Whenever I would listen to the news in my car on the way to work, I would always want to know what it would be like to actually go and experience a historic event in person. Last fall I did just that. When I told my friends and family about my plans to visit Hong Kong during the protests, I was met with a lot of skepticism and criticism, strong words of opposition that it was not my place to go. But the plane tickets were bought, hotels booked, and I had the support of my amazing wife, without whom I would have never had the courage to do this.
As the departure date got closer, I would watch countless videos of protestors throwing Molotov Cocktails at riot police vehicles, and endless crowds being doused in tear gas while marching down the streets. I was fairly afraid myself of what I would come across when I land there.
To my surprise, as soon as I arrived in Hong Kong, I realized that if I didn’t immerse myself in the media coverage of the protests, I would not even be aware that anything out of the ordinary is happening in the city. Perhaps that is because my trip coincided with the Hong Kong Regional Elections, during which the protest actions were a bit sparse. But I did get to experience the Thanksgiving Rally which was organized to thank the US Congress for passing two bills that sided with the Hong Kong protestors.
My goal was to talk to as many people as possible about their current lives in Hong Kong and how the protests have affected them. Below is a visual essay with memorable quotes from some of the people that I talked to. Knowing the retaliative nature of the Chinese Government, people were reluctant to show their faces on camera, so the quotes that I’ve gathered do not necessarily coincide with the photos.
