Community topics
Written by: Huang Guigui
2019-12-16 18:37
Last updated: 2019-12-16 18:37Seventeenth student No. 7 (pseudonym) at the age of 17 stood at the intersection of the two lines, and there were two roads in front of him: a Kangzhuang Avenue leading to the university, and a main street full of white smoke . He put on a pig's beak and blindfold, and cut his head into the whiteness.
He felt that everything could not go back, and Hong Kong could not go back to the peace it had before.
Everything you ca n’t get back to, let ’s talk about half a year ago.
Photography: Gao Zhongming
On November 8, Tsai No. 7 rushed to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to attend Zhou Zile's memorial service after class. When he presented flowers, he knelt on the ground and stood up for a long time. (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
The first time I met No. 7 was in mid-September. That night, he and his friends, dressed in straight school uniforms, stood at the bottom of Dawei Octopus flyover bridge and watched a pile of masked and black peers carrying garbage cans and iron bars to block the road. He wants to join as a member.
"But I'm wearing a school uniform," he said.
He paced back and forth along the road, then took off the white shirt, turned it over, and put it on again-so that the school badge would not be visible-he thought. He looked down at his chest, and the embroidered school badge came out through the paper-thin cloth. He sighed and finally watched angrily as the taxi driver removed the barricade.
During the summer vacation, he wore dark black ink, took to the streets, and did n’t need to walk around to set up roadblocks in trash cans.
No. 7 said that he didn't cry when he knew Zhou Zile's death, "I'm not that weak now." (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
It all starts with what the teacher said
"Actually I used to be a Hong Kong pig." He laughed at himself. When the society was holding a procession against the amendment of the Fugitive Offenders Regulations, No. 7 started to board, not to watch the parade's propaganda, but to watch a short film of "stealing" by Xu Zhian and Huang Xinying. Until one day, his class teacher said something in class: "Why do we care about other people's family affairs, but ignore what happened to us?" He felt that he wanted to go out and see what happened in Hong Kong .
So on June 9th, he took part in the parade for the first time. After walking from Causeway Bay to Admiralty, he took the MTR home because he wanted to take an exam the next day. However, the government issued a press release immediately after the march: "The Bill will resume its second reading debate in the Legislative Council on June 12." Some people on social media called for the government headquarters to be surrounded by Admiralty on June 12.
[CUHK One Month] Alumni Demonstrators on Campus Battlefield Recalling Yanyan Bridge
[CUHK one month] Demonstrators from unity to differentiation "No big platform" and "occupation" difficult to coexist
No. 7 Tsai had been suffocating for a few days due to smoking too much tear gas. "I would walk down the street and suddenly have a stomachache. It hurts every ten minutes. I get completely focused and I feel like I lost my spirit." (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
Demonstrations during exam week
That week was the exam week, and he often forced himself to sit at his desk and study. On the morning of the 12th, he took his favorite economics exam. He opened his thick book and reclined his head, thinking about 612. When he thought that he might need an eye patch, he covered it with a book and went to the stationery store downstairs to buy a transparent eye mask for the laboratory.
On the morning of June 12, he had a classmate strike and went straight to Admiralty to support him. He hesitated, remembering the high school diploma exam that was about to be taken a year later, he stuffed economics textbooks, black clothes, and the lab goggles into a schoolbag. At 10:30, the bell rang at the end of the exam. He and 40 other students picked up their schoolbags and took the subway to Admiralty.
That day, he ate tear gas for the first time. He didn't know at the time that his fate had begun to overlap with the future of the city.
On June 12, Tsai No. 7 smelled a pungent odor behind the protesters on Harcourt Road. "Salty, and then I started to cough, and the tears kept flowing. It was so hard. Then I knew that. It's the taste of tear gas. "(Photo by Gao Zhongming)
Vertically falling young figure
The vertical drop of a girl cut through the parallel line.
After getting up on June 30, he turned on his mobile phone and saw the news that two women were suspected of falling from the building due to anti-revision activities. One of them was a 21-year-old female student. No. 7 Tsai collapsed. "She is only four years older than me!" He locked himself in the room, and tears of Dike dimmed the pillows. That night, he went to the government headquarters alone, and the sweltering and bitter sea wind blew his tears into tears. He spent a long night under the pot with more than a hundred people who were also sleepless in black.
Since the Anti-Amendment Movement began, No. 7 has quarreled with his parents. He almost fought. His father was furious and he drove him out of the house. One night. (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
The following day, on July 1, the demonstrators stormed the government headquarters. No. 7 Tsai decided not to be a Harley-Davidson. The tear gas emitted by the police burned his neck, hands and feet like a fire. But he pressed the pig's beak on his face and did not back away.
Since then, he has been cut into this huge wave of anti-revision demonstrations. Most of the school's post-test activities in July were absent, and he went to participate in demonstrations such as blocking the tax bureau.
No. 7 said he would talk back to the police. (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
The last summer vacation in the smoke
In mid-July, the last summer vacation of the middle school career began, he folded his school uniform, dressed in black, and took to the streets every day. Tuen Mun, Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan, Admiralty and other places filled with smoke left his footprints. He stepped forward from the front line, opened a dark umbrella, and resisted rainy bullets. In August, he became a member of the "Strike Concern Group" of the middle school. When there were no demonstrations, he often met to discuss post-school strikes.
No. 7 is a member of the "Strike Concern Group" of the middle school. In the middle of August, he and his classmates entered the airport to "plug in with you." (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
Dusty summer job
The summer came to an end in the sound of a 嘭 嘭 嘭 嘭 bullet. He stunned to find that the summer assignments on the desk were sealed off.
He had sat at his desk and turned over his summer assignments, but his head was blank, one page was exposed, and the square words on the paper were like garbled characters. He couldn't do one question, so he closed his homework with ease. Only then did he realize that everything could not go back, "I gave up DSE, and it is no longer possible to enter the university." No. 7 Tsai said.
He remembered that at the beginning of June, when the anti-revision exercise had not yet begun, he and his friends had agreed to go to the room for self-study together during the summer vacation. They were high-willed: "DSE is killed, everyone will make up for the bad results and go to college together!" Unexpectedly, the review plan had not yet started, and they were involved in a mighty social movement. Of his more than 100 classmates, more than 30 chose to engage in social movements instead of studying.
"I gave up the DSE, and it is no longer possible to enter the university." Seventh Tsai said that before he wanted to enter the university to study economics, and after graduation he became an iBanker. (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
"If I spend this summer vacation in school, I should be able to go to college." He sometimes thinks so. He has an average grade in school, weak in Chinese and General Studies, and an average of 80% in Mathematics and Economics. He originally wanted to go to college, study economic-related subjects, and become an iBanker after graduation. After the Anti-Amendment Movement began, he wanted to become a reporter and enroll in the Department of Journalism and Communication of CUHK or HKBU. "But there is no more chance." His expression faded.
It turned out that this may be the last summer vacation of his life.
Why are 20-year-olds who are furious and powerless go from buying a one-way ticket to tripping?
[8.31 March] Christian Struggle: I don't have so much love to tolerate the government
[831 parade] 19-year-old boys with different political views run away from home
He knows that he should not be able to enter the university, and he plans to take a higher diploma course after the diploma exam. (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
Someone drowned
On the morning of September 2nd, he opened the drawer and retrieved the slightly yellowed school uniform at the bottom of a pile of black clothes. In school uniform, he is no longer a demonstrator, but a S6 student who will take the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education in half a year. But he chose to go back to school to strike. At that time, he believed that long-term student strikes could put pressure on the regime and force the government to respond to civil demands.
However, on September 2nd, more than 50 people in his school went out of school. Later, the number of people in the school continued to drop. At 40, 30, and 20, even some of the students who attended the strike group with him also returned to the classroom. The sparsely populated auditorium, he realized, "DSE is approaching, we can't ignore it. One day, we will go to the examination room, so everyone will go back, and the enthusiasm will recede."
The resignation of his classmate made him feel close to the public examination. The diploma test will begin in March of the following year, and he has decided to return to the classroom for classes. He thought that although the chances of getting into the university are slim, he must do his best to keep up with the progress of the summer vacation in this half year. He held up the thin corner of his mouth and said, "It's like a drowning man, holding the blisters firmly in his hands."
No. 7 said that although you know that your chances of going to college are slim, you will still hold your last hope, "like a drowning man, holding the blisters firmly on his hands." (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
Textbooks became pillows
Back at school, he tried to listen to the book, sometimes he wanted to doze off, and then patted his face. After school, I went to a cram school and did not go home until 9pm.
But the raging tide had already turned him over.
He left after school hours and Sundays on the street. During Sunday's demonstrations, bullets often pierced late into the night from the afternoon, and he returned home at three or four in the morning. He took a nap for two or three hours and went to school with dark circles around the size of eggs. Eventually he fell into a drowsiness in the murmur of the teacher's lecture, and the textbook became a pillow.
In the mid-October school test, he passed all the subjects, but his grades receded. In the past, he only took more than 60 points in the economics with more than 80 points. Holding the report card, he saw an ocean, and he was separated from the university by an ocean.
"I tried my best, what should I do?" He sent such a message.
After school began, he still failed to adapt to the change of status from a demonstrator to a student. (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
"If one day I am arrested"
The second time I met No. 7 was the weekend in early November. That morning, he was attending a college lecture. While a tutor was teaching exam-taking skills, a message came from his cell phone in his pants pocket—a middle school teacher and brother were arrested. He immediately packed his notes and left without looking back.
While waiting for his younger brother outside the police station, he realized that he was only one wall away from the detention room. "I know that one day luck will run out. A friend has been arrested, and maybe the next one is me." At that moment, he Thinking that he would be accused of riots at any time, and then faced to ten years in prison, "I have prepared mentally, the last thing I can do is my girlfriend." So he talked with her girlfriend "If one day I am arrested ⋯⋯ ".
Seventh Tsai said that since the start of the Anti-Amendment Movement, he always kept his mobile phone, "because I was so afraid that the next person to be beaten and arrested would be someone I knew." (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
"I ’m 17 years old this year, so I ’ll explain what I have to bear? I can concentrate on studying, going to college, and doing a good job, but at home, I even follow my grades." He said A little choked, "Tell me to protect the people around me, not the adults to protect me? One-third of the frontline are middle school students, and adults have burdens, but we don't bear lighter than them-we paid our own future!"
Tears didn't fall. "Schools can give me education, but they can't give me democracy. Democracy can only be achieved by myself."
On December 10, Chief Executive Lin Zhengyue pointed out that the middle school students arrested for participating in the Anti-Amendment Movement came from more than 300 middle schools. According to figures released by the police, from June 9 to December 5, police arrested a total of 5,980 people during demonstrations in various districts, including 4,443 men and 1,537 women, aged between 11 and 84. Among the arrested, there were 2,383 students, and the police had charged 367 of them; 357 arrested persons were under 16 years old, and the police had charged 30 of them. The charges involved include participating in riots, illegal assembly, criminal damage, assaulting police officers, obstructing police officers from performing their duties, and possession of offensive weapons.
No. 7 has a girlfriend who has been dating for three years. They talked about the issue of jail in-depth. "If I am arrested, you will continue to fight for your ideal." She cried tearfully. (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
If you meet at the bottom of the pot
One night, he and his friends sat outside the school and wrote a song called "eighteen" for Liang Tianqi. When he was lost, he dreamed that one day he would win the sport. Everyone took off his goggles and masks at the bottom of the pot to meet each other. A friend held him and Liang Tianqi stood beside him and sang the eighteen with him.
"I have no regrets," No. 7 said. If he has a son in the future, he can be proud to say to his son, "In those days, your old sinus had a fight against him." (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
Anti-revision demonstrations demonstrate community life