Wandering to a Serious Subject

Some people have asked me about the protests that are going on here- or rather, were going on here, as of about a week ago- and what exactly they are. Well, here's what I know…

First, I should mention that Hong Kong is technically part of China, but it is run differently- for instance, you're allowed to protest here (as evidenced by, well the protests) but not in China. Hong Kong is referred to a SAR, or Special Administrative Region. This basically means that it's halfway between China and independence.

Anyway, here's the lowdown: The protests that went on on here in Hong Kong (referred to as Occupy Central, the Umbrella Movement, or just "the protests") occurred because, despite the fact that this place's residents get their own government, they don't really have full voting rights. Instead of the U.S.'s system, in which candidates work their way up through several preliminaries, Hong Kong gets a system in which they pick between a few candidates that China selects beforehand. Worse still, the candidates selected are never pro-independence and will always support China- that's basically a selection criteria.

This issue by itself was not outstandingly threatening, but the question on the minds of the citizens was "What's next?" If they let China control their elections, will China's government step in even farther next time? Where would the citizens draw the line?

This whole mess prompted the Hong Kong citizens to set up camp in the middle of a busy street in an important area (the eponymous Central). They set up tents in a surprisingly organized fashion, with a check-in area and separate areas for entering and exiting to control human traffic. As we saw when we visited, there was a supplies tent, a medical tent, and even free rental tents for people who wanted to resist China but couldn't be there every day.

Unfortunately, the protesters were eventually forced to leave Central, so the protests failed… or did they? They spread awareness about an important issue, and had quite a spotlight for a while. In fact, they may even be influencing other places to stand up for themselves, since Macau just started a similar protest a day or two ago, and Taiwan's pro-China party just lost their election. Yay, inconvenient protests! Woohoo!

Thanks for reading!