Reflection: Back in 1989

Although unable to be at Victoria Park in Hong Kong this year, I was happy that a lot of young people I encountered during fieldwork attended the candlelight vigil to remember Tiananmen 1989. They stood in the crowded park despite the rain and the high temperatures. Across the other side of the Eurasian landmass (and a hop over the English Channel), there was also a small memorial service dedicated to Tiananmen victims, organized by a group of Hong Kong students in the U.K. Much like the crowds at Victoria Park, attendees here were varied; some had only heard of 4 June in passing whilst others had attended the vigils in Hong Kong every year; there were students from the PRC and from Hong Kong;  some were children in 1989 and others were yet to be born. 

Because Tiananmen had an impact on my life, and the lives of many others in my age cohort, I thought it would be nice to briefly share some related thoughts and feelings here. I detest writing about myself (though it is likely I unknowingly insert my ego in other posts) in fear of being accused of egocentricity. It is also because my life isn't rife with the drama that interests others, nor have I done anything significant and important thus far. But perhaps my experiences and memories of Tiananmen share commonalities with the experiences and memories of other people, and can be considered a part of a much bigger 'collective memory' that floats over our generation...maybe that is why it is worth writing, I don't know.

I've encountered comments that people my age are too young to remember; that our memories are either too vague to be worth talking about, or are only constructs from secondary sources. But I believe it isn't only about being able to witness the facts first-hand. Speaking to a friend who was an undergraduate student in Hong Kong during 1989, and who continues to be involved with 4th June events today, he remembers the crushing feeling of pessimism upon hearing about the Beijing crackdown. It was a pessimism made more intense because it was shortly preceded by widespread optimism; optimism that the Beijing students and residents can succeed in their aspirations, can win democratic and expressive freedoms, can challenge the upper echelons of government power, can prove that people can mobilize to change the parameters they face in life. A lot of these ideals vanished when the tanks and bullets arrived... The point is, for this friend, it doesn't matter whether people in our generation existed when Tiananmen took place, because there is an emotional component in remembering history that is capable of transcending generational barriers. 

My memories of 1989 in Hong Kong are fragmented. My family was living in a small apartment in Quarry Bay at the time, and I saw the footage when we were sat around a folding table for dinner. Being a toddler lacking the intellectual capacity to comprehend the inferences from the happenings in Beijing, the television screen looked like a chaotic mass of colours. It was only by looking at my parents that I knew something was wrong, since they both stopped eating and became very quiet. Their quietness disappeared during the subsequent demonstration in Hong Kong, where both my parents tied ribbons around their foreheads (and the foreheads of my sister and I) and shouted slogans. I don't remember much of the demonstration, only that it was loud, crowded, hot, angry. Because of my short stature my dad sat me on his shoulders; but even at that height, my field of vision was only filled with faces and heads. As a child, that was an intimidating sight (my mum said I burst into tears); but thinking back as an adult, I find comfort knowing that so many people felt compelled to speak out.

Tiananmen was one of the reasons why my family emigrated from Hong Kong to Australia later in 1989, and why I became better versed in English than Cantonese. If we never emigrated, l would have grown up in Hong Kong, and have become someone different-- not better or worse, just different. Kind of strange to see the diverging points in your life, to know that so many possibilities were/are out there... The crackdown resulted with a steep learning curve about the key actors and activists involved in 1989, led to a general interest in local and international politics, and shaped my current research interests in school. It influenced my moral worldview; especially perceptions of right and wrong, good and bad, justice and injustice. 

Personally, remembering 4th June is not only a historical exercise, but a moral one. We remember that people died in Beijing in 1989, and died unjustly at the hands of Communist Party officials; the PRC government has not acknowledged this, denied the relatives of Tiananmen victims their right to mourn, and reacted by imprisoning activists. We remember so that we can continue to demand for individual rights and freedoms, and if it does become realized one day, that we never take them for granted. Already we can see such freedoms being encroached upon in Hong Kong. The city is supposed to be last place on 'Chinese soil' where Tiananmen can be discussed, but unfortunately we can see media outlets toning down their Tiananmen coverage under self-censorship, with conservative political forces and the SAR government officials avoiding all mention of 1989. (I sometimes wonder what can compel these groups and individuals to deny Tiananmen; how differently do they see the world, and how did they turn out so different from those who do care?) 

Thankfully, there are young people in Hong Kong who remain determined to ensure that the memory is passed to their successors. There are those who attend the candlelight vigils. Others experiment towards expressing their thoughts towards Tiananmen through novel outlets; there is Woofer Ten's來往廣場的單車 (Cycling to the Square) that took place in 2011 and 2013, and 這一代的六四 (This Generation's 4 June) that has been running for the past several years (see the post on this blog from last year). I find myself happy and proud to know that there are people who remember, and will continue to remember...

(Please excuse the poor quality of the illustration in this post: am still waiting for the laptop to be fixed.)

Musings: National Education in Hong Kong

Forget public sentiment that 'expressive freedom' has been threatened by the SAR government in the debates over censorship, the limited public participation in decision-making matters in politics, and the control over the creative arts. The SAR government has decided to go further and deal with the origins of such discontent; by changing the way people think. There has been a long tradition of this since the colonial days; for example the introduction of a colonial language subvertly indoctrinated the population with associations of class stratification...

Some of these pieces, just doesn't fit.
Say 'no' to National Education in Hong Kong. 
(The embellishments are a combination of things on my own school crests...) 

More specifically, changing the way youths think through the education system, with the introduction of National Education (國民教育. 'National Education' sounds innocuous, and I much prefer the wikipedia reference of 'Patriotic Education', where the political elements are highlighted.) It sounds reasonable on paper, seemingly based on the premise of teaching students what it means to be a citizen of the locality and of the nation. Other countries have similar types of education; imbuing students with national history, politics, and a sense of obligation to the state. Actually, I'm not sure there is a country where National Education has not been contested or problematized. European nations constantly refer to the world wars, recalling history and to foster national solidarity (though this is not always well received, and this idea of introducing patriotic notions to history has been contested. I think a few years ago, attempts to teach 'Britishness' in U.K. schools was slammed by teachers as being too exclusionary ) Some countries such as the U.S. have courted controversy by introducing the pledge of allegiance in schools, which conversely fostered a series of criticisms and student denouncement, especially at the university level.  Not to mention the sensitive matter of how WWII is addressed in Japan, where there are allegations of textbook manipulation to play down the killings in China. And China has infamously omitted 4 June and policy failings of the Communist Party in their school material. The acceptability of National Education seems to depend on whether the 'right' sort of history-- 'right' as being defined by politicians, society, or the global community-- is being taught...

Why is there such resistance to National Education in Hong Kong? 

Starting with the obvious; the concept of 'nation' in Hong Kong is complicated, which makes National Education a problematic existence in the city. The city went from being a colony to  a SAR after the handover in 1997; but Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong identity, arguably developed in absence of any national narrative throughout history. This was part of the colonial mode of governance; the British distanced themselves in fear of receiving a huge migrant influx to the U.K., thus refraining from fully claiming the Hong Kong population as 'colonial subjects' (the right of abode for the U.K. were given to a limited portion of the population, mostly those in the professional classes or are civil servants.) Yet ties with China were restricted by the colonial authorities over anxieties that the socio-political turmoil that took place in the mainland during the 1940s-1970s would trickle into the city and cause instability. This has manifested itself in the education system, where ordinances were established to prohibit political propaganda from entering the teaching materials, and threatened students with political affiliations with expulsion. Teaching 'Chinese history' became a very sensitive matter, with committees choosing what to convey to the students (the history that did end up being taught was very removed from current happenings), and decontextualizing its presentation so that Hong Kong students were not able to identity with experiences north of the border. Not to mention how China had relatively inaccessible borders for part of the 20th century... (this is a crude nutshell of Hong Kong history here, but the development of Hong Kong history and identity are such vast topics normally covered by a series of academic papers.) To suddenly implement a National Education in a city that never fit into any national context, especially with a nation that experienced a completely different history of socio-economic and political development from Hong Kong, would be most jarring. 

Even without considering the historical context, there is issue with the proposed teaching material, which does not teach history, but twists it. History lessons contains degrees of propaganda (history class 101 questions include: who writes history? What are their backgrounds, and their motivations for writing it? What is is being taught for in the contemporary context, and for what purpose?) but the Hong Kong National Education decided that subtlety is overrated. There are blatant messages advocating for one-party rule in China (specifically Communist rule), skewed reinterpretations of past events (the construction process of the Three Gorges Dam), and statements that fit comfortably within any propaganda campaign. Details and examples of National Education material has been circulating on Facebook, and on the Scholarism (學民思潮) web page. It would be naive to believe that we aren't being fed skewed information on a daily basis through other subliminal outlets, but I suppose the issue is how obviously it is done in this context...

  

With Hong Kong law stipulating a mandatory nine years of education for all youths, it is fair to say that the degree of influence education has on the developing adolescent mindset is quite substantial. And to have National Education, and such a warped version at that, permeate into the classrooms will surely have a detrimental effect on the way future youths are able to understand and think about socio-political matters. This National Education debacle can be momentarily avoided by studying in private schools (such as the English School Foundation chain) and going abroad, but this is not a financially viable option for the majority of the Hong Kong population. And why should students have to 'escape' from the education system, instead of being able to dictate the direction it takes?

But perhaps a greater question is why we leave the duty of educating the future generations to a dissatisfactory schooling system, run by a government that refuses to heed the concerns of students and parents. To what extent should we leave the socialisation of youths to the education system in the first place? Before Occupy Central was embroiled in the lawsuit threatening to remove them from HSBC, they had the aptly-named 'Free School', advocating for the free flow of knowledge. It was a nascent alternative to the mode of knowledge transmission in the classroom; people who wished to teach taught, people who wished to learn did so. There were no enrolment forms, no fees to be paid, no obligation to adhere with a regimented schedule. More importantly, there was an important interaction that takes place during Free School lessons, with a balanced and reciprocal power-dynamic between the teacher and student. Perhaps this is the crux of the issue; I'm not saying that the population should completely break away from the mainstream education system, but a structural change is needed where students should be recognised as active entities who have just as much right to engage in educational decision-making processes as the authorities. They're not pawns used by political parties (ahem, ATV commentary, that was shoddy journalism!), they are capable of thinking and acting on their own accord...

....that is just my two cents. Nonetheless, I'm glad the students in Hong Kong have mobilised to protest against National Education, even if the form this mobilisation manifested in has been contested.  


I'm writing this post knowingly bypassing discussions about the implications having a group such as Scholarism in the political scene. There has been praise for this group of secondary-school students mobilising themselves into an organised, cohesive unit to actualise their ideals and goals.  Some have developed a sense of optimism, thinking that the future of a democratic Hong Kong is increasingly secured with such youths in the city. On the flip side, there are criticisms that Scholarism is perpetuating existing bureaucratic structures, and accusations have been made that their movement is not truly democratic in that the prominent figureheads muffle the voices of others. Arguably, Scholarism is just a younger version of the problematic formal political groups we see in the city today, and can potentially replicate the same problems in the future.  Not to be an apologist for the group, but for a bunch of secondary school students, many of whom are probably involved in politics for the first time in their lives through these protests, they may have had to resort to replicating existing organisational structures because of limited exposure to experience and knowledge on 'alternative' politics. But that sounds like, and probably is (why avoid the truth?), an excuse. 

Perhaps it is more valid to ask what the motivations of Scholarism are; I'm not entirely sure their goal was to create an 'alternative' way of doing things, but to play within the system to change the system. Can we fault them for going this route, one that seems to ensure the greatest level of success? Was their goal even to have an overhaul of the system, or to make the existing system listen to their views? And if they feel as though what they are doing has meaning, then who are we to denounce their efforts? That said, my feelings towards Scholarism are ambivalent. Like all nascent movements, feelings of optimism run strong at first, gradually dissipating into a disappointing debacle of personality differences, self-interest, and struggles for control (like the Democratic Party so far.) I'm not certain what to expect, but can only hope for things to evolve differently...

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Update (10 September 2012): During the weekend, the government has agreed to leave the choice of National Education to individual schools, instead of making it an mandatory element in the curriculum. This is 'progress' for Scholarism, indicating that the government has recognised them as a challenge to their authority, a legitimate political force. However, this cession of National Education responsibility to individual schools doesn't mean that the current 'brainwashing' threat is over. In fact, it might not even mean much in deterring National Education, given how many pro-government and pro-Beijing figures have taken positions of power in school administrations and other non-student associations. There will probably be series of small-scale protests over the decisions of some schools towards National Education, but it'll appear as a scattered effort, without the impact of the protests we see now. Hopefully the anti-National Education momentum will carry through, whether it is through Scholarism or not.

Drawings: Reign of the Wolf

Now that July has arrived in Hong Kong, CE-elect Leung has been upgraded to CE. Is everyone happy about it? Not from what I saw during the annual protest on Handover Day. Embraced by a whirlpool of allegations, scandals, integrity issues, and low popularity amongst the Hong Kong public (surprisingly enough, wikipedia has pretty detailed information on the events that went down throughout the entire 2012 CE election debacle. Though I must make an addition; whilst Tang had an illegal structure in his house, it turns out that Leung has six.) One must wonder why we even voted for him to take the post at all. 

Oh wait. We didn't vote, because we couldn't. The CE is chosen by a small, select group of individuals (most of whom are alleged to be pro-Beijing due to their business ventures), much to the ire of the population. The motivations behind this practice is unclear (for the public, anyways), though definitely not because Hong Kong people do not want to vote. PopVote is a great example of this will to choose our own 'leader'. It was an informal voting session arranged by HKU that took place in March, which allowed the public to choose who they wanted for CE. It might not be recognized by the HKSAR government, but was treated by the organizers like it was the real thing, with proper ID checks. Despite the initial setbacks (the PopVote website getting hacked and the confusion of converting to paper ballots), and the long waiting time endured at the polling stations, PopVote received a turnout of over 200,000 ballots.   

The results from PopVote showed that over half of the ballots were cast as blank. And yet with these results showing such low public popularity for all of the candidates, inclusive of Leung, he was still voted in office by some faceless batch of people. And already his behaviour has not been promising; low points include his unwillingness to comment about the circumstances of mainland activist Li Wangyang's death, his 'shock' at realizing his own abode has illegal structures (Hello Kitty does not approve! You'll need to check facebook and old news clips to et the reference), or unwillingness to answer a reporter's question about the 2012 Handover demonstration yesterday evening. Are we going to have a CE who deliberately disconnects himself from the questions that Hong Kong people want to ask, and in general, who doesn't answer questions at all? 

(And before any of us forget; now that Leung is in office, he better uphold his promise from the CE elections to release the minutes of what transpired during the confidential Executive Council meetings about how to handle protesters in 2003.)

On another note: why are all of our CEs so messed up? Can the higher-powers of Beijing honestly not find a single decent individual in Hong Kong to take the position? 

(The extended version of the logo, with a police baton in one hand, and pepper-spray in the other. In recent times, the Hong Kong police has been incredibly heavy-handed when approaching protesters. They haven't used batons (yet), but they have pepper-sprayed protesters as though they did a bulk-buy of the stuff at a special sale. Always strange to see tax dollars being used against tax payers.
The police's rationale for using this sort of force was that protesters enacted violence upon them; but what, and where, is this violence? Shaking a few police barriers? Refusing to move away from an area? And is pepper-spraying not a form of violence towards protesters; in which case, will the police be held accountable for that?
And honestly, it is quite irritating that some members of the observing public would blame the protesters for getting pepper-sprayed. I reckon that is a rather unhealthy mentality to adopt. First off, the police aren't exactly an innocent party and has been shown in some instances to instigate conflict; secondly, the key is to look at why the protesters acted in the way they did to result with such police action. Oftentimes scuffles arise from poor police planning, especially with crowd control or reducing the width of the protest routes...
It appears depressingly probable that this sort of police behaviour will continue in the near/far future.)