Saturday's scheduled illegal gathering in Yuen Long lasted far into the evening, and involved over two hundred thousand people. Remarkably, they didn't burn the town down. As most readers will know, this was in response to the attack on home bound people last Sunday by rural types and goons, connected to clan villages in Yuen Long and encouraged by certain local politicians.
There was much tear gas. Baton charges by the police. Pushback by protesters. Flung heavy objects. Sponge grenades.
Ten thousand were expected, well over a quarter of a million showed up.
Seventeen people were injured.
A police van was trashed.
Some merchants closed for the day, others kept their doors open, because as a number of them indicated, shutting shop would increase the fear and serve no purpose. All in all, from accounts I've read, it was a remarkably Hong Kong performance all round, with police clubbing people as they felt necessary, protesters hitting police with anything at hand in defense, missiles flung at long lines of cops, volunteer first-aiders tending to the wounded, and bottles of water handed around. Determination on all sides along with gallantry, courage, and sheer rock-hard stubbornness.
“When you act cowardly, then you will lose for the rest of your life.”
------University student Elise Cheung
And, of course, some of the locals were in a violent mood. One person was slashed with a knife, the perpetrator overpowered by witnesses. But it must be mentioned that the march included many Yuen Long residents protesting last week's pro-mainland thug attack in their community, and determined to show on which side they stand.
香港人，加油; 平安去，平安返。
'Bravo, Hong Kongers; go safely, come back safely.'
By early afternoon, MTR trains from Hung Hom to Yuen Long were packed with protesters, which situation continued, essentially, to midnight. Students, young adults, lawmakers, regular citizens, and university functionaries in civilian capacity, as well as volunteer medical and safety personnel. Many black clad individuals with staves and umbrellas. Hard hats and face masks. More than three thousand HK police officers were deployed to maintain public order at the protest site, a herculean task given the numbers.
Note that two of the clan villages toward which protesters planned to surge are quite close to the MTR station in Yuen Long; Nam Pin Wai (南邊圍, right next to the station, and Sai Pin Wai (西邊圍), somewhat further along. A third clan village, Ying Lung Wai (英龍圍), is barely a stone's throw away. All three are in Yuen Long Old Town (元朗舊墟 '
yuen lung gau heui'), which under normal circumstances is well worth visiting, though presently it has a reputation for being controlled by triads and Beijing sympathizers (collectively: 東頭約 '
tung tau yuek'; "the East Head Alliance"). And note that this might merely be an urbanite calumny against salt of the earth ruralists.
Early on, the police secured the entrances to Nam Pin Wai, where the greatest triad presence was seen last Sunday.
Yoho Mall and the main road (元朗大馬路 '
yuen long taai maa lou'), scenes of much of the demonstration, are one the other side of the tracks from the villages. But by late afternoon, teatime, hundreds of protesters with iron poles and home-made shields faced off against police guarding Nam Ping Wai, accusing the force of protecting organized criminals within. Tear gas was fired a number of times. The confrontation continued, with more crowd control methods, and sometimes considerably less effective actual control, throughout the evening.
警告催淚煙
'Police warn of imminent tear gas.'
For the next several hours, Long Yip Street (朗業街), Eastward from Long Ping (朗屏) to the north of the MTR line, was the scene of numerous charges and counter charges, teargas, pepperspray, sponge grenades, rubber bullets, umbrellas as both shields and striking devices, and projectiles.
Inside the MTR Station (元朗站), protesters fought the police with improvised barricades, and fire extinguishers.
The day's events had started shortly after three p.m., and largely ended just before eleven o'clock, when the remaining protesters returned home.
Gauleiter Carrie Lam was, of course, not in attendance.
One of the primary reasons for this protest was the clear perception of police and gangster collusion (警黑勾結) at last week's violence. And that, for many of the participants, was a good reason to show up in greater number than many other recent protests in Hong Kong recently.
FRIDAY VERSUS SATURDAY
There is of course a time difference between here and Hong Kong. Three thirty in the afternoon, when the ruckus got well underway, was just past twelve midnight in San Francisco. Eleven at night, when it can be said to have ended, was 2 PM.
Fifteen hours.
SOURCES: SCMP, Washington Post, Reuters, BBC, FB, private messages, blogs.
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