Jimmy Lai the Hongkonger

Lai believes he is sacrificing himself for the greater good

This afternoon I went to the screening of The Hong Konger, a documentary about the life of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, how he smuggled himself on a boat to the city and became a tycoon who is now in prison on national security law charges.

The 73-minute film was screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival Centre on Seymour Street downtown. When ticket holders entered they were immediately greeted with June 4 literature from the Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement, a local activist group that not only organises the annual candlelight vigil that marches up Granville Street to the Chinese consulate, but also helps Hongkongers immigrating here.

While waiting for the film to start VSSDM showed a video of its various activities through the years... tedious, but for the group a good document of what they have done.

The event started almost 15 minutes late, and I was disappointed to find out Sebastian Lai, Jimmy Lai's son would not be here, but instead gave a video message.

He was purposely paraded around the newsroom

Shot on his phone, Sebastian Lai tried hard not to identify his surroundings but briefly said in an English accent how his father was principled and he would not go to prison if he did not think it would be for the greater good, for fighting for democracy.

The Hong Konger was produced by Acton Centre, an American think tank based in Michigan, which probably explains why two of the major talking heads was a former US Consul-general and another diplomat, while former governor Chris Patten is in it, along with Benedict Rogers of Hong Kong Watch, and Samuel Chu, a feisty activist, Simon Lee, a former columnist and executive who worked at Next Digital with Jimmy Lai.

The main takeaway from the film is that Lai is a restless person, constantly looking for purpose in his life and never wavers from his moral compass, thanks to religion.

Lai and others recall his young life, how his family was from the landowner class in southern China and was punished for this. He was born in 1948 and they were young children when his parents were sent away to do hard labour; Lai recalls as children they just tried to survive.

At the age of eight he went to work in a railway station as a porter. One time after carrying someone's bags, they gave him a tip and handed him a chocolate bar. He had never seen it before and couldn't help himself and ripped it open to eat it. 

He named the clothing brand after a pizza shop

Lai recalled never having eaten something so delicious before and asked the man where he was from. His reply? Hong Kong.

Four years later he made the journey by boat (where everyone got seasick), and arrived at night to work in a textile factory. The next day when he went to get breakfast, he was amazed to see so many stalls selling all different kinds of food. He soon felt this was the place for him.

It was this experience that helped Lai learn the textile trade, later set up his own factory (through money he had invested in the stock market), and then went into retail with Giordano, named after a pizza shop in Italy.

But making lots of money was not enough for Lai -- he wanted more meaning and after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Lai felt he should go into the media business. "If you give people choice, you give them freedom," he says.

Hence the birth of first Next magazine, then Apple Daily in 1995.

Soon after he penned an open letter to then Chinese premier Li Peng, who ordered the military crackdown, apparently using a lot of words that were not fit for print... 

Lai marched in the beginning of the 2019 protests

The effect was immediate -- Lai's Giordano stores in China were going to be forced to shut down, which forced the tycoon to sell it off, but also helped him focus his efforts on Apple Daily. 

As several people in the documentary point out, the pro-democracy newspaper was a thorn in Beijing's side, amplifying the movement through its printed words and later online. That made Lai an enemy of China.

He has accepted his fate, thanks to the introduction of religion by his wife Theresa who is a Catholic. Lai strongly believes his faith will guide him through bad times.

One quibble about the documentary is that when it showed footage of the Umbrella Movement in 2014, it seemed to not have enough clips, and so it "borrowed" from those in 2019, such as police firing tear gas canisters, a water cannon shooting blue coloured water, and people huddled under umbrellas, which are factually incorrect to use to illustrate that time period.

After the film, three speakers attended virtually: Mark Clifford, former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post and author of the book, Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World, the columnist Lee, and Chu.

Apple Daily was raided then shut down in 2021

Some people in the audience asked thoughtful questions, but the main thing was that the three speakers encouraged people to do whatever they could to help the movement through small and big things. Chu said it could be screening the film to four or five people in a living room, or just talking to your friends about Hong Kong.

Another brought the attention to having Lai nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, an initiative China scholar Perry Link has spearheaded. However, Clifford said as the late political dissident Liu Xiaobo was named some 10 years ago, the chances of another Chinese person winning it again was very slim; there was also the intense backlash Norway received afterwards, when the government was not even involved in the Nobel committee.

There was also talk about how the current war in Ukraine was a test case for China to watch with regards to Taiwan -- how much international help will Taiwan get if it is invaded? There was also talk about how the Hong Kong movement needs to be more connected around the world and have a united front, as demonstrated by dissident Uyghurs who pushed for five years to have the UN report recently released to prove atrocities against their people.

The speakers urged people not to forget Lai and all the other political prisoners in jail, to speak to their elected representatives and help them understand the situation in Hong Kong. Chu kept saying that Lai is the epitome of Hong Kong -- how he arrived with nothing and became a tycoon, and yet he is prepared for life in prison.

They also said the Chinese authoritarian regime wants people to think that things are inevitable -- that there is no point in fighting back, but that instead people should keep fighting. And with the current zero-Covid mandate, the country seems to be doing a good job of imploding on itself, and that it is only a matter of time. But in that time people should not be complacent and keep fighting.