Interview with Professional Boxer Yuen Yuen - Retaliate if your Opponent Fouls

Day Yuen is a five-time local boxing champion in Hong Kong and has won many international competitions. His most recent win was last December at the Malaysian Penang Trade Fair International Tournament. During the medal ceremony, he proudly held up the hand gesture for "Five Demands, Not One Less", drawing the attention of non-sports journalists.

There are many rules in a boxing match. You cannot head-butt. You cannot hit with an open hand. You cannot hit the back of the head. But inside the ring where fists fly, what can you do against a roguish opponent who keeps violating the rules?

Yuen still remembers his coach's words when he first started boxing, "If your opponent fouls, you have to fight back even harder." Counterattack to put him in his place to ensure the rest of the match is fair and just.

The situation is like present-day Hong Kong. Having experienced more than half a year of protests and then the coronavirus epidemic, we bore witness to the government's incompetence, police brutality and perpetrators escaping the law.... Every broken rule trampled on Hongkongers' bottom line.

Then, Hongkongers retaliated. Who is to blame?

Protect Those Around You, Protect Yourself

One afternoon, I went to a boxing gym Yuen co-founded. It is in an industrial building in Kwai Fong.

On the day of the interview, Yuen wore a stylish furry top. If it were not for the bruise on the corner of his eye, Yuen would not look like a boxer at all. He does not fit the masculine and aggressive boxer stereotype. Instead, he appeared charming, cultured and refined. He dislikes weight training and gaining too much muscle mass. Having attended a lot of gender studies classes, he openly acknowledged his gender-neutral traits.

In primary school, he was short, chubby and girly. But when he was bullied, he never gave in. 

He still remembers when he was in grade 4, a senior bullied him on a school bus. The bully pushed his small body to the ground and punched him. Despite his disadvantage in size, Yuen gave everything he got. He bit the bully's arm. The bully angrily bit back on his ear, "it was pouring blood".

In secondary school, he frequently played fighting and wrestling games with his friends. At 15, he decided to learn martial arts. He started with Wing Chun but later felt the style did not suit him so he turned to boxing. 

In the younger years of his boxing career, he only did it to "look cool". But now he has a deeper understanding. “The nature of combat sports brings people closer to violence. You never know when you need to protect those around you or yourself."

Death Threats

Yuen has since been inextricably linked to boxing, winning local boxing titles in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. He said he was not born with any special talent and that it was all due to hard work.

Last December, the Asian Boxing Confederation (ASBC) held the Malaysian Penang Trade Fair International Tournament, drawing boxers from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, East Timor, etc. The Hong Kong International Boxing Federation sent four athletes, who went on to win one gold, one silver and one bronze medals.

Before stepping onto the podium, the Hong Kong boxers were feeling anxious and wanted to use the international stage to contribute to the recent protests back home. They consulted with the organisers, who were hesitant to broach the topic and asked them to consider the consequences.

In the end, Yuen, who won gold in the 64 kg weight class, decided to hold up the hand gesture for "Five Demands, Not One Less" on the podium while under the glare of the limelight. He even raised a "Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Time" flag in the stadium. The news quickly spread to Hong Kong, then he was targeted and criticised by the pro-establishment camp.

The pro-establishment online news source HKG Pao reported and criticised Yuen for taking advantage of his opportunity to represent Hong Kong by expressing his personal opinion. It went on to suggest that the police should investigate if he was involved in "rioting" and that the government should punish him as an example to others. Yuen was doxxed and harassed online. Many messages accused him of being a "damn rioter" and even threatened to "crowdfund” to kill him.

His social media accounts are now set to private, but he has no regrets about expressing his political stance at the international tournament. "The price I paid is nothing compared that of frontline protestors and those braving police brutality.... I have no regrets."

Extreme Pacifist 

In reality, Yuen is no stranger to social movements. He was among the 500,000 who took to the streets in 2003 to protest against Article 23 (under Hong Kong’s Basic Law). In 2011, it dawned on him that just going home after peaceful protests did not bring about any real social change, and he was part of the group that stayed behind at the LegCo building after the 1 July 2019 march. Looking back, that sort of action was seemed “radical”. But today, it certainly seems mild by comparison.

In 2012, he participated in sit-ins to protest against Patriotic Education. In the Umbrella Movement of 2014, he went to occupy Mong Kok and witnessed police beating up protesters. Of course, he also participated in the 2019 Anti-ELAB Movement. His boxing gym provided free trial lessons to youth and banned the police from enrolling. 

The Anti-ELAB Movement began last June. It started with peaceful rallies but quickly turned into violent clashes. Police violence kept escalating. The Yuen Long attack on July 21 shocked the community. The Tsuen Wan knife attack incident on Aug 5 pushed the violence to new extremes. Meanwhile, "privately settling scores" became commonplace among the protests. The most iconic and controversial case of "privately settling scores" occurred in November when a man was set on fire in Ma On Shan.

Despite his love for boxing, Yuen has always been an "extreme pacifist". He believes in the power of civil disobedience and considers Martin Luther King's philosophy of non-violent activism as a sacred creed. If provoked, he is unwilling to argue with others on the street. Even if he is hit, he will not fight back. "This is an issue of professionalism. An untrained person hitting me is like scratching an itch, but I could seriously injure them if I retaliate."

As a professional boxer, he believes violence should be confined to the ring, controlled by rules and regulations. However, the Anti-ELAB Movement sparked a new realisation....

Violating the Rules to Counterattack

Yuen still remembers when he first got into boxing, his coach asked him, "If your opponent fouls in a match and hits the back of your head, what will you do?" At the time, he replied, "I will use my skills to evade and then beat my opponent."

His coach became frustrated, "You should not evade. That would only give him leeway to break another rule. Your foul should be much worse than his. If he hits the back of your head, then hit the back of his head even harder."

From then on, he realized that violating the rules is a method of counterattack. "You have to have the power to counterattack when pursuing justice and equality."

He was initially worried that violence from the protestors would cause the Anti-ELAB Movement to lose public support. A key moment that changed his mind was the Tsuen Wan knife attack last August. That the perpetrators were never held accountable made him realise the importance of "fighting back".

Like many other Hongkongers, he continually revises his thoughts and values regarding the Anti-ELAB Movement. "Otherwise, you will become 'old seafood’*.”

“You have to be prepared to go to war in order to attain peace." This is his understanding of Hong Kong's social resistance.

Do Hong Kong's Athletes have Freedom of Speech?

In Hong Kong, boxing is still a niche sport. Outsiders tend to have a misguided impression that boxers are violent and depraved. Seeing that boxers are a minority, Yuen thinks they should have a defiant and rebellious spirit. In reality, they seldom speak out for social causes. This was why he asserted himself on the podium.

In fact, the pro-establishment camp has considerable influence over the sports world in Hong Kong. Their reach extends up to the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China and down to individual sports federations, many of which have pro-establishment figures at the helm. Under their respective federations, athletes rarely make political statements or only do so in an obscure manner.

For example, the decorated Hong Kong female track cyclist Lee Wai Sze attracted a lot of criticism and controversy for a simple Facebook post, "Avoid the rain if you go out today. Go home early if you don't have an umbrella." She closed her account for several months and did not reopen it until January this year. Afterwards, she wrote a lengthy explanation for closing her Facebook account. "That day, I wrote vaguely to avoid politics. Overwhelmed with worry and anxiety, I let my emotions take over my rational judgement. I ended up choosing words that were sensitive. Forgive me for shutting down my account for three months. There were many reasons, but the biggest one was that I did not want to see people shouting at each other. The last thing I want to see is Hongkongers arguing with Hongkongers."

Hong Kong boxing champion Rex Tso is another example. In June of last year, he uploaded a photo of himself injured from a match and tagged it with "work hard together", "only one goal" and "some positivity for everyone". The media interpreted it as Rex encouraging Hongkongers to “add oil”**. He changed his profile picture to all black on 13 November, which sent a clearer message.

Because of this, Yuen's expression of his political stance in an international sports arena stood out. He concedes that, as a self-financed amateur athlete, he has less of a burden and more freedom than his elite counterparts who rely on political sponsors. Professional Hong Kong boxers, who typically rely on sponsorships, find it difficult to fully avoid mainland Chinese sponsors. This means explicit political expression can be problematic.

Many elite athletes are targeted for even the vaguest of assertions. He believes this reflects the tragedy of Hong Kong's diminishing freedom of speech. "Self-censorship is always the cause of the death of freedom of speech. Everyone is afraid and this chilling effect stops people from speaking out.... Many are subject to this intangible threat."

Notes : 

*"Old seafood" or old ass refers to a stubborn elderly person.

**"Add oil" is a Hong Kong English expression of encouragement. It has been co-opted by the Anti-ELAB movement as one of its slogans.

Source : The Stand News

https://www.thestandnews.com/politics/%E5%B0%88%E8%A8%AA-%E5%B0%8D%E6%89%8B%E7%8A%AF%E8%A6%8F%E8%A6%81%E9%82%84%E6%8B%96-%E6%8B%B3%E6%93%8A%E6%89%8B%E8%A2%81%E6%96%87%E4%BF%8A/