Primary school student who arrived late : “ The song ‘Glory’ will soon be banned!”

On the evening of June 12, 2020, dozens of armed riot police were stationed at the MTR station exit at New Town Plaza in Shatin. There was no way to predict whether they would suddenly rush into the shopping mall. From past experience, it could happen without warning and for no apparent reason. About 300 meters away from the riot police was a large group die-hard citizens struggling till the end. A 9 year-old girl, wearing a blue mask with patterns printed led the crowd by shouting “liberate Hong Kong!” and the crowd around her responded with “Revolution of our Time!”

She came a bit late so she missed the moment when the crowd in the centre of the shopping mall was singing “Glory to Hong Kong”. 

After September of last year, children are rarely seen in demonstrations as it has turned from an all-ages event to sometimes bloody violent battlefields, and New Town Plaza is no exception. I asked the girl, “Do you sing Glory to Hong Kong?” She answered like a mature adult “Yes of course! I sing with my classmates frequently.” A boy around the same age said, “We will not be allowed to sing this song later as it will soon be banned.”

The battle between yellow ribbons and blue ribbons at school

The boy and the girl turned out to be classmates and the two families bumped into the parents of classmates are yellow ribbons. It’s easier to speak freely with people with the same stance. Nowadays, it’s difficult to persist in this movement without support from comrades.” The boy’s mother said frankly, “I told my son not to sing Glory or chant slogans at school mainly because we don’t want to bring trouble to the teachers, we don’t want to see another Heung To Middle School.”

The kids were very willing to share with us the incidents at school. The girl said, “My teacher is a blue ribbon.” I asked, “How do you know?” She told a story about the boy next to her: “Last year, he fought with a classmate and this classmate was a blue ribbon. The teacher was so nice to that classmate but very hostile to him.”

It is indeed hard for me to imagine this boy who stood in front of me, wearing a mask with cartoon print would get into a fight. The boy explained to me: “That classmate hit me first, all I did was defend myself, I didn’t hit him.” The girl added, “I witnessed the whole incident and explained it to the teacher.” One of mothers said, “She is a heroine and filled with a sense of justice.” This incident had an unexpected ending though, the boy explained, “That classmate was a blue ribbon and he didn’t know police have been beating citizens up. So, I told him the truth and he has since become a yellow ribbon. We are good friends now.”

I was surprised the boy’s mother was so calm about this incident, she replied, “To fight for, to protect or to explain yourself, these are all lessons children need to learn and sometimes you have to let go so that they can experience and handle themselves.”

The girl’s mother said that the school they attend has a large number of students from new immigrant families and she often chats with these parents. The first question she asks is whether he or she is a yellow ribbon or a blue ribbon. According to her experience, those who claim to be neutral and non-destructive are all blue ribbons though they would not admit it. The girl’s mother added, “But yellow ribbons would immediately acknowledge their stance.”

Just like your home is being attacked by white ants 

The girl’s mother would deliberately chat with these “neutral” parents to understand their thoughts. What shocked her the most was some of these new immigrant parents would tell her that China actually won the Second Sino-Japanese War and that no one died in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests. 

“It scared me that brain-washing can be like this.” However, there are also a lot of mainland immigrants who moved to Hong Kong in pursuit of democracy and freedom, though they are reluctant to sacrifice themselves for Hong Kong. Due to the education that they received in China, they do not dare speak up. “Many people from mainland are taught to think and behave this way and I don’t want to see it happen in Hong Kong. Those of us who believe Hong Kong is our home will come out and fight till the end,” she added.

With two children at home, the boy’s mother would entrust her children to her family so that she could go “shopping” (i.e. protesting) these past several months. However, she feels guilty about having done so little. “If I don’t have kids, I could do more and I would be a ‘valiant’. But now, I can only attend “Sing with you” or “Shop with you”. She does not regret having children but if she could have known Hong Kong would be like this now, she said, “I would definitely not have had children. I’m so scared as Hong Kong is no longer the same place I grew up in. I would be afraid to put my children in harm’s way.”

These two mothers revealed they have both been crying and suffering from insomnia this past year. At the very beginning, when their children saw the protesters get beaten up on TV, they always asked: “Why not call the police? Why were the police not helping?” They both said they did not know how to explain, so they simply turned the TV off. Eventually, the children figured things out - the police represent danger, so they are afraid of the police now and would remind their mothers to avoid them. 

The elders at home think the children should be sent to study abroad and it is best not to come back. But these two mothers said: “There are thieves and white ants invading our home. I don’t want to give my home away. I will fight with them.”

Authored by Cheng Mei-chi, a freelance journalist

Source: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=125197702541242&id=111740473886965