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THE ALLEYNIAN 709
CREATIVE WRITING
ground, held up by a government two thousand kilometres north. Mouth tightly zipped, knuckles white as she gripped onto her seat, greedy. Was it worth the lives? The siege began when they stormed the campus stronghold. Tear gas poured over the people like rain, dripping down faces. We were used to it. We exchange it with bricks and petrol bombs. We set the entrance on fire. For hours and hours, it rained like hellfire. The PolyU was surrounded by the police, and the Cross- Harbour Tunnel was barricaded. So, we ran. they wanted bloodshed Trudging through the sewers, ziplining from the bridges, escape seemed daunting. Medics in the crowds were bundled up like terrorists and taken by the officers of ‘justice’. Queen Elizabeth Hospital bound up with tape to stop the gas fired at them from seeping in, such was the bitter torrent. Demosisto. Democracy resists the authoritarian hand of China. In the hands of twenty-something year old students, the dream of a better future, out of the control of the traditional, falls to the young. They are a dark cloud over the Hong Kong China wants, and the thunder rings out loud. So stop them. Bar them from the elections. Agnes Chow, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law. Perhaps I could ask them “Was it worth it?” and they would say “Always.” so they could show their power the chokeholding hand of beijing rain slips through their hands In the pro-democracy landslide triggered by the soil of Hong Kong, saturated with the water of dreams of actual power, there was no time to celebrate. The most terrifying thing in a state like this is legislation. Dissent is a national security issue. Beat the people into silence. When the people start disappearing, the others know to protect themselves. The loud ones become an example. Some thrown in jail, others fled. rain always runs off
yellow, who could miss it? Banners hung from the metal railings: STOP THE EXTRADITION. Then everybody saw how in a yellow raincoat
Jamie Chong (Year 12) raincoat
ARTWORK — MASUD ALAO (YEAR 11)
pacific place he fell he fell hong kong martyr
The 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, also known as the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, were a series of protests in Hong Kong in response to the introduction of the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill by the Hong Kong government. This led to concerns that Hong Kong residents and visitors would be exposed to the legal system of mainland China, which citizens believed would undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy and infringe on civil liberties. yellow against grey scale skies pavement dark with rain crowds flowed from metro stations lion rock roared atop kowloon peak A storm was brewing. In the restaurants, people talked of the act; something that would cost Hong Kong dearly. The quiet buzz of an internet not yet shut off by a Great Wall hid the crescendo of murmurs on pro- democracy forums. Behind the reflective glass of the skyscrapers that crowded the city, money talks louder than anything, and it said Beijing: red state amoured with green Half of a half of a century is a difficult wait, and it is just half of the journey. Half-steeped in Chinese ancestry, half-free as a British colony. The irony sown by Western imperialism is a yearning for democracy. The people want it, but the people do not have control. It was a matter of lives, and Hongkongers know how to fight to pay a bill. “Take an umbrella! It’s going to rain today.” “’Kay, ma!” The storm was brewing, but it had not touched land. The aim was to talk it to death. But words, words, words cannot win a war alone. The Polytechnic was up in arms about it. All through the corridors, there was talk of demonstrations because once again, the CCP had crossed the line, and Lam was letting it happen. Lam, the sacrificial lamb. It had crossed the line in 2003, it had crossed the line in 2015, and it had crossed the line again. Where was the sickle red blood hammer no luck
Raincoat man, 35 years old, could not live in such an unfamiliar place. He voiced it, and it echoed, and echoed, and resounded between the skyscrapers, through the mountains, and the mists. They decorated Kowloon Peak in yellow banners. I had never known him. Yet, somehow, something felt so familiar. A shared identity, a common goal. Suddenly, I knew him. Like a lifelong friend. Like family. “Was it worth it?” “Always.” When it rains in Hong Kong, the streets are decorated with umbrellas, marked with writing. The rain stormed into the Legislative Council. The rain fell in Sheung Shui, Sha Tin, Tsim Sha Tsui. The rain flooded into the Liaison Office and black spattered the red emblem of Beijing. There, a hundred white-clad triads armed with their bats and iron bars lashed out against the crowd. There, they battered through the shuttered gates of Yuen Long Station to launch their second attack. There, a pregnant woman, in her long flowing white dress, lay on the ground, helpless and bruised. The police didn’t show up until after they had left. After all, why would you try to stop the mob when they were on your side all along? LegCo reconvened, and six months after it began, Lam withdrew the bill. But Marco’s legacy still cried out: no more prosecutions, no more lies of riots, no more police violence, no more silencing votes. If we accept the government’s conditions now, how could the friends who died for us ever forgive the way we’ve betrayed them? Seventy years of the People’s Republic saw the rifles come alive in Hong Kong and there were teenage students shot by police fourteen eighteen rains of bullets I watched the chaos around me. The city descended into madness. The Chief Executive on her moral high
line drawn if it has been crossed so many times? It was spring when the protests began. Small demonstrations paraded through the streets, cries in Mandarin, Cantonese, English too. As we pushed and jostled our way to the Legislative Council Complex, Carrie Lam pushed and jostled with democracy for a second reading. A million gathered outside the building. Shoulders brushed, cries harmonised, and somehow, it felt like the entire city was here around me. tear gas mists float between people float in eyes When police do not protect their own, who do you trust? When an approved rally is taken down like a criminal breakout, how do you voice yourself? Unmarked officers ambushed the crowd, tackle bodies to the ground in a terrifying display of power. Milk streamed down faces, trying to neutralise the government gas attack. I poured water into the eyes of a friend as I watched the cloud of orange approach. We ran home. “Was it worth it?” “Always.” Marco Leung, stood on the scaffolding of Pacific Place, had a message. In the grey of the clouds in neon
seeps away into other places but it will always come home
and the fight is never over. The storm cannot hurt us when we are water.
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