Usually when I get back from school, around half past seven in the evening, I start cooking and I turn on the TV on Canal+ as background noise. Till its 8:20 pm and then Le Petit Journal is on air. All I have to do is to serve my meal and eat while watching this hilarious magazine. While their humour is stinging and somehow caustic, I do chuckle while watching it (bear in mind that I have an awful to non-existent sense of humour) and actually their point of view usually invites to a deeper reflexion on the topics featured.
So there it goes, my dish of rice and chicken, and then Yann Barthès starts talking about Hong Kong. Mec, Asian news have reached France. The Umbrella movement has been taking the spotlight of all media. I was dazzled by the magnitude of the protests, whereas I knew the Hong Kong obsession with freedom and democracy (having studied for a year in one of the universities that is strongly involved), I would have never imagined that one day they would actually dare to challenge the Chinese Communist Party. So let that rice and chicken accompany us in a trip to the past, a trip to 2012, where I landed in Hong Kong not knowing really much what I was doing there.
I always looked at Hongkongers as those communities tied to a \ »mother\ » country in a love-hate relationship. At that time, I thought that if I had to choose a nationality, Hongkongese would suit me (then I found out that I was wrong to say that). They will consider themselves not as Chinese, but as Hongkongese, and they will strongly stick to that word, \ »Hongkonger\ » or \ »香港人\ ». Oh yes, they\’re quite stubborn. But still, they can\’t shed their common historical past and cultural ties. Language (besides some local terms and pronunciation differences) is the same as the one used in the province of Guangdong, and most of the food is similar too (take the classic morning dim sum as an example). The elderly people try to keep the Confucianist values, while the youth juggles with Western pop culture and Eastern traditions. And yet, they handle those two sources of energy astonishingly well.
Another remarkable trait of this city is its international character. Hong Kong has always been the gate to/of Asia through trading and immigration, and therefore people from everywhere in the world converge in this small island, be it on business or pleasure. I guess the English colonial past of Hong Kong reassure incoming people (I put my hands to the fire that a student can easily survive one year in Central or Sheung Wan and not speak a word of Cantonese). As a small island, the demographic concentration is so high that there are high chances of meeting somebody from the same country as you. Of course, the distribution of the different nationalities in the island is not uniform at all. But if you were thinking of a \ »total cultural immersion into Chinese culture\ », well that could a request hard to satisfy.
First and foremost, what does \ »Chinese culture\ » really means? And secondly, are you sure that \ »Chinese culture\ » is the correct term to use with Hong Kong?
The Mainland-Hong Kong identity crisis has sparked debate since long time ago, and I only became aware of that once there. The rest of the world considers it as a city of China, and there is nothing that can displease and disappoint more a Hongkonger than being called \ »Chinese\ ». They will probably just keep smiling and explain to you in a soft manner that Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region (of the People\’s Republic of China, sorry), with its own Government, a Chief Executive, they’ve got their own ID card and a passport too! Hey, that sounds a lot like being a country! No, they have not (yet) reached that level of independence yearning.
But the Umbrella Movement was triggered because the PRC dared to touch (again) a very delicate fibre in the Hong Kong mindset, that one of liberty of thought and speech. Hong Kong people know very well what happens in Mainland and how the Government is censures the critics of the Party. And that makes them frown. A lot.
The current generation has been heavily in touch with the rest of the world, and I must say that the people are very well wirelessly connected (literally). They have access to all sources of information on Internet, and therefore can emit a sound judgement on what they see happening in their region, in most of the cases. Doesn’t matter which opinion they hold, as long as people are open to debate and be ready to change their mind if necessarily. Isn’t that the meaning of dialogue?
« A discussion between two or more people or groups, especially one directed towards exploration of a particular subject or resolution of a problem »
If democracy means the ruling of the people, and the latter will necessarily have different points of view, then pluralism of opinions and dialogue are totally required to make thing work properly. We don\’t need countries to include the words \ »People\ » or \ »Democratic\ » in its official denomination, usually they become oxymoron themselves. What a democracy needs is civilian participation, and if there is none, then the regime becomes an oligarchy under a single party. There are so many countries where democracy is at risk because the people is in a lethargic state. I think this is not the case of Hong Kong, where online forums and social media outburst in a dissatisfaction howl every time the PRC tries to stick its nose into the city affairs. And that civilian energy is damn precious.
I’ve watched the TV other media updates on the protests with awe, recalling briefly my year in that city. My friends are still there. For an instant, I remembered when I left, on a rainy day in June, and I was watching the coastline disappear from the ferry. I was breathing deeply. I could breathe more courage in Hong Kong than in the rest of Asian cities I’ve been. Courage, when speaking up and to defend the values of a cosmopolitan city. Mettle, when expressing one’s feelings concerning an issue. Audacity, to dream and dare to make that become real.