“What a waste (嘥左佢)” Thoughts from the Freedom-Hi protest*

Photo from CNN.

I thought of my cat when I was in the mass march.

It’s been nearly 3 months since we adopted her — we named her Milk Tea.

Her history is unknown. Where she’s from? How old is she? No one can tell. We adopted her as response to one of my sister’s friend call for help “The cat is dying!”. The friend directed us to the cat. It was in quite an urgent moment the time we first met her, she stopped eating for days.

She was the watchcat of a warehouse, on a street full of restaurants. Her ex owner kept her for catching mice. Around 3 months ago, the warehouse had shut down. The ex owner did not say a thing until the last day of the warehouse. The next day, the cat was left alone. About a week later, the vacant warehouse was occupied by another party. The cat was frightened and hidden herself somewhere nearby. A dish washing lady, who works at the restaurant next door, feed the cat but was unable to bring her home. Here we came and pickup Milk Tea.

I remember the dish washing lady first introduced to me “We call her Black&White. She was desexed by SPCA. She will never be giving birth. What a waste.”(嘥左佢)

I feel the lady is very kind. However, I myself support the idea of desex on cats, that can help them stay healthy, and, most of time we don’t plan to breed our cats at home. I thought there’s no WASTE in any sense.

*** *** ***

My friend Gu claimed to us he would not join the current protest, that was before 12th Jun. He had once at the frontline in 2014, where young guys called for “Stop applying Chinese brainwash on students”. He tried pepper spray on his face, the police officers did it from right in front of him. He is among the first ever HKers who tried pepper spray. About that experience, Gu kindly reminded us “You got to incline your face a bit to let the spray flow away. Otherwise it runs down straight to your spring pockets” where “spring pockets” is the Cantonese expression of “balls”.

He was at the frontline in 2014. We had once talked about it. He said he was deeply disappointed to HK people after that, when they blame on the frontline people being “too aggressive that destroyed the reputation we made from mass march”. No one express the gratefulness to those who are willing to sacrifice for HK. Indeed, Gu was right.

Gu reads loads of history books. This time all he had done to support the passionate people (including me) was to tell similar historical facts — mostly offer negative comment or failure ideas — that attempt to make laugh of the HK people. For example, how brave and effective the French have achieved in Yellow Vests Moment — that they are not afraid to die — compare to the the ball-less HK 和理非 (protestors who stay peaceful, and unlink themselves to the frontline protestors). I first found him annoying. Later, more thoughts were developed.

“What a waste.” said the dish washing lady. I can understand why she was saying that now. Milk Tea is such an adorable girl. I can’t imagine how happy it will be to see her babies.

What a waste to Gu, too. He would go much further without the inconsideration he aware on HK people.

The police officers shoot on innocent protestors on 12th Jun. The scenes were Live on TV. Insane. In response, Gu’s back. As if only to witness the finally-with-balls HK people. I had to call him to leave the battlefield, like what he had done to other friends few days ago. Yet an illiteracy like me was unable to offer any historical examples that explain why he should leave.

I have no idea how far we can go this time. The anger and fear probably only could last for a few days. Anyways, just for these few days, please keep us away from our cursed Chinese blood.

(This is written on 14th Jun, before the REAL sacrificed HKer 梁凌杰. I can’t talk about him right now. It turns out we are not ready for even just witness one sacrifice. How sad.)

Notes:
1. * Freedom-Hi, the phonic translation of Cantonese 自由閪, which literally means “motherfuckers who are in pursuit of freedom”, is the phrase that a raging police officer used for describing the protesters on 12th Jun.
2. About the protest: So far, the Anti-Extradition Bill Protest contains 3 key events: on 9th Jun mass march with one 7th of the population; on 12th Jun police force use excessive violence towards peaceful protesters, caused tens of injured, and one suicide publicly; 16th Jun mass march again with one 3rd of the population.
3. The names are all madeup except for Milk Tea.
4. None of my friends were on the frontline on 12th Jun. But we were in panic for a while since the HK gov announced that what happened at around Central Office on 12th Jun as “Riot”. According to local law, people might be charged guilty of riot and spend years in jail for just show up in the area. In later Governemtn Press conference the “Riot” claim was withdrawn.