Remembering August 31

People left flowers, believing people died in the station

Today Hongkongers are remembering the third anniversary of the events that transpired in Prince Edward MTR station. Commuters, some of whom were protesters, some not, were attacked by police in the MTR station. 

The images of fully armoured police armed with batons, beat people trying to defend themselves with flimsy umbrellas were shocking, people huddled together on the floor of an MTR carriage crying hysterically, fearing for their lives.

This scene is etched in people's memories

Meanwhile first aid volunteers tried to reach people down in the MTR they thought were injured, but the police had the entrance gates shut down. One very young first aid volunteer begged the police to let him inside to help the victims, even offering his first aid kit to them, but they told him to get lost. He cried in anguish, feeling guilty and frustrated.

Now three years later and in Vancouver, I am still grappling with these events.

This evening at a dinner party I sat next to middle-aged man who was born and raised in Hong Kong, went to Canada for school at the age of 16 in Victoria, BC and later university in London, ON. Afterwards he basically settled here for over 30 years.

He asked me what it was like during the protests in 2019, could there have been 2 million people on the streets? I said that there were some people who did the whole march and then went back to Causeway Bay to walk it again.

How could the Hong Kong government have not seen what the people wanted? How could it not have listened to them?

From this day police became more aggressive

As I told him I have lived there for 18 years in total, the last stretch from 2010 until four months ago, he then knew that I had seen Hong Kong's progression, as I had witnessed the Umbrella Movement and then the 2019 protests.

The last time he visited Hong Kong was in 2012 and even then he could feel the tension, with Hongkongers frustrated with mainlanders coming to the city to buy everything from shampoo to food to luxury goods to flats.

He used to visit Hong Kong every 10 years, but the pandemic and the passing of his father in 2020 in Vancouver put an end to that. Seeing how the city has changed in the last few years has made him uninterested in going back, though he admits missing eating certain foods, like liver sausage wrapped in steamed rice rolls, and snake soup.

When the protests erupted three years ago, he only saw snippets of it in news reports or on social media. It wasn't until he watched the documentary, Revolution of Our Times did he finally get to see the comprehensive picture of the protests from beginning to end. 

He says some friends are very yellow, others are the deepest hue of blue, and at times finds it hard to navigate conversations as diplomatically as possible. 

This documentary gives a fuller picture of protests

This is not an isolated problem, as every other Hongkongers has had to deftly figure out who is blue and who is yellow and steer clear of politics as much as possible. This is the reality these days, there is no green, or middle ground.

We all love Hong Kong, and the ones who have left love it just as much as those who are still there. Which is why we remember all the anniversaries, because this is a collective memory -- we saw what happened and we will not forget.