disclosure.
- When I grow up, I want to be a pan-democrat Legislative Councilor, because I can filibuster until the end of time to make sure that nothing is ever achieved.
- When I grow up, I want to a selfish Occupy Central dickhead, because I can do anything I want.
- When I grow up, I want to engage in civil disobedience because I can completely ignore the law.
- If this isn't brainwashing, what is?
- In the advanced democracies such as United States and western Europe, they also have the same problems and some more of income disparity, inequality of wealth, police brutality, organized crime, drug/substance abuse, lack of decent and affordable housing, class warfare, store chains, restricted television choices, corrupt politicians, government/business collusion, politicization of the judiciary branch, military-industrial complex, election rigging, gender/sexual orientation/race/ethnicity/language/religion/nationality discrimination, immigration, federalism vs. state rights, family planning choices (or lack thereof), domestic violence, influence of foreign powers in domestic politics, concentration of economic powers to the monopolies/oligopolies, media manipulation of public opinion, illegal mass surveillance, starting unjustified wars and committing war crimes, environmental pollution, climate change denial, food safety, high medical/healthcare costs, retirement pensions, social welfare, funding education, etc. Genuine universal suffrage is not a panacea.
- Why do they talk as if their actions are going to solve all these problems, and yet they offer no rational explanation of how that could come about?
- Here is what I have learned :
(1) With genuine universal suffrage, the minimum monthly salary will be at least HKD 14,000 for everybody;
(2) With genuine universal suffrage, policemen won't be able to arrest anyone anymore;
(3) With genuine universal suffrage, triad gangs will disappear;
(4) With genuine universal suffrage, we will each get a big house of our own;
(5) With genuine universal suffrage, we will all get 500+ free television channels to watch;
(6) With genuine universal suffrage, there won't be any corruption;
(7) With genuine universal suffrage, we can just speak Cantonese and we won't ever have to learn to speak putonghua;
(8) With genuine universal suffrage, we will be able to ignore the Central Government;
(9) With genuine universal suffrage, there won't be any franchise chain stores in the streets.
[Permalink] Strange Days (2014/11/08) In the time of Occupy Central, these are strange days. Even the most routine news report turn to be bizarre beyond belief, with further complications coming from intentionally planted rumors. Some of it is obviously false, as when the information comes from an Internet user posting to social media about what was provided by some unnamed person at the emergency room. Other parts corroborated by multiple media outlets are stranger than fiction.
(Oriental Daily) 4:50am, November 16, 2014
In the early hours of morning, there was another clash between civilians and police. The police used pepper spray at one point. A demonstrator claimed to have been injured in the head after being clubbed by the police. According to Ah Kay, who is an MTR worker and has stayed in Mongkok for for many times, at the time, she was staying behind the barricades and did not take part in the rush against the police. But three police officers accused her of tossing a helmet, dragged her out and used batons to club her head. She was dragged along the ground for at least 2 meters, causing multiple injuries on her body.
After being treated at the emergency station, Ah Kay had to call an ambulance for further treatment. She declined to be taken down to the hospital. She showed her injuries to reporters, including scratches on her forehead and arms and a broken frame on her eyeglasses. She also lost her shoes during the confusion, and she had to borrow shoes from a friend to wear.
In the Apple Daily news video report ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj1PWaLN8Dk ), the relevant action starts at around 1:55.
(VO) "A man was suspected of being hit in the head by the police and pulled down to the ground, and then dragged on the ground for four meters before being subdued."
(Male voice) Two police came up and said that I tossed an object. They dragged me out, and use police batons to bash my head.
There is another long video of the same incident http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6XMMM5rfGM . The relevant action starts at around 3:16 when the police pushed forward and eventually gang-tackled somebody.
(Sing Tao) 5:55am November 7, 2014
Ah Kay dressed as a female and claims to be 23 years old and has been staying with Occupy Mongkok since the first day. Since she is qualified as a medical emergency worker, she has helped to protect other female demonstrators. She claimed that she works as an MTR operations officers and has used her vacation days and leave of absence to work for Occupy Mongkok.
At around 2am, Ah Kay pointed at her wounds that were bandaged by volunteers and showed reporters the scratch marks on her arms. She recalled how she was dragged out of the demonstration zone by the police, pushed to the ground, kicked and hit on the head with police batons. Her eyeglasses were smashed. She insisted that she did not throw a safety helmet. She complained about police violence.
At around 7am, Ah Kay complained that her head injuries were hurting. She felt cold and was vomiting. An ambulance was summoned. Emergency works treated her and then covered her up in an aluminum blanket and took her to the hospital for further treatment. According to the Hospital Authority, they treated four persons from the Occupy areas last night. All of them are male, none female.
The public is interested about whether Ah Kay is male or female when she is on the job for the MTR. This newspaper queried the MTR. The MTR spokesperson said that, under normal circumstances, they will not confirm whether someone is an employee of theirs. Thus, the MTR declined to answer our question.
(Passion Times) The demonstrator Ah Kay narrates how he was assaulted by the police, his version completely different from that of police spokesperson Kong. November 7, 2014.
Ah Kay told our newspaper something different from Kong's statement. Ah Kay said that he was injured by police batons. He was also kicked wildly by policemen. Ah Kay said that he went to get a medical examination, and all he told the police was "I have nothing to say."
0:43 (Ah Kay) I was by the road block in the rear to keep guard. I had to look after the other girls. I had received the directive that there would be some chaos. For our safety, I told them to come in and we lock the place up. Then, for no apparent reason, a group of policemen rushed over. Two policemen dragged me outside. They said that I tossed a helmet. But there was no helmet near me. Nothing whatsoever. Many people witnessed it, some took videos to show that I did not fight back. They pulled me over the table, then they piled on me on the ground. They held my head down. They hit me once on the head with a baton. They held me down on the ground. They held my legs down. They kicked me here ten to twenty times. They dragged me into the road. They dragged me over to the metal barricade. Then another group of policemen took me over further over to that location. That was it.
(Oriental Daily) November 8, 2014
The "Occupy Mongkok girl" was bashed in the head turned out to be a cross-dressing liar. After the series of clashes in Mongkok, "she" claimed to be Ms. Chan, wanted to be called Ah Kay and worked as an MTR operations officer. As a result, "she" became an Internet celebrity. "She" also accused uniformed police officers of dragging her on the ground two meters out of the tent, punching her, kicking her and bashing her head with police batons.
It turned out that Ah Kay is a cross-dressing man named "Brother Ka-chun" who has a prior record of fraud. He is an unemployed young man. He told the police that he was actually injured by unknown individuals with hard objects, not by police officers. His mother disclosed that her son claimed to have gone to Macau, so she was unaware that he was in Occupy Mongkok. She only found out after some relatives/friends told her that her son was injured in Mongkok.
This "Occupy Mongkok liar" has a family name of Lian, he is 23 years old and his identity card marks his gender as male. Early morning on the day before yesterday, he told the media that his name was Ah Kay, his family name was Chan, he was of mixed Chinese-Taiwanese-Japanese mixed blood, he worked as an MTR operations officer, he was an IVE student, he was using his vacation time to work on Occupy Mongkok, he was responsible for the road block group. He said about the head-bashing: "I was dragged out of the tent by the police on the ground for about two meters. During that time, policemen bahsed me with batons, kicked and punched me for more than ten times. They picked me up and threw me down on the ground again. I had difficulty breathing." Although he dressed in a feminine manner, reporters were suspicious about his voice and gender identity. However, he insisted that he was a girl.
At around 6am that morning, Ah Kay felt ill and was sent to Kwong Wah Hospital. As the police got ready to take down his statement, he claimed that he was injured by unknown persons with hard objects and he refused to make a statement to the police. He left the hospital on his own. However, his identity has been revealed after his media exposure. He is presently unemployed. In 2009, he was suspected of defrauding people by pretending to be a movie star scout. His mother claimed that her son told her previously that he was going to Macau with some friends and then lost contact. Yesterday, a relative/friend was watching television and told her son was injured in Mongkok. She said that he son dropped out of school at the Form 2 level. She was giving him HKD 60 in spending money per day. When asked why her son likes to cross-dress, the mother huffed and said, "He is crazy all the time."
Yesterday, our reporter located Ah Kay again. He explained that he was a hermaphrodite. He was said that he declined to make a statement to the police due to concerns about privacy.
According to Police Public Relations Bureau Senior Superintendent Kong Man-keung, a demonstrator claimed to have been in the head by the police and kicked more than ten times. When the police at the scene tried to learn what happened, this demonstrator said that he was assaulted by unknown plainclothes persons with unidentified hard objects, and not as he claimed on camera of being assaulted by the police. This man was sent to the hospital, after which he indicated that he would not provide any information and he did not file any complaints. The man left before undergoing a medical examination. The case would be followed by the Mongkok Crime Investigation square as a case of "an assault that caused actual injuries."
(Wen Wei Po) November 8, 2014
... According to an Internet user at the "Salute the Hong Kong police" page, this demonstrator at first "deceived the reporters by claiming to be female, and also lied about not being 18 years old yet." He even claimed to be an MTR worker. But MTR do not hire anyone under 18 years old or with tatoos on their arms, so the lie was exposed already.
When the demonstrator registered at the hospital, he not only declined to show his identity card but he publicly stated "I did not bring my identity card" while holding the said card in his hand. He was rude to the hospital workers. He claimed that he was 23 years old, he claimed to be unemployed. After being registered, he refused to undergo medical examination or make a statement to the police. He changed his story and said that he was knocked down by unidentified persons during the chaos. He was declined to let the hospital workers remove the bandage on his head so that they could inspect his wounds.
According to what this Internet user said about what eyewitnesses at the emergency room saw and hear, this demonstrator had his lies exposed and he changed his story to: "I took money from Occupy Central to smear the police" and "I received $3,000 in wages from Civic Passion." The demonstrator also said that all the relevant information involves "personal privacy and therefore the police and hospital staff must not disclose this to the outside." But those in the emergency room "could hear it too."
[Permalink] Alex Chao On The Record (2014/11/08) On The Record (講清講楚) is a TVB talk show in which a person is interviewed face-to-face, one-on-one. On October 25, 2014, the interviewee was Alex Chao, secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students and the interviewer was TVB host Kenneth Ng.
The YouTube video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3GRAFctZIc .The first part of this interview is no longer of interest, since it is about the so-called "Plaza Referendum" which was dead before arrival. The second part of the interview is more interesting, especially if someday a historian wants to write about how the Occupy movement came to rationalize their actions post facto. In particular, pay attention to the mesmerizing motion of Chow's hands.
Here is a transcript:
17:09 (KN) If at first, it was about love and peace, then has the nature of the Occupation movement changed now? At the beginning of Occupy Central, what they said about the peaceful occupation of Central versus the Occupation now. Has the nature changed?
17:22 (AC) At this time, I don't think that there has been a change in the nature. The nature is still that everybody is fighting for democracy while firmly adhering to the principle of non-violence. This is a very important characteristic of social movements. Secondly, when you go down to the occupied areas, the special characteristic is the change in form. When you said about love and peace in Occupy Central, it may be about people just sitting there, like the Chater Garden action on July 2nd when people waited to be carried away by the police. But now people are more active. They will go to different districts, these people move around. This is definitely different. But has the nature changed? I don't think the nature has changed.
17:52 (KN) Have the methods of the movement changed? Originally, the method of civil disobedience is to sit there for one or two days until the police carry you away and you leave. When the police try to carry you away now, you won't leave.
18:05 (AC) Within the Occupy movement, people have different ideas about the methods. Being carried away is a moral calling. The moral calling is already there, because it has been there many times during the movement. The other thing is to interfere with the whole social order, so that people will focus on government policies. This has forced the government to think every day about how to solve the Occupy problems. Their problem is that they are unable to abandon all their frameworks and give you your political reform proposal. We want a more democratic framework, not false democracy and not false universal suffrage.
18:37 (KN) There are many ways to frustrate the government. What is the relationship between the roads and democracy?
18:42 (AC) Actually, it is the government which is blocking the road to democracy. We are blocking a different set of roads to put pressure on them.
18:47 (KN) The government is blocking the road to democracy, and then you block the people's roads -- is this how I can understand this?
18:53 (AC) The people's roads include the roads that belong to the people in the Occupy area. (pause)
18:57 (KN) That road belongs to everybody.
18:58 (AC) That road is owned by the people in the Occupy area. But the question is: Why do we have to carry out certain short-term interference actions for the sake of long-term interests? Without a democratic political system, that damage is far greater than any temporary blockage of the roads. It would be a lot greater.
19:14 (KN) This is a fundamental question. For the sake of civil nomination, for the sake of overthrowing the framework by the National People's Congress, you decided to occupy Harcourt Road. Can a citizen say that they oppose civil nomination and occupy another street?
19:28 (AC) When you oppose civil nomination or when you oppose something, you have to look for the reason behind it. Is this intended to get a fairer and more just society? If it is a fight for democracy, I don't think that anyone in the world would question it. Everybody is fighting for democracy, for a fairer and more just society.
19:42 (KN) Not having civil nomination does not mean that society is unfair and unjust.
19:46 (AC) Some people come out not necessarily for the sake of civil nomination. Another reason may be doing away with the functional constituencies. Or maybe they don't want the August 31 framework, they want a better framework for genuine democracy and genuine universal suffrage. That is the reason why they came out.
19:55 (KN) The problem is that you are saying that the roads belong to the Occupy people. I want to fight for civil nomination, I want to fight for democracy. Therefore I occupy the road. But that road also belongs to other people, and they don't accept your concepts.
20:11 (AC) Necessarily some people will agree and other people will disagree. But let us look at the development of the whole society. We have been waiting for democracy for thirty years. Do we have to wait any longer? For the sake of democracy, should we pay a price so that the government must deal directly with the crises in governance. Pure democracy ... pure occupation does not interfere with people's livelihood. But for the sake of people's livelihood, to make the direction of the government's governance and policies to become better, that is why we need a democratic system to help the government. But the government does not appreciate this. They think that small-circle elections can sustain their governance. This is bad for people who participate in the Occupy actions as well as for those who are not participating.
20:45 (KN) The problem is not about how you people want to resist the government. It is about the relationship between you and other people. If roads can be occupied, then how about occupying the airport?
20:52 (AC) Occupying the airport ... in civil disobedience ... in the Occupy movement ... you have tactics. You think certain areas can create pressure on the government.
21:06 (KN) Some people want to occupy the airport now. They feel that occupying the airport will pressure the government. The airport is the traffic hub for Hong Kong. Doesn't that apply pressure on the government?
21:13 (AC) This ... we think that we can discuss this direction. But we don't think that we have reached the point of occupying the airport. We are occupying the Admiralty area, and we are basically applying pressure on the political centre. Some friends are in the Causeway Bay and Mongkok areas. Apart from increasing the political costs for the government, this also forces them to examine these problems closely. When I chat with the friends in these areas, it is also a popularization of the education on democracy. The residents in those areas will go down to chat with the occupiers in that area every day. There is a lot of interaction.
21:45 (KN) At the same time that you are increasing the costs of governance for the government, you are also increasing the costs of living for some citizens. During the past month, many problems have come up for discussion. Why three locations? Why not shrink this to one location? Why not first cut off violence-prone Mongkok? Why don't you ever think about this sort of thing?
22:00 (AC) First of all, the problem of violence in Mongkok. The violence did not come from the participating Occupy people. The violence came from the police.
22:08 (KN) Obviously, different people can have different opinions about this problem. The camera does not show the police applying force on demonstrators sitting on the ground.
22:15 (AC) The demonstrators ...
22:16 (KN) What happened last Friday at midnight ... you can see it on live broadcast, right? You people saw that. The demonstrators pulled at the metal barriers first.
22:23 (AC) The demonstrators pulled at the metal barriers, but they did not hit the police on the head. But the police hit the demonstrators on the head. These facts are very clear. In the different districts, they are people who came out to fight for universal suffrage. We won't easily cut each other off, because we have the same ideas and goals. We can have different methods, but if we all stick to the principle of non-violence ... so far, we have all been working under the framework of this principle. Therefore I don't think that it is necessary to split up over this issue.
22:47 (KN) Some people say that if the Occupy movement continues, it will wreck the rule of law in Hong Kong. Do you agree with this?
22:50 (AC) When people talk about civil disobedience, they mean that when the entire civil disobedience movement is completed, they will go and surrender themselves in order to fulfill the rule of law. So you are being responsible to the entire legal system. This is not destroying the rule of law. This is highlighting the rule of law and fulfilling the entire legal system. In a democratic country, everybody accepts civil disobedience.
23:09 (KN) Is there any limit to civil disobedience now? Roads can be blocked, court injunctions can be violated ... what laws are there left that cannot be violated?
23:17 (AC) During the action, does everybody know the legal costs? First of all, they are willing to accept the legal costs.
23:23 (KN) I have a question: As long as you are willing to accept the legal costs, as long as I say that I am aware of the legal costs, I can continue my action.
23:31 (AC) I can think of three things. When he came out, is the goal of his action fair and just? Is it justified? The second thing is whether he is aware of the legal costs behind. The third thing is that if he is aware of the legal costs, then is he willing to pay the legal costs in order to fulfill the rule of law. When all three things are present, everybody will feel that this is fulfilling the rule of law and not damaging the rule of law.
23:55 (KN) You are criticizing the police for enforcing the law in a selective manner. But are you obeying the law in a selective manner?
23:59 (AC) This is not obeying the law in a selective manner. This is a set of three things. You are doing this for democracy and justice. You are not doing this for the purpose of destroying the rule of law. Democracy and justice are fulfilling the rule of law. The rule of law system, the entire legal system. When you have a democratic system, the government will keep its promises within the framework of the rule of law. They will be accountable to the people, they will be accountable under the rule of law. CY Leung is corrupt now, but nobody can hold him accountable.
24:20 (KN) But you are making the police enforce the law in a selective manner. Isn't this something that is destroying the rule of law?
24:23 (AC) We have not asked the police to enforce the law in a selective manner.
24:28 (KN) How not? When an anti-Occupy person comes in and you feel that he is using force against you, then you think that you should tell the police, "Arrest him!" But when you occupy the road, you say, "Police, you are not permitted to enter. You are not allowed to clear the site." Isn't this making the police enforce the law in a selective manner?
24:39 (AC) Actually, the police can clear the site. They can make arrests. Nobody is objecting. Nobody is opposing them ...
24:49 (KN) Nobody has objected to the police clearing the sites? You demonstrators have not objected to the police clearing the sites? Typically, the police remove the road barriers and the demonstrators move them right back.
24:57 (AC) In the occupied areas, people are defending the occupied areas. This is a reasonable thing. If the police want to make arrests, they obviously can. But with what methods? Will they use force or violence, or will they use other methods to detain a demonstrator?
25:11 (KN) The police told you to leave on your own.
25:13 (AC) Yes, the police told us to leave on our own. But our concept is that we want to occupy, we want to carry out civil disobedience. Obviously we won't leave on our own.
25:20 (KN) Therefore, the police cannot clear the sites. But if you are attacked or shoved by other persons, the police must handle those matters. Is that what you mean? That is, the police have to continue to protect your so-called civil disobedience?
25:34 (AC) Injury to life or body is one bottom line. Everybody has to follow that. When the anti-Occupy people remove metal barricades from the occupied areas, then it depends on who can move them. But when it comes to beating someone up, then the police must enforce the law.
25:49 (KN) Thank you, that was On The Record.
Reference material:
- Violence-prone Mongkok? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sQ5m_IPHsY; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PLMWbl1SZA
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/07) If you can't read Chinese, this is what you will read in one newspaper:
(South China Morning Post) Most Hongkongers want Occupy to end now, says DAB poll.
Two-thirds of Hongkongers want the Occupy protests to "end immediately", an opinion poll conducted by the city's largest pro-establishment party has found. Staff from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong personally interviewed 5,531 residents aged 12 or above last month. They also found that 77 per cent of Hongkongers agreed that police should clear the occupation sites when the time is right.
However, an activists' leader questioned the validity of the poll, which was conducted by DAB district office staff. Daisy Chan Sin-ying, convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front, said: "According to our volunteers, some residents or business owners in the protest sites are actually sympathetic towards the Occupy movement." She dismissed the call for protesters to leave, as Beijing had failed to retract its restrictive framework for the 2017 chief executive election.
Thus, you get more words on negative criticism of the poll than information from the poll itself. Furthermore, "according to our volunteers" is given equal weight as interviews with 5,513 residents.
But if you read Chinese, you can read a lot more (see, for example, Wen Wei Po)
Q1. Do you agree that the police should clear the sites if necessary?
76.8%: Agree
13.0%: Disagree
10.2%: No opinion
Q2. Has been any quarrels with friends, relatives, colleagues and/or fellow students over "Occupy Central"?
46.3%: Yes
53.7%: No
Q3. When should the Occupy movement stop at the latest?
67.2%: Immediately
10.6%: Within one week
3.8%: Within half a month
3.7%: Within one month
2.0%: Within three months
4.7%: Limitless
6.5%: No opinion
1.5%: Other answer(s)
Q4. Has the Occupy movement caused inconvenience in your daily life?
71.3%: Yes
28.7%: No
Q5. Do you agree that the Legislative Council should form a special committee to investigate the Occupy incident?
73.9%: Yes
9.3%: No
16.9%: No opinion
[Permalink] Today, I "Unfriended" My Mother (2014/11/06) This video managed to be condemned by both pro- and anti-Occupy Central sides as nefarious.
0:12 Mommy, you are the dearest person to me. On your birthday last year, I bought an iPhone for you so that you can learn to get on Facebook. I did not expect that I would unfriend you today. I have also left the Whatsapp family group.
0:29 When I was small, you taught me that I must study well, because if I don't study well, I will never rise up in society. In 1991, my auntie completed university and found a job that paid $10,000 per month. She bought an apartment shortly afterwards. Perhaps this was the definition of success under Lion Rock.
[documentary film segments of the return of Hong Kong from United Kingdom to China]
1:09 In 2014, I graduated from university. I found out that the wages of fresh graduates were still at the same level of my auntie. My boss says that I am performing well, but the company has to reduce staffing, so I have to cover the work of other colleagues as well. A promotion? Don't even think about it. As for buying an apartment? Buying an apartment has nothing to do with people of our generation. Even more sadly, this society is becoming darker and darker.
[video segments of recent news events]
1:43 You scolded me for being too nosy, for not being able to think, for being misled, even for taking money. When I heard you say that, I did not get angry. Instead I want to thank you. It was because you worked so hard to make sure that I can study, and that is why I learned to tell right from wrong, to believe that I am doing the right thing and be responsible for what I do. Because the Lion Rock spirit is different now than before.
2:18 Mommy, even though I have unfriend'ed you, you are still the dearest person to me. At this moment, I can't hope that you can accept my beliefs. I hope that someday you will be proud of what I did.
Favorable comments:
- Actually, there is nothing scary about unfriending people. If it has to be your parents, then so be it. I have always known that people in the older generation need to change their attitudes. If they won't change, then this revolution will change them for them. That is to say, the future will be decided for them. I don't think this is hard to accept, but if you look at the truth of the matter, you will know that it was not wrong to do this. Because you will have saved yourself as well as your parents.
- This is heartbreaking. I am lucky to have a good father who knows right from wrong, and he will constantly remind my mother.
- Old people think that they are always right whereas we are ignorant.
- I want to cry after watching this. I have not spoken to my mother for two weeks over Occupy Central. Even now she still thinks that she is right. When we go out to eat with relatives, they said that those demonstrators are fools. My uncle asked me if I went out to play Occupy Central? And did I get paid? My dad told me to bring the peanuts to watch the show. When I heard that, I was very angry. It's been better since, since I know that they supported me to study and that was how I learned to tell right from wrong. But nevertheless this has been a barb in my heart.
- The contents of the video are very true. It describes perfectly the desperation felt by the post-80's generation due to government oppression.
- I like your video, because my mother is like that too. I feel the same way. But I don't think you have to unfriend your mother. Your mother doesn't understand only because she received less education. You don't have to oppose each other.
- For those people who don't understand this video or how young people fell, please think carefully: the character unfriend'ed her mother only because she doesn't want to upset her mother about what she posts.
- Compared to her, I feel very lucky because my parents support Occupy Central.
Unfavorable comments:
- These are Hong Kong Red Guard monsters produced by the Hong Kong Professional Teachers Union and its members.
- Democracy is about tolerating dissenting voices, so why is she unfriending her dearly beloved mother?
- You think you are big deal because you are a university graduate, but there are university graduates all over the place. You can't afford an apartment, and you blame the government and the rest of the world. After universal suffrage comes, will someone give you an apartment? Will you get paid without working? You are being completely unrealistic and you want to reach the sky in one step ...
- That one is your own mother. I have nothing else to say if you want to do this for the sake of democracy. You don't even have a trace of humanity left. You are cold-blooded and conscience-free.
- Your mother was better off giving birth to a piece of BBQ pork than you.
- Back during the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards said that Chairman Mao was dearest to them, much more so than their parents. Now the Occupy Central people are saying that Alex Chao is dearest to them, much more so than their parents.- You learn in this video that the female character unfriend'ed her mother because it was a choice of right versus wrong. But you learn nothing about the arguments on what makes right right and wrong wrong.
- This Occupy Central commercial isn't much good. If you want to sell a product, you should explain what its fine points are. This commercial tells us plenty of peripheral things, but nothing about the fine points of the product.
[Permalink] What the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Said (2014/11/06) Chinese University of Hong Kong pro-vice Chancellor Hau Ka-kit gave an interview by telephone to a pro-establishment newspaper. The Chinese University Student Union is demanding that Hau retract his statement.
Here is what Hau Ka-kit said to the newspaper Ta Kung Pao.
The young students who are participating in Occupy Central are chanting the slogan of "genuine universal suffrage" and blocking the roads to challenge the law, thus affecting the lives and livelihood of millions of citizens. But Alex Chao and other leaders of the Federation of Students feel no need to apologize. Instead, they come up with the inappropriate argument that because the government has blocked the road to democracy, the Occupy supporters can also block the public's roads. Scholarism convener Joshua Wong said that he was unwilling to withdraw without achieving results, and so he is proposing the "referendum." "If occupation is the only way for the Umbrella Movement, then universal suffrage won't come about even if the occupation lasted until 2047."
The famous education psychologist Hau Ka-kit was interviewed by Ta Kung Pao by telephone. He pointed out that this is an era in which posting onto Facebook is faster than taking a photo, and people use the Internet more than they read books. Science and technology make it easy to become famous quicker, so that people can do spectacular things. "From the fifties, the sixties and even to the seventies, we prepare ourselves by studying well. Once we prepare ourselves well, we can think about doing things for society. Teenagers and twenty-year-olds do not readily become money-making legends. Nowadays, people aren't prepared at all but they want the whole world to pay attention to them. This is a reversal of things."
The slogan for "Occupy Central" is "genuine universal suffrage." Such slogans have even been hung in banners from Lion Rock, Tai Mo Shan, Kowloon Peak and pedestrian overpasses. Hau Ka-kit things that these actions are done only for the sake of hanging out banners, for the sake of Occupying, for the question of so-called freedom and independence. But they ignore the demands themselves and the substance within. "Creativity turns to the form, far more so than the content." They don't care what the political ideas are or what the political reality is. They only know that they did something "and they are getting a lot of 'Likes' (on Facebook)." As for the various symbols of death such as "memorial tablets," "altars," "funeral banquets" and even "death notebooks", Hau thinks that they represent the demonstrators' quests for the spectacular. These people go after the so-called creativity irrespective of the substance of political reform and the key issues around certain controversial aspects. As a result, they will obviously "go too far."
Hau Ka-kit used the example of drawing. In the past, the art of drawing placed the emphasis on basic skills. Nowadays, you get higher points if you know to draw outside of the canvas. So you draw outside the canvas, and I outdo you by drawing even bigger outside the canvas. "Everybody is trying to outdo each other." People no longer care about the contents of the debate or the ways to attain the goals. Instead, people only seek speak sarcastically about others in order to win more "Likes." The onrush of media reports make these people even more excited.
Most "Occupy Central" supporters are young people. Some of them get into arguments with their parents. But Hau Ka-kit noticed that while many parents may argue with their Occupy Central children, they will bring soup to the Occupy areas afterwards as a sign of tender loving care. "The children have become the center of the universe. This issue is very noticeable in mainland China, where most families have only one child." The result is that young people have become self-indulgent in their quest for autonomy. Hau thinks that caring must be distinguished with indulgence. In the case of crossing the street, the children should not be allowed to cross whenever and wherever they feel like. There are road rules just like social norms, and people cannot do as they please. Many "Occupy Central" students actually swept the streets clean, but they won't go home. They feel very grand and the media's praises make them feel good. "But afterwards they go back to playing electronic games and loaf in their studies."
Hau Ka-kit said ruefully that although the Occupy Students talk about autonomy and democracy, they do not actually understand the substance and processes of democracy. "In Chinese tradition, we say that 'stern teachers raise good students.' So if you want to talk about autonomy, you must be very demanding of yourself." As for the influence Occupy Central movement by the university students on middle school and elementary school students, he reminded the education community that there could be a blowback. Whereas the Occupy Central movement appears to be directed against the government right now, it can easily be used against the school where another Occupy action could take place for this or that incident. This will go on without end. As to how the education sector can clean up Occupy Central, he thinks that it is important to emphasize the basic values. They should teach the students to pay attention to those around them, especially with respect to filial piety, and prepare themselves well before talking about the pursuit of ideals.
[Permalink] Occupy Mongkok Night Report (2014/11/06)
Action videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F7qGELZ5EM&feature=youtu.be ; http://cablenews.i-cable.com/webapps/news_video/index.php?news_id=445187
Here is the Cable TV news report: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC6FUQbYWDo:
0:00 to 0:31 Video segments taken at the scene
0:32 (interview with masked demonstrator) A man was taking photos here. He was taking photos of these policemen. He was using the flash light. A policeman -- he was one of those wearing a white uniform -- said, "Do not use the flash again!" But it is dark here and it is impossible not to use the flash. He continued to film. The policeman yelled: "You film again! You film again!" He yelled a couple of times and then they rushed over in a mob. They lifted the man over the barrier. They pulled the man from inside the barrier over. They claimed that we rushed at them. The man was taken over there. The policemen then surrounded him. We couldn't see what was going on.
At the Internet forums, it was pointed out that this type of action was pre-planned. Below is the screen capture of an earlier Facebook post by a "Nakade Hitsujiko", whose icon says "Occupy Central." The message says: "Repeat, during the nighttime confrontation, especially in the road sections without street lighting, if you have nothing else to do, then keep shining the flashlight while turning the 'red eye' option off and keeping the camera lens lid on, keep filming those two-legged police dogs non-stop. In the new media age, each person is a media outlet and I have the right to take photos. I also have the right to lose control of my photography technique, forget to take the camera lens lid off or use too much flash lighting. The two-legged police dogs are even pepper-spraying their "white-powder newspaper" master's reporter, so they are extremely emotionally unstable. It should be really fast to get them to fire their guns, and then we will win. Even if they don't shoot, we can pressure them until they make a mistake. Then it will be another newspaper headline story."
Here is a photo of the person with the user name of Nakade Hitsujiko on October 18, 2014, holding a sign that says: "12 o'clock -- recover the cross road." Shortly after midnight at the intersection of Nathan Road and Argyle Street, the demonstrators surged forward but the police were well-prepared and countered with a baton charge that led to many injuries and arrests (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxP-C8-bCB8 ).
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/05) (Ming Pao) A doctoral candidate at the School of Journalism and Communication Chinese University of Hong Kong interviewed 755 Occupy movement participants (301 in Admiralty, 289 in Mongkok and 165 in Causeway Bay). This is not a scientific study since there is no probability sampling mechanism.
Table 1. The demands of the movement participants
Genuine universe suffrage Dissatisfaction with government actions Dissatisfaction with police actions Protect the students Hong Kong independence Very much agree 79.1% 76.2% 51.1% 44.9% 6.3% Agree 15.8% 18.4% 26.1% 28.2% 5.6% Half-half 3.9% 4.0% 13.1% 19.1% 13.0 % Disagree 0.8% 0.9% 6.0% 4.5% 23.3% Very much disagree 0.4% 0.4% 3.6% 3.4% 51.8%
Table 2. The conditions under which the movement participants would agree to stop
Civil nomination Reboot political reform process CY Leung resigns Open up Civil Plaza No conditions attached Very much agree 47.2% 21.8% 10.0% 5.5% 2.0% Agree 32.3% 26.6% 9.6% 9.3% 4.2% Half-half 13.2% 31.7% 24.0% 19.9% 14.1% Disagree 4.3% 12.3% 25.7% 26.1% 22.0% Very much disagree 3.0% 7.7% 30.8% 39.2% 57.7%
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/04) (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Applies Social Sciences, Centre for Social Policy Studies) This is the third of three waves of telephone interviewing on Occupy Cenral. The first two waves were done on September 29 and October 4. This third wave was based upon 554 interviews on November 1-2 with a contact rate of 69.03% and cooperation rate of 75.07%.
Q1. The Occupy Central movement began on September 28. By this point, which person or organization should be held most responsible for the situation?
38.4%: Chief Executive CY Leung/the Hong Kong government/the Hong Kong government officials
31.0%: Occupy Central/the Occupy Central Three
9.4%: The Hong Kong Federation of Students/Scholarism
5.8%: The Central Government/National People's Congress Standing Committee
5.0%: Citizens who participated in the Occupy movement/demonstrators
3.5%: Nobody is responsible
3.3%: Everybody is responsible
3.5%: Other
Q2. Why do you think the Occupy participants have not yet withdrawn? Name the reason that you think is the most responsible?
69.0%: The participants have not attained their goals (e.g. genuine universal suffrage/civil nomination) and the Hong Kong government has not made any positive/concession/solution
3.2%: The participants have not reached any consensus with the government
1.7%: The participants have too many demands, and cannot reach consensus
0.8%: The participants have not considered the next steps
9.0%: The participants cannot afford to lose face
8.2%: The participants are mindless/immature/manipulated
2.9%: The participants have money/aid/free goods
1.9%: The participants want to disrupt Hong Kong/disrupt social order
1.3%: The participants are supported by foreign forces
0.8%: The participants are unemployed people with lots of time on hand
0.8%: The nature of the movement has changed
0.6%: The government/law enforcement is too weak
Q3. Which person or organization can make the Occupy participants withdraw and stop the Occupation?
35.7%: Chief Executive CY Leung/the Hong Kong government/the Hong Kong government officials
34.7%: No person/organization
13.3%: The Central Government/National People's Congress Standing Committee
5.2%: The Hong Kong Federation of Students/Scholarism
4.6%: Occupy Central/the Occupy Central three
3.0%: Citizens who participated in the Occupy movement/demonstrators
3.4%: Other
Q4. In your personal opinion, do you think the participants should withdraw and end the Occupation?
73.2% Tend to agree
26.8% Tend to disagree
By age group, the agree rates are:
Age 18-29: 41.3%
Age 30-59: 76.0%
Age 60 and over: 98.1%
Q5. For those who tend to agree in Q4, why do you think that they should withdraw? Name the most important reason.
47.6%: The movement has impacted people's livelihood, such as traffic, business, daily life etc
17.5%: The Occupy movement serves no practical purpose, so that further occupation is not meaningful
13.8%: The goal has been achieved in that society has learned about their demands, so they should leave while the going is good
5.6%: Re-group and re-plan/seek another approach
2.1%: Don't want to see bloodshed/use of force
7.4%: Disrupt the social order/cause chaos in Hong Kong
4.2%: Affect rule of law in Hong Kong/lawbreaking
1.9%: The nature of the Occupy movement has changed
(Ming Pao) Editorial, October 6, 2014
Towards the end of the past week the Centre for Social Policy Studies of the Polytechnic University conducted an opinion poll. On November 1 and 2 (when the Occupy movement had continued for over one month), 554 citizens were randomly surveyed by phone. 73.2% of them are inclined to think the occupiers should leave now, though 26.8% disagree. The great disparity is overwhelming evidence that it is a mainstream view that the occupiers should evacuate.
It is for very simple reasons that most people think the Occupy movement should end. Thoroughfares have been blocked on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon. That has to various degrees affected all citizens. The Occupy movement has made it hard for some citizens to do business and even earn their living. It has even damaged the business environment and undermined the rule of law.
Public opinion has changed, but one should not read that as proof that respondents or citizens think it wrong to call for democracy or universal suffrage. Respondents who think the occupiers should leave now do so for one or more of the following four reasons: that the Occupy movement has adversely affected the economy and people's lives (47.6%); that it serves no real purpose or there is no point in continuing it (17.5%); that the occupiers have achieved their aim, society knows what they want and they should quit while the going is good (13.8%); and that the Occupy movement has disturbed social order and plunged Hong Kong into chaos (7.4%).
It is unmistakably clear from the findings of the survey that most citizens think the occupiers should leave now. The main reason is that the Occupy movement has disturbed their lives and made it hard for some of them to earn their living. The reversal of public opinion is by nature such that it is very unlikely to reverse again. This shows it is hard to keep the Occupy movement going. If the occupiers agree that it is hard to achieve at one stroke their aim of bringing about democracy and universal suffrage, they should harvest what they have won at this stage. They should preserve their effective strength and carefully plan their future moves. The organisers of the movement ought to have the general aim in view and pluck up enough courage to call on the occupiers to evacuate and fight for democracy and universal suffrage through other channels.
A PhD candidate of the School of Journalism and Communication of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has done a survey in the several occupied locations to find out why citizens have taken part in the Occupy movement. The findings of this survey are worth notice. Seven hundred and fifty-five people were surveyed - 301 in Admiralty, 289 in Mong Kok and 165 in Causeway Bay. 94.9% said they fought for elections by universal suffrage allowing a real choice; 94.6% said they were unhappy with the way the government had handled the constitutional reform; 77.2% said they were unhappy with what police had done; 73.1% said they wanted to protect students; and 11.9% said they favoured Hong Kong's independence.
The Occupy movement has been called "a colour revolution à la Hong Kong". Those who have actually taken part in the occupation are activists. They are always more aggressive. However, only a little more than 10% of them favour Hong Kong's independence, much fewer than those who have joined the movement for other reasons. Furthermore, 75.1% of the respondents reject Hong Kong separatism. It is clear from the findings of the survey that only a very small number of occupiers harbour separatist ideas. We hope people will therefore have a correct perception of the Occupy movement and avoid misjudgement lest mislabelling should endanger Hong Kong-central government relations.
Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/03) (Hong
Kong Commercial Daily) The Hong Kong Business Public Opinion Poll
Company interviewed 563 chambers of commerce, small- and middle-sized enterprise
chambers of commerce, business associations and businesses from October 25 to 31
using telephone interviews, personal interviews, questionnaires and online
surveys. [Wikipedia:
A chamber of commerce (or board of trade) is a form of business network, e.g., a
local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of
businesses. Therefore, its opinion reflects the interests of businesses (and not
necessarily of the general population). Nevertheless, most people work for
some business or the other, so their interests are affected by how businesses
With respect to Occupy Central, the opinion of the business community is:
57.8%: Strongly oppose
40.5%: Oppose
1.7%: So-so
0.0%: Support/Strongly oppose
Do you think blocking the roads can help resolve the problem about universal suffrage in the Chief Executive election in 2017?
37.9%: Very unfavorable
56.5%: Unfavorable
2.3%: So-so
3.3%: No opinion
As for the demands of the Occupy Central people to have civil nomination, Basic Law amendment and the National People's Congress to rescind its decision,
60.5%: Impractical
34.9%: Opposed
4.7%: No opinion
The demonstrators have blocked the roads for many times. Is this disrupting rule-or-law and social order in Hong Kong?
62.8%: Serious damaging
32.6%: Somewhat damaging
2.3%: So-so
2.3%: No opinion
Is Occupy Central hurting economic livelihood in Hong Kong?
48.8%: Severe impact
48.8%: Some impact
2.3%: No opinion
Is Occupy Central causing rifts and polarization in Hong Kong society?
51.2%: Severely impacting unity
44.2%: Impacting unity
4.6%: No opinion
With respect to the impact of Occupy Central on business environment and competitiveness,
62.8%: Severely impacted
32.6%: Somewhat impacted
4.7%: No opinion
Should businesses seek legal redress against the Occupy Central instigators for their economic losses?
44.2%: Very much needed
41.9%: Needed
9.3%: So-so
4.6% No opinion
Is Occupy Central affecting Hong Kong's relationship with the Central Government?
39.9%: Severe impact
51.2%: Some impact
6.4%: So-so
2.6%: No opinion
Is Occupy Central affecting Hong Kong's international image?
74.4%: Severe impact
20.9%: Some impact
2.3%: No impact
2.3%: No opinion
Who is responsible for the Occupy Central clashes? (multiple choices possible)
86.1%: the Occupy Central founders
60.5%: the pan-democrats
58.1%: the Hong Kong Federation of Students/Scholarism
7.0%: the young students
Do you support the police clearing the sites in accordance with the law?
72.1%: Very much support
20.9%: Support
2.3%: Not necessary
4.6%: No opinion
[Permalink] Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/11/03) (Oriental Daily News) 251 persons 18 age or over were interviewed October 30-November 2, 2014.
Q1. Business at retailers and restaurants in the occupied areas has fallen off sharply. What does this show?
28%: Small businesses are affected first and foremost
25%: The livelihood of the front workers are being affected
23%: A wave of business closures and layoffs is feared
20%: Not a lot of impact
4%: No opinion
Q2. Hotel bookings have fallen off, causing hundreds of millions in losses. Some travelers are canceling their trips to Hong Kong. What are you worried about?
37%: An economic stalwart is failing, economic and social prospects are damaged
20%: Workers will be victimized, having to take unpaid time off
20%: The hospitality and tourism industries are entering an ice age
16%: No concern
7%: No opinion
Q3. Taxis, minibuses and direct buses are losing income, shops in the occupied areas are ordering less merchandise and therefore the transportation and logistics companies have less business. What does this show?
31%: Transportation and logistic have suffered serious blows
25%: Lower-income people are affected
21%: Professional drivers are suffering unspeakably
21%: Not a lot of impact
2%: No opinion
Q4. The small- and middle-sized enterprises business index has reached a two-year low, so that the business environment is worsening. What does this show?
43%: Hong Kong is losing competitiveness
24%: Small- and middle-sized enterprises are the victims
18%: Not a lot of problems
12%: Business sentiments are affected by Occupy Central
3%: No opinion
Q5. The political instability has caused consumer demand to change, thus affecting wage raises next year. What does this show?
29%: Hong Kong's prospects are grim
24%: Workers are the victims
24%: Not a lot impact
19%: The aftereffects of Occupy Central
Q6. In terms of finance, the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect has been shelved indefinitely and the Financial Services Bureau pointed out that hidden risks in Hong Kong's financial markets will rise if Occupy Central continues. What is the worry?
32%: The Hong Kong financial market will be displaced by Shanghai and Shenzhen
24%: The market becomes more volatile as negative news come in
20%: Furthermore punishment will be forthcoming
19%: Not a lot of problems
5%: No opinion
[Permalink] Student Flash Chorus (2014/11/03) (Oriental Daily) Around noon today in the occupied Causeway Bay zone, about 20 middle school students from all over Hong Kong spread out, raised yellow umbrellas and sang the song <The sea is wide, the sky is clear> by the band Beyond. After singing the song, the students folded their umbrellas and left peacefully. Afterwards the students went to Times Square in Causeway and repeated the same act. They will visit other districts and use the same method to express their demands for democracy.
Here is a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7vM-hmu3go.
Some Internet comments:
- How does out-of-tune singing equate spreading the message of the demand for democracy? Can anyone even hear the lyrics?
- There is a reason why these are "flash" activities. If they stayed around long enough in some districts (such as Yuen Long or Lam Tin), they would have the crap beaten out of them.
- This is going to raise the rage level of shop owners who are unable to pay their rents due to the impact of Occupy Central on their businesses. The roof is caving down on them, and the students show up singing a song to celebrate their misfortune? This is brain-dead on arrival.
- They do this because they can, and because they don't know what else useful to do.
Signature-Gathering Campaigns (2014/11/02) The Alliance for Peace and
Democracy led by Robert Chow Yung was running a signature campaign to support
the local police and to ask protestors to end their occupation of city roads.
Here is a photo of Robert Chow Yung at one of the several hundred tables:
The banner says: "Oppose violence, oppose Occupy Central, Keep the peace, Keep universal suffrage - Sign for Peace and Democracy" signature campaign.
There is apparently a counter-measure:
(Ming Pao) The Alliance for Peace and Democracy has gathered more than 1.5 million signatures. Meanwhile someone has founded an "Action to support Robert Chow Yung" to gather signatures. The following table is at 176 Johnston Street, Wanchai District. The banner says: "Support Chow Yung ("Support our ginger" in English) - Pay back the people, restore the city's appearance, permanently reside in England". The design imitates that of the Alliance, including using the logo. Previously, Robert Chow had said on Cable TV that he would immigrate to England if Occupy Central succeeds.
Video link: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=760314907336899&fref=nf
(Oriental Daily) At about 5pm, there appeared a street station for the "Support Chow Yung" movement in the occupied Causeway Bay area. There was a table for people to sign up. Our reporter went up to speak to the organizers who declined to be interviewed. According to the Facebook page of the Silent Majority for Hong Kong group, there are fake street stations imitating the design of the Alliance banners. They urged citizens to be careful about not letting people steal their identity card information. The Alliance has filed a police report. When our reporter went back to the Causeway Bay location, the street station was gone.
[028] A Case of Media Coverage (2014/11/02) Here is a report on the incident itself: (The Independent, October 15, 2014)
Video footage showing the apparent beating of a defenceless protester outside a government building in Hong Kong has led human rights activists, politicians and movement leaders to condemn the polices most brutal crackdown for a week.
... In an incident which is likely to prove a flashpoint for clashes in weeks to come, local TV cameras caught a large group of plainclothes officers dragging one protester around the back of a government office block where, presumably believing they were out of sight, the policemen appeared to punch, kick, and beat the man with a baton.
The original TVB report is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvsrEF3gp-U. Here is the transcription of the Chinese-language captions:
0:02 The police removed some tents.
0:07 "Do not interfere, do not interfere."
0:12 A demonstrator has his hands tied up with plastic cuffs and escorted away by six police officers.
0:18 The police lifted him up.
0:23 They pulled him into a dark corner of Tamar Park.
0:28 They put him on the ground.
0:29 They punched him with their fists and kicked him with their feet (拳打腳踢).
0:40 During that time, two police officers went away.
0:48 The remaining police officers continued to kick the demonstrator.
1:02 The police officers eventually took the demonstrator away.
1:04 The entire process lasted almost four minutes.
1:14 The police used pepper spray multiple times when they dispersed the demonstrators.
1:19 Our cameraman was sprayed too.
After this TVB report was aired, the senior management reviewed the report and edited the words "punched him with their fists and kicked him with their feet" out of the caption in the online version of the report. This caused a number of TVB reporters to sign a joint petition to the management to protest this censorship. Here is a report on this development: (The Standard, October 16, 2014)
Thirty-nine TVB reporters and anchors, including three chief reporters and news editors, yesterday petitioned senior management to express regret that references to police officers allegedly kicking and punching a protester had been deleted from earlier broadcasts of the incident. The protester was later identified as Civic Party member Ken Tsang Kin-chiu.
The petition was signed by 27 local reporters, including one from TVB Pearl, Rani Samtani, and 12 anchors, including Venus Chow Ka-yee and Carol Ko Fong-ting.
The petition said the voice-over description before the 7am broadcast was impartial and objective. It said: "A protester was handcuffed with plastic ties, lifted up by six police officers and taken to a dark corner in Tamar Park. Then they dropped him on the floor and started punching and kicking him. Within that period, two officers left and the others kept kicking the protester. Finally police officers took him away and the whole process lasted for four minutes."
But in the 7am broadcast, the part "then they dropped him on the floor and started punching and kicking him. Within that period, two officers left and the rest kept kicking the protester" was deleted. In the noon broadcast, a sentence was added: "Within the period of time police officers were suspected of using force on him."
The petition said the phrase "punching and kicking him" had been discussed between colleagues who felt it was not inaccurate. It added: "The deleted voice-over did not include the reporter's personal stance or emotions and was objective reporting based on facts."
TVB released a statement at around 9.30pm. It said it respects and supports professional editorial independence. It said that since the video indicated the alleged use of excessive force by police officers, and might consequently be related to legal disputes, the news department's director decided to use more objective words to prevent affecting a trial or perverting the course of justice in the future. The statement said the amendment was only done with the voice-over while the video clips remained unchanged.
An internal TVB meeting was convened, during which someone made an audio recording and posted it on the Internet. The apparent goal was to embarrass the management. This audio clarifies as to what the reasoning behind the arguments were.
The audio is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7kemkP5WkE. The first speaker is TVB news director Keith Yuen Chi-wai. During the initial part of this meeting, Yuen reminded the attendees about the TVB code of ethics which applies to all of the several hundred news workers including news directors, editors, hosts, reporters, cameramen, chauffeurs, etc. Then he continued:
6:47 In covering the Occupy movement, hundreds of people inside and outside are involved. More than 200 people are working on the same thing. If there is no common set of standards, then there will be conflicts. In the present case, we are not in sync over the standards. How did the standards fall out of sync? The report that we wrote early morning is not in sync with the standards. When we make any accusation against anyone, we must use "believe", "suspect" or "doubt". This is what we always do. Those are accusations. Suppose you walk down the street and you see someone wearing white clothes. You see that it is white, unless you are color-blind. You do not have to say that you suspect that the clothing is white, or you wondered if the clothing is white, or you believe that the clothing is white. That is not necessary.
8:00 But some accusations are based upon looking at films. You did not witness it alongside. You could not pose any questions (at the time). It was also impossible to follow up with questions. When we write the report, when we have to describe what happened, if we have to describe ... our rules for writing the report have always been. When the police arrested someone, we can only say that they arrested a suspect. We cannot say that they arrested a criminal. Or we say that the police took a man down to the police station to assist in the investigation. That is objective reporting. If you want to say that he is a criminal, you can only say "suspected criminal." That is the difference. You can say something different but if that is what you want to say, then there are standards to follow. Like when when you report on a traffic accident. You can say that the two vehicles collided. You cannot say that the taxi slammed into the truck from behind. We once reported that a taxi slammed into a truck inside the Lion Rock Tunnel. But the court found that the taxi driver was innocent whereas it was the truck driver who was at fault. So we were challenged and sued. The taxi driver cited the TVB report that day in court. He said, "TVB said so." They said that the taxi slammed into the truck."
9:35 We have tremendous influence. We are the witness for history. Our news today is tomorrow's history. We must be very careful. We must be careful not so much to protect ourselves, but to protect those who are impacted by our reporting. We do our thing and we can leave without a care. But it could be very tragic for those who are impacted by us. Let me give you an example. You were probably not even born when it took place. After the 1989 Tiananmen incident, there was a person named Shiu Fung who was interviewed by a foreign news agency in Shenyang. He said carelessly even though he was not in Beijing: "Wow! They opened fire! They stabbed people!" It was very easy to locate him at the time. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The foreigner who interviewed him was able to go home. But it was tragic for Shiu Fung. How can we protect him? Very easy. You cover his eyes. You put a mosaic over him. It becomes harder to locate him. This is how we protect those who may be hurt as a result of our reporting. I have said a lot, but all of it is part of our standards.
10:48 Let me go back and talk about that news report yesterday. The original report. There were many versions. At a quarter past six in the morning, I saw that version. Including what our host ad-libbed. Including what the voice over said. Namely, the policemen ... "hands tied" ... "taken to a dark corner" ... "punched with their fists and kicked with their feet." I do not know if these were the exact words. At least one version went like that. I made a clip of that news report on iNews. I made a clip from my app. The original report said this: "By 3am, the police dispersed the demonstrators. The police took away a number of demonstrators. One of the demonstrators was pulled by the police into a dark corner. They punched him with their fists and kicked him with their feet."
12:05 Normally you reporters treat these serious accusations ... and why is this accusation so serious? According to (Legislative Councilor) James To, any police officer using unauthorized brutality may be facing life imprisonment. Life imprisonment for six police officers. Is that serious or not? This accusation is serious. On what basis can we say that "the police officers pulled him into a dark corner ... punched with fists and kicked with feet". Are you a worm residing inside the hearts of those police officers? "Purposefully pulled him into a dark corner ... punched with fists and kicked with feet"? On what basis? The reporter wrote this report based upon the video which was taken by the camera at the scene and which was then shown on the display screen in the editing room. He wrote down his judgment. Did he go up and ask them? Did he go up and watch the assault? Did he ask them whether they purposefully pulled him over there to beat him up? You can write it this way if you managed to ask the beating victim, if you asked the person who was pulled in there. You ask him. Maybe he denies, he says no. You can write it that way. But if you haven't been able to do these things, shouldn't we write words like "suspect", "believe", "doubt." Nothing like that was sused in the report. I went back to the other versions. Nothing anywhere. Not only was there nothing, but our host ad-libbed very fluently: "Six police officers pulled one of the demonstrators into a dark corner. They punched him with their fists and kicked with their feet." Every ad-lib included this. As the chief editor, someone who is responsible for every word in the news reports, shouldn't I telephone my colleague here and asked for a revision? I made the call at 6:35am. 6:35am. Morning news. All our clips were still coming from the iNews channel. But when the Jade Channel also aired it, the impact was even bigger.
The male editor explained his reasoning for writing the report that way.
18:05 I don't know about what happened after 7:00am. As for the entire process, at around 2am or 3am, we had four cars at Lung Wo Road. When the chaos began at Lung Wo Road, four cars including the mobile link went there. Seven to eight files were sent back at the same time. That particular film came around 4am ... sorry, the film with the suspected assault was found by a colleague around 4am or 5am. Such a film was discovered. At that moment, there was a news director, a reporter, and two others helping out. At that time, a colleague said, "Hey, here is such a film." Actually, the original report was more or less done already. But this film was a relatively new development in the events that nights. It had to be added. I was already revising the report. I was responsible for making that addition. I wrote the whole report. I was also responsible for the outside, including the first time that SOT appeared. The updated version, the improved version, the additional banner indicating a different time. I made that addition. So I was wholly responsible for the story.
19:40 After finding that film, we watched it repeatedly many times. Including watching it on computer using different speeds. We continued to watched it in the editing room. The raw film ran four to five minutes. We watched it several times. I made the decision. I thought about how to describe the process, including using "assault." I thought about it. I found that "assault" has many associations. You can use many parts of the body to assault someone. I eliminated the word "assault" immediately. So should I use "force"? There are even more associations possible with "force", because a lot of tools can be used to apply force. So I watched it many times. The colleagues even discussed it. It was very obvious that there was kicking with the feet. It was also very obvious that there was punching with the fists. So I made the decision to use the words "punch with the fists and kicked with the feet." "Fists" and "feet" are nouns. "Punch" and "kick" are verbs. Four words (拳打腳踢) to describe the action on the screen. The entire process. In considering the entire process, I have no doubts about what is shown on the screen in terms of credibility and authenticity.
22:02 That is ... let me give an example. In the past few days, we filmed the police using pepper spray. We see it in the video, we see it with our own eyes, the colleagues at the scene also saw it. We do not add "The police are suspected of using pepper spray." Of course, I can nitpick and say that the canister may contain some other kind of material. Therefore, we trust our own eyes, we trust our colleagues, we trust what our cameramen record and send back to be real. There is no reason to question whether it is factual. Unless it is something we did not film but we only heard about from our peers, such as something another television station filmed. if we have no hard evidence and we have no video of our own. If the opposite happened with five or six demonstrators dragging away a policeman to beat him up, I would say the same thing. The video tells the truth.
23:03 Was the corner "dark" or not? At that location. Those who have been to Tamar Park, those who are familiar with Tamar Park, know that there are two lamps hanging on the top of the wired fence. Two lamps are seen in the video. This is clearly darker than the surrounding area. There is also the "pulling" and the "plastic cuffs." I did not write down "plastic cuffs" at first. But a colleague clearly pointed out that you can see the demonstrator had a very long plastic strip around his hands in the film segment showing them passing by the camera from Lung Wo Road. This can be seen on the full screen. Therefore ... I am not afraid to say so ... I did not write it at first. The editor then opined that this should be added in, because it will show whether the demonstrator had the ability to resist when he was taken there. It would have preclude the possibility that the demonstrator struck the policemen first. That was why I especially mentioned it.
24:19 "Pulled." Everybody can see six police officers pulling one demonstrator. I don't think that you would say "bring." I don't think that you say "bring him into the dark corner." Right or not? Alright. Also, there is something that I would like to add. During the process, I asked Brother Hao to call PPRB (Police Public Relations Branch) to ask if anyone has been arrested. PPRB did not provide any information before 630am. At around 630am or afterwards, the police gave a briefing on the overall situation at Lung Wo Road. The police came out at 632am. At that time, some reporter asked the police about the video shown by the media ... what we filmed on how some police officers carried a demonstrators to a certain location and assaulted him. At the time, the police spokesperson said that there was no information about this, and that any such activity will be investigated. But the 630 news report was already out. My judgment was that before our news report went out, there had been no official statement to confirm that the person was arrested. Therefore our report said that the person was taken away. If he was taken away ... in a traffic accident, if a driver was not arrested, we would cover up the license plate number and we would not cross the line and say that he was arrested. At that moment, we have only seen the person being taken away. Nobody could confirm whether that person was arrested or not. We can imagine if we want. So at that moment, before the telephone rang at 645am, I am certain that what I saw was real. What my colleague filmed was real. As to what happened after 645am, I was getting ready to leave and I had no part in it.
Here are another veteran journalist's comments (via Hong Kong First blog):
(1) Yuen's basic viewpoints are actually just Journalism 101 stuff, being the most simple and basic journalism ethics. That is to say, when a reporter wants to make an accusation against a person or organization, they must realize that an accusation does not equal facts. An accusation must be verified first. In this video, Yuen pointed out accurately that the report made the direct and definitive statement that the six police officers pulled the demonstrator into the dark corner and "punched him with fists and kicked him with feet." Yuen pointed out that since there was no TVB reporter verifying the story at the scene, how could the reporter writing the VO (Voice Over) know anything about the causes and motives about why the policemen took the demonstrator into that corner? What happened between them before? Is there some other reason? The original version directly judged that the police brought the demonstrator in order to beat him up. This is the impression that the report created for the audience. Without any verification, the report took the imputed motives of the policemen as fact. But this was merely the subjective speculation by a reporter. This violates the standards of journalism. Yuen was especially demanding because the accusation was serious and therefore the reporter has the moral obligation to be particularly careful.
(2) The so-called "punch with the fists and kick with the feet." The male reporter countered by playing with words. He said that there were "fists", "feet", "punch" and "kick". The problem was that the video only showed the policemen using their hands, but you can't see (closely clenched) fists; if you say that you can see it, then you are lying. There were two to three arm movements. It is hard to say whether these were (closely clenched) punches to the body, or (open-handed) slaps. Objectively, they "used their hands." As for the kicking, there were kicks but it was impossible to say which part of the body was kicked. As for the term "punched with the fists and kicked with the feet (拳打腳踢)," it is not just a combination of two nouns plus two verbs. It is a descriptive idiom that implies a sustained series of violent (even deadly) blows administered by hands and feet. From the video, the hand/feet movements lasted less than 30 seconds. The number of hand/feet movements is also limited. It is not enough to be the idiom "punch with the fists and kick with the feet (拳打腳踢)." This was not an objective description; it was only an emotional description. More importantly, the medical examination showed that the demonstrator only had some scratches plus some unexplained red marks. When I first heard TVB's "punch with the fists and kick with the feet," I imagined that the demonstrator must have been seriously injured. The facts showed that I was misled by the reporter.
(3) My biggest objection was that the reporter deliberately said that the entire process lasted as long as four minutes. This is a deliberate exaggeration by the reporter, because the public has now been misled to believe that the demonstrators was beaten for four minutes. The fact is that all of Hong Kong are saying that Ken Tsang was beaten for four minutes. The video may have been four minutes long, but the action lasted less than 30 seconds. Clearly, the reporters injected some inflammatory and inaccurate content into the reporting.
Mr. Yuen is a responsible and ethical news worker. If you don't like to listen to him, it is because you do not have the basic ethics and standards of a news worker.
The video from the original TVB news report was fuzzy. An enhanced full version is there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX9x9-cDJJQ.
Our newspaper interviewed about 1,000 citizens in October 28-31, 2014. We found that 21.3% of them had participated in the Occupy movement and 78.7% did not.
28.9% said that the Occupy movement was a success, 44.8% said that it was a "failure" and 26.3% said that "it was hard to say."
38.8% said that the Occupy movement "should make a complete withdrawal," 36.1% said that there "should be a withdrawal to areas away from the major thruways" and 16.5% said to "continue the occupation."
[Permalink] On The Internet, Nothing Is Truthful Anymore (2014/11/2) Here is an English-language news report on the incident.
(Reuters UK) October 25, 2007.
A female reporter for Hong Kong's public broadcaster, RTHK, Wong Wing-yin, was also kicked on the leg and body by blue ribbon supporters after being pushed to the ground. She was taken to hospital. RTHK and its programme staff union condemned the attack, while a spokesman said the station would take legal action.
Here is the video taken by Wong after the assault began: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLA_6t0XqLM. There is no video of what happened before the assault. Wong gave a press conference afterwards, saying that the attack was unprovoked because she was not doing anything at the time. Furthermore she identified herself as a reporter on the job.
Here is another English-language news report.
(The Standard) October 27, 2017
An RTHK reporter, Wong Wing-yin, was surrounded by several people who asked if she was a journalist. Wong had allegedly asked the group if they had received money to show up. Someone then attempted to snatch her press pass and her backpack and she fell to the ground during the struggle. Wong said someone then kicked her in the leg and body before other journalists.
Where did "Wong had allegedly asked the group if they had received money to show up" come from? Most likely from the Internet! Shortly after the interview, someone posted an alleged screen capture of the TVB broadcast of the press conference. This photo has the following caption: "I merely asked them how much money they took for coming to this gathering." This kind of unorthodox interviewing may rile some people. However, this statement cannot be found on the video posted on TVB's website. Ergo, TVB must have scrubbed this piece of inconvenient truth! However, someone eventually went back to the full press conference videos from TVB and other media outlets, and found no such statement. Furthermore, the Chinese character font in the screen capture is slightly different from the regular one used by TVB. So this was a PhotoShop job! It is a simple ruse, but it fooled many people and wasted a lot of energy.
Another line of attack was based upon a TVB video of an Occupy Central demonstrator a while ago in Mongkok. That woman was cursing out the police for clearing out the Mongkok site without justification. This woman is claimed to be the RTHK reporter based upon a superficial resemblance (both are young women and both part their hair in a similar way, in the same manner that the bald policeman was regarded the same guy as the bald gangster because they are both bald). So even more energy is wasted.
Of course, things never stop. Here is another so-called "eye-witness" account of the incident:
(in translation)
The truth from the scene of ... the RTHK female reporter being attacked!
It was after 7pm. This woman was sitting at the rear across the Cultural Centre.
... She did not wear a press card or any bade indicating that she was a reporter. She sat on the ground and provoked the surrounding citizens. The citizens hollered and told her to leave. She sat on the ground and began to make a telephone call. The event volunteers came in and asked her to leave! But she insisted on sitting there. Only when a woman pulled her up did she agree to leave under the escort of the volunteers.
I looked at her sad face. She took a couple of steps and stopped to let people take photos of her ... Many people were cursing her out, but the volunteers held out their hands to form a protective ring to let her leave!
I was thinking, Why would a girl dare to provoke citizens under these circumstances? So it was actually a trick by a reporter to provoke anti-Occupy Central people ...
What kind of mindset does a non-neutral reporter must have to do this sort of thing?
Does she have the right to criticize other people for not respecting freedom of press?
Can the RTHK news department condemn other people?
Will the Hong Kong continue to report this inaccurate news story?
RTHK ... Will you apologize publicly for manufacturing news to smear other people?
More wasted energy at the Internet forums ...
I am stopping here, not for lack of material because there is plenty more. But there is no point in wasting more energy ...
[Permalink] Oriental Daily News, 1 November 2014 (2014/11/1) Oriental Daily News is Hong Kong's number one newspaper, with a claimed daily circulation of 530,000 and a claimed readership of over 3.7 million (out of a population of 7.1 million). So let's see some of its coverage of the Occupy Central movement on this day.
"I want genuine universal suffrage" occupies Ta Mo Shan (the tallest peak in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region). Civil Aid Service and Fire Department members were dispatched to remove the banner.
"I want genuine universal suffrage " occupies Kowloon Peak. Civil Aid Service and Fire Department members were dispatched to remove the banner.
On Halloween night, citizens showed up en masse in fight costumes in the occupied areas.
Xi Jinping placard in the occupied Causeway Bay area
On Halloween night, in the occupied Mongkok area, demonstrators dressed up as zombies hopped down the street while chanting "I want genuine universal suffrage."
Anti-Occupy Central man and woman argue with men wearing V-masks at Hollywood Plaza, Mongkok district. The two were surrounded by dozens of Occupy Central supporters who sang Happy Birthday to the two. Finally the police came and got the two to walk away.
The anti-Occupy Central organization Voice of Loving Hong Kong's convener Patrick Ko Tat-pun showed up in Mongkok and was chased and cursed out by a large group of pro-Occupy Central demonstrators. Eventually Ko was taken away in a police car. But several dozen demonstrators were unhappy with the police protection given Ko and clashed with the police. One policeman sustained a back injury and was taken away by ambulance. A male demonstrator was taken away by the police.
At 7:40pm, someone threw two paint spray cans from a building down into the occupied Causeway Bay area. The police arrested two 15-year-old males and then another 15-year-old and a 16-year-old later. The four individuals are suspected of the crime of "throwing objects down from above."
Today is Cleaning Day in the Occupied area, because of the accumulating debris has been attracting flies, cockroaches, rats and vermin. Also, a man in his 60's felt dizzy while walking near the intersection of Nathan Road and Shantung Road and sought help. However, the ambulances could not reach him because of the blocked roads. The ambulance workers had to push a stretcher more than 200 yards by foot to reach the man.
The four-day Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival was originally scheduled to be held in the Central district. Due to Occupy Central, the event was moved to Kai Tak Terminal. Many wine exhibitors canceled because they thought business would be bad. Surprisingly, on October 31, 55,200 persons attended the event, which was more than the sum total of the entire event last year. At 9pm, the Hong Kong Tourism Board issued an open appeal for people not to head there because of the massive traffic congestion. There is no MTR subway to the site, and the shuttle buses had waiting times of up to two hours.
[The significance of this story is that the number 55,200 is probably at least ten times bigger than the sum total of all persons in the Occupied areas.]
And now to the front page story: Occupied area businesses sign joint petition to ask for rent reductions; businesses tumbled down by 90%.
The Occupied Central movement has gone on for more than one month. Business inside the Occupied areas have entered an "Ice Age", even worse than the SARS period.
In Mongkok, the New Town Mall and Mongkok Centre are right next to the occupied area. Normally, they are filled with people, but now the shop owners are losing their shirts. Several hundred businesses at these two malls have signed a joint petition to ask the landlord to reduce rent, or else they do not exclude the possibility of holding a rent strike. Yesterday our reporter went to the two shopping malls in the evening. Normally, Friday evening is the golden rush hour. On this evening, there were about 6 potential customers on the third floor of New Town Mall and twenty people on the whole floor in Mongkok Centre. Miss Lau who runs a fashion store on the third floor of New Town said that her business fell by 90%s in October. Miss Wong said that people see the chaos outside the street and won't come into the mall. Sometimes people come upstairs for safety when street fights break out. Three hundred shops at Mongkok Centre have petitioned the landlord for a rent reduction. "At least 50% off in rent, so that we will each bear half of the losses." The shop owner named Apple said that October is supposed to be a busy month averaging three to four thousand dollars in revenue a day, but now she only made several hundred dollars a day. If she is late on rent payment, there will be a 10% penalty.
Meanwhile, in the occupied Causeway Bay area, businesses have started a signature-gathering campaign to go rent-free for the duration of the Occupy Central movement. Some shop owners said that business is down by 90%, and they will have to leave if the landlord refuses their request to go rent-free. At Causeway Bay Place, there was only about a dozen or so shoppers walking about. Ninety percent of the businesses have asked to the landlord to go rent-free in the short term, or else they will either move away or close down. Miss Yip at a cosmetic store said that business revenue was less than HKD 500 per day. Mister Yim who owns three fashion shops in this mall said that the stores averaged HKD 1,000 per day for the first ten days of Occupy Central. This was 10% of normal revenues, and "not enough to pay rent!" Things have been better recently in that he is making 20% of normal revenues. Yim said that while he supports the fight for democracy, he wishes the Occupy Central people could use some other method other than being "road bullies."
The three shopping malls have declined to respond about their renters' petitions.
By this time, nobody should fantasize that "fair and balanced" news reporting could still exist in Hong Kong. Oriental Daily News is anti-Occupy. So why read it at all? First of all, this is one of the most widely read newspapers in Hong Kong. If people disagree with its position, they wouldn't be reading it. Therefore, its position (which is very much calculated) has a certain amount of support. More importantly, reading Oriental Daily News allows you to understand the strategies of anti-Occupy forces. The selection of news stories above shows a two-pronged strategy: On one hand, there are reports of inane schoolboy pranks (e.g. hanging banners down the mountainsides, parading through a shopping mall with umbrella in hand, costume-partying in the streets) and street chaos (e.g. physical clashes, object throwing, unsanitary conditions). On the other hand, there are reports of economic misery among small businesses in the Occupied areas. The net message is that the Occupy people are too busy having a good time and completely numb and indifferent to the economic plight that they are directly causing.
I do not yet see an effective counter-message coming from the Occupy side. Saying "sacrifice is necessary" is callous. Saying "Sorry" is not enough, because it won't pay the rent. If they are really good at public relations, they would be raising money to help the small businesses while saying "We are all in this together." Hearts and minds.
Civil Non-Cooperation (2014/10/30) After
the Occupy Central movement started, a number of businesses said that they were
sustaining losses. So some people called for people to help out small businesses
and others called for boycotting pro-establishment businesses. Recently, the
Facebook group Students Fight for Democracy started an non-cooperation movement,
with a list of 405 businesses whose directors and shareholders are
pro-establishment (see
). People are urged not to patronize these businesses. Here is the diagram for
the food and beverage industry:
Since it is inconvenient to go around with a printed list, there is a smart-phone app called Guide To The Non-Cooperation Movement (《不合作運動指南》). So before you step into a shop, you bring out your smart phone and check whether that shop is on the boycott list.
As summarized from Internet comments, here is the recipe for life after Occupy Central: You do your food shopping at the wet market (and never at supermarkets like Park 'n Shop or Wellcome), you cook at home and you bring your own lunch to work. If you must eat out, you patronize small, decrepit-looking restaurants with fewer than 20 seats. You don't do overseas travel (because the Hong Kong International Airport is on the boycott list). You don't buy electronics from chain stores. You don't buy Apple products because they are assembled by Foxconn in China. You don't buy clothes from emporiums. No more jewelry, obviously. You don't go into any of the large shopping malls (especially Festival Walk). If you have to buy an apartment, you should buy a 30- or 40-year-old walk-up but not in one of the luxury estates. If you have to buy pharmaceutical drugs, you go to a pharmacy that doesn't use LED lamps. You buy your own bottled water to drink and shower (never use tap water, because it comes from China); Evian is okay but not the Bonaqua, Vitasoy, Watson's or Fiji brands. You buy newspapers/magazines at newsstands but never from convenience stores. You do not read Sing Tao newspaper or East Magazine, and since their owner Charles Ho also has the tobacco concessionary, you will quit smoking. You don't watch any TV until Ricky Wong's channel shows up. As for your gas/electricity services, telephone/Internet services and banks, you are a traitor no matter who you use. The MTR, the cross-harbor tunnels, the buses and minibuses are necessary evils too. You never buy anything that is Made In China, especially umbrellas. And since many schools and universities receive government subsidies, you should avoid them and go study overseas instead. So have a happy life ...
[Permalink] Three Questions For The Occupy Central People (2014/10/30) (YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at-mHj1sE-E&list=UUMRE8g4fldjxnAQwVARUH6A ) This is a high quality video which must have been expensive to make.
(Female VO) I was born and raised in Hong Kong. I support the citizens' fight for democracy. I have been down to the Occupy areas to discuss current affairs with the students. But I have reservations about them occupying the streets in order to get universal suffrage. Therefore I am posing three question to the Occupy people. I hope that I can get answers from them.
The first question is: What is the direct relationship between blocking the roads, fighting for universal suffrage and civil referendum. Let me not even talk about how blocking the roads is breaking the law. Blocking the roads is not going to paralyze government operations. Instead it is going to directly affect the citizens who reside in the occupied areas and who have to go to work or use transportation. A democratic society has to consider and balance various interests. The Occupy people are sacrificing the interests of some citizens in order to gain democracy. Is that fair? The Occupy people are using the interests of the citizens as a bargaining chip with the government. What is the difference with robbers holding hostages as their bargaining chip to negotiate with the police?
The second question is: The Occupy people often criticize the police for enforcing the law selectively. The evidence is that the police tolerate and do not arrest suspects who may have taken part in physical assaults. Whatever the circumstances, it is wrong to use violence to hurt others. But the Occupy people are blocking the roads and therefore they are also lawbreakers. If the police enforce the law, then shouldn't they also arrest the Occupy people in order to be fair? When the Occupy people holler that the police are unfair in enforcing the law and protecting criminals, do they realize that they are not only lawbreakers but also responsible for breaking down the rule of law?
The third question is also the most important question: According to the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme's June 22 civilian vote, there were about 790,000 valid votes. According to information from the Alliance for Peace and Democracy, the "Keep the Peace, Keep Universal Suffrage, Oppose Violence, Oppose Occupy Central" signature-gathering action collected about 1.5 million signatures. Ignoring vote tallies or their authenticity, it is certain that more than one half of Hong Kong citizens have not taken a position. There are two main reasons for not taking a position. First, political coldness and indifference towards society. Second, they do not identify with the positions of either Occupy Central and anti-Occupy Central. Under democracy, the minority obeys the majority. Since the majority of the citizens do not identify with the demands or methods of the Occupy movement, then how can the Occupy people raise the flag of civil disobedience to gain democracy? When the Occupy people criticized the Chief Executive for being elected by a small circle, their Occupy method is to let a minority hijack the majority and to force others to accede to their demands. Does that fit in with the spirit of democracy?
I am a member of the silent majority. But silence does not mean absence of concern for Hong Kong. I hope the Occupy people can answer the above questions.
Hong Kong By The Numbers (2014/10/29) (Hong
Kong University Public Opinion Programme) 1,018 Hong Kong people
were interviewed 20-23 October 2014 by means of a random telephone survey.
Overall response rate was 66.3%.
23%: Vote of confidence in Chief Executive CY Leung
61%: Vote of no confidence in Chief Executive CY Leung
More interesting is the last table which provides a cross-tabulation of the support/oppose rate for CY Leung by (Had participated in mass gatherings of the Occupy movement/Never participated in mass gatherings of the Occupy movement). Out of 1,002 persons who answered that participation question, 180 said that they have participated in Occupy gatherings and 820 have never participated (Question: 180 + 820 = 1000, not 1002!?).
Remember that the survey universe is adults (persons age 18 or over). According to Wikipedia (via the CIA World Factbook), the number of Hong Kong adults is 0.7*(424500 + 417900) + (454900 + 639700 + 471500 + 671800 + 587000 + 681700 + 503700 + 512600 + 479500 + 547700) = 6,160,780.
The estimated number of adults who have participated in mass gatherings of the Occupy movement is 6,160,780 x 180 / 1002 = 1,106,727.
The estimated number of adults who never participated in mass gatherings of the Occupy movement is 6,160,780 - 1,106,727 = 5,054,053.
The most popularly understood principle of democracy is majority rule. Those who participated in mass gatherings of the Occupy movement are not the majority so far. At least as far as these data from the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme show.
Here are my personal observations.
(1) You would think that this is the most significant event in the history of Hong Kong since the return to China in 1997, and therefore all major survey organizations must be running daily tracking polls to follow the scintillating plot. The Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme runs omnibus telephone surveys, so adding an extra question like: "Have you participated in mass gatherings of the Occupy movement?" or "Do you support the Occupy movement?" But full one month after the Occupy movement officially began, virtually nothing has been reported. Instead we get a comparison of the ratings of Chris Patten, Tung Chee-hwa, Donald Tsang and CY Leung. The above Occupy participation rate information was contained in a sub-table of a report, and I had to back it out with a series of calculations. This should have been the top story of the day.
(2) The Occupy Central participation rate of 18% is likely to be overstated. This is a characteristic of famous mass events (such as Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech), wherein far too many people will claim afterwards that they were there. For example, in Robert Chung's article, if you look at HKU POP's estimate of the 2004 July 1st march, they eventually estimated 195,000 participants. But when they interviewed 3,512 adults later by telephone, 231 said that they participated in the march. The number of participants would therefore be 6,000,000 x 231 / 3512 = 394,600. This is more than twice the direct estimate of 195,000. So if the telephone recall estimate here is 18%, then the participation rate could actually be less than half as much.
(3) It was noted that the rating for CY Leung fell from 40.6 on October 6-9 to 38.9 on October 20-23. So he is more unpopular than ever. But why? That is not clear. One way of thinking is that CY Leung is being blamed for not bringing about "genuine universal suffrage." But another way of thinking is that CY Leung is being blamed for not clearing the occupied streets and restoring normalcy. The distinction is important because CY Leung is trapped between two sides and his inaction is displeasing both sides. Any action/inaction will please one side and upset the other. The question is: What are the numbers of each side? Even if CY Leung resigns as Chief Executive, the successor will be facing exactly the same dilemma. So where are the relevant polling data? Or are they too inconvenient to publish?
(4) To be fair, the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme had previously conducted five waves of polling for the Ming Pao newspaper, the latest in May 2014 (see link). But what about an update? Here are the results on the question: Q4. There have been suggestions to fight for the implementation of universal suffrage for the Chief Executive election in 2017 in Hong Kong via the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this suggestion?
April 2013 July 2013 October 2013 January 2014 May 2014 Very much agree 9% 15% 12% 10% 9% Quite agree 16% 17% 13% 15% 15% Half-half 18% 13% 11% 12% 11% Quite disagree 21% 21% 22% 25% 21% Very much disagree 30% 25% 33% 33% 36%
More at Occupy Central 2014.
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