The March of Democracy

Yesterday, I went to a Shanghai-style dim sum restaurant at Lee Gardens in Causeway Bay. It was the best dim sum I've had in Hong Kong yet! Content and full, I began a leisurely stroll back home.

The streets of Causeway Bay are usually extremely crowded on Sundays, because many maids who have the day off just hang out in the streets. So it seemed quite normal as I approached Victoria Park to see a very dense crowd gathered. But as I passed the park on the way home, I encountered an extremely large crowd congesting the main street by my home. This picture is what I saw from my street.

I couldn't read 95% of the signs as they were written in Chinese (I'm a Chinese illiterate), but then I saw one that read something to the affect of "6 billion people want to leave the communist party!" D'uh! This was obviously a pro-democracy march.

I have seen many large demonstrations in San Francisco. None of them even approached the size of this one. It was an amazing event to witness. As I snapped picture after picture, I was at first just excited to be witnesesing my first pro-democracy event in Hong Kong. But then I couldn't help but feel the energy. Yes, there was passion and even some anger in the crowd. But overall, there was electricty in the air. The marchers were all very peaceful and for a crowd of this size extremely well behaved.

The authorities were obviously expecting a march as there were dividers in the street to guide the crowd. This picture was taken at a foot bridge down the street from me. Despite such a large crowd, a lot of public transportation could still move down the street. I later read that no one expected the crowd to be this big. The police estimated the crowd to be 64,000 in size, but the march organizers estimated over 250,000 attendees. I've been to many stadium concerts and I've been to a Central Park concert in NYC where an estimated 250,000 people gathered on the Great Lawn. I believe the marchers ' estimate was closer to reality.

I make it a point not to get involved in local politics until I undestand the local POV and local issues. So I behaved as a mere observer. But I couldn't help but wonder if I was witnessing something historical. Does this happen often and will this mean anything in the long-term? I don't know, but I later read that there have been many marches in the past few years, but this was the first that focused only on democracy and universal suffrage.

This would obviously never fly in the mainland. The world press says there has been no coverage of this in the China's Chinese language press and the English language Chinese press merely say a few thousand people gathered to protest the Hong Kong governor. To say that was not even a half truth would be an understatement. This type of censorship is nothing new in China. But as Bob Dylan wrote, "The Times are a Changin'"

Today, China has to deal with the Internet. China has effectively censored the Internet from the masses. But for the tech savvy, there are easy ways around that. For the masses there are an explosion of blogs where millions of Chinese are expressing themselves. Many blogs cleverly use tongue and cheek humor to make observations and even criticsms. Finally, there are an enormous number of mainlanders who travel relatively freely into and out of Hong Kong. Try as the communist government may, they can't erase the memories of mainlanders who witness the free media and the hundreds of thousands who participated in the march of democracy.

Certainly there is much to think about here. But one quote came strongly to my mind. It is from an upcoming movie, based on one of my favorite graphic novels of all time, V for Vendetta:

"People should not be afraid of their governments; Governments should be afraid of their people."