Glory be to thee, Hong Kong
13th September is the mid autumn festival, one of the major festivals in the lunar calender after Chinese New year. As kids, we always used to love the mid autumn festival as that was the only evening we were allowed to go out to play with our lanterns. Those were the days.
MINI LANTERNS
Yesterday someone in one of my WhatsApp group sent out a DIY mini lantern template. This lantern is to support the Hong Kong protest, something that is very dear to my heart. The umbrella is a symbol of the protest. On the other two sides of the lantern are two slogans of the protest.
Liberate Hong Kong, The revolution of our times
This morning I spent a couple of hours to make 20 mini lanterns and strung them up to three pieces of string. Yellow is the colour of the protest. I was running out of colour ink on my printer so I had to print some of them in black. I think the alternate colours actually look quite good. In fact they looked so pretty I took a kaleidoscope image of it. That’s the first photo above.
LENNON WALL
I took the mini lanterns down to the Lennon Wall in town and hung them up there. This is becoming one of my favourite place now. I drop by a few times every week to check out the new messages on the wall. It’s very encouraging to see the continued suport we are getting for the cause.
Glory be to thee, Hong Kong
The protest has been going on for three months now. Police brutality is getting worse everyday and they are lying through the teeth all the time. Sadly there are some who still believe the police and think its fine that they can go round beating up innocent bystanders just because they are a young male wearing black. The last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime in Hong Kong. Police brutality and the government’s arrogant attitude have bought Hong Konger’s closer and make them more detemined to fight for justice.
A few days ago a group of artists have produced a song called Glory be to thee, Hong Kong. All the performers are wearing black, with full protests gear, helmet, googles and face mask to protect themselves from the tear gas and rubber bullets fired from the police. At the end of the video, you can see smoke in the room. This represents the smoke from the tear gas, some thing that the protesters have had to live through in the past three months. The second video is the English version of the song.
Since this was released, many Hong Kongers have been flash singing this around the city, mainly in shopping malls after work. You can see that in the third clip. The song is very touching, and nearly every Hong Konger can resonate with it. I feel so moved every time I hear it, and hope you will too.