Life without hope is no different from a salted fish

The title of this post came from the line in one of the productions by the once very popular Hong Kong comedian actor, Stephen Chow. Chow's most famous films are seen as the classical comedy during his heyday era. Unfortunately most of the people, especially among the youth, here in Hong Kong could experience what this expression is all about now.

Finally the once raged social turmoil arising from the extradition bill has subsided much now. Livelihood started to resume to normal despite of the on and off activities in different forms. However, lives of most Hong Kong people are never the same again. Apart from that the society is further divided, to many of the residents in this island Hong Kong has changed much. Police became brutality, white fear lingering in the air, the once friends became opponents, a travel city became a forbidden city, last but not least the "one country two systems" has proven to be a failure here in Hong Kong. The idea of this advocate is once the hope of the seven millions plus islander's hope on the exemption of the life style across the border, at least till 2047. The six months long social activity has poked this balloon of hope.

At the beginning of this social movement some people attributed the wealth gap between the haves and the don't and the housing shortage. It is true that these are the deep-seated problems bothering Hong Kong in this decade but this is not uncommon in neigbouring countries or even in some developed ones. The participants of this movement are consisted of young people or even teenage, especially at the middle to the latest stages. As and when the confrontation develops, this young segment of the population suddenly realized that the once baby step eroding promise on the two systems came to the brink of the bursting. Changing from rule by law to rule of will is just one step away. They anticipated what life will be like after, or even just approaching 2047 when is going to be their prime time if things keep going like what it is now. So they rose to fight. They fought for their future. A future free from fear.

There were also pro-government or Beijing rallies amid the much larger scale counterpart. The interesting thing was that the participants of these pro-government activities were mainly middle to old aged who are most probably the haves of the wealth gap spectrum or those who will enter into their elderly stage when 2047 arrives. The whether or not on the existence of hope does not matter much comparing to their youth counterpart. The result of the recent Taiwan presidential election tallies the preference of the expectation on hope in life between the old and young. Taiwanese young people voted Tsai to demonstrate their resistance to China and her ambition of imposing the One Country Two Systems onto Taiwan. Young people across the strait did the different things but for the same motive.

They want a life with hope, but not a salted fish.