Mongkok , the best place for visitors and shoppers in Hong Kong. Today, it no longer serves as a shopping heaven; it has become the battlefield for politicians with different ideologies and point of views.
In the past couple of days, international media had been using “Umbrella Revolution” to describe the recent situations of Hong Kong. From our, the locals, point of views, we feel it a bit strange, and perhaps uncomfortable with that description.
From day one, it is clearly a political game with two groups of political parties having different ideologies, battling for their respective groups of target audiences in town. Expectations on the current political reform vary among the locals, as they are from different backgrounds. The so-called “Umbrella Revolution”, however, is nothing more than a normal interest aggregation process, political game take places in democratic societies elsewhere. The society in Hong Kong is discussing and negotiating on the future development of its political system, therefore, for all of the actions that had been taken place recently; it can hardly be described as civil disobedience, but just merely a normal political game. As the reform might involve changes in political system, mass demonstrations against/for the reform are somewhat inevitable.
Conflicts and destruction are within our expectation during the reform period. However, if one has considers and defines a political game taken place in a democratic society as a revolution, it may well then twist the original definition of revolution: to look for freedom of life; the usually violent attempt by majority to end the rule of one government and start a new one. The “Umbrella Revolution” is definitely not a revolution. This message is also clearly stated in facebooks from the participants, they call this a “movement”. Similarly, I trust most Newyokers will not say the “Occupy Wall Street” a revolution, but just a protest movement for economic equality.
Welcome to Hong Kong, the shopping heaven where the east meets west.
