Hong Kong and the art of dissent
Smoke drifts through the September heat as I make my way towards Hong Kong’s border with the Chinese mainland. It is the evening of the mid-autumn festival, my destination the frontier village of Ping Che. This agricultural region in the city-state’s north-eastern territories has long been the site of creative resistance against the government over the steady clearance of land for real estate.
Tonight, Clara Cheung has invited me to watch a fire dragon dance: a performance she and other artists have created with locals. It is intended as a festive ritual to symbolically protect the village, as well as a thinly veiled act of protest. “When people feel helpless, we need to go back to something older,” says Cheung. “It’s important to connect our present moment to the past.”
The crowd ahead of us turns, then turns again, bearing a giant wicker dragon that has been lanced through with smoking incense sticks. As we walk, the tree line breaks, and the cityscape of Shenzhen on the mainland appears over the horizon, churning the sky with a kaleidoscopic laser display of blue and red light. On our side, the land is cast in darkness, lit only by pools of torchlight and the dragon’s burning bristles.
At the end of the night, the participants pose for photos, waving their fingers in the air to represent “five demands”: the withdrawal of the bill allowing extradition to China that sparked six months of anti-government demonstrations, transforming everyday Hong Kong life into a cauldron of tear gas; the release of protesters from prison; repealing the classification of protests as riots; an independent investigation into police violence; and universal suffrage.
To consider Hong Kong’s age of social explosions, from the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella movement to today’s bruising protests, is to constantly find oneself asking what it means to live in a disappearing city. The countdown to 2047 continues, when the “one country, two systems” arrangement with China — allowing the region its “high degree of autonomy” — expires. It’s a question that has taken hold of culture across the city-state with urgency, from galleries to graffiti and revolutionary anthems.