More than two weeks into protests in Hong Kong, the police appear to be losing their patience. Bamboo barricades were torn down on Tuesday. The next day, police forcibly removed people from Lung Wo Road and arrested over 40 protesters. The city’s typically conservative television station TVB aired footage of Ken Tsang being beaten by plainclothes officers early Wednesday morning. At the New York Times, Keith Bradsher and Michael Forsythe also report that some protesters have gotten rough on the police.
Amid these scenes of confrontation, protesters are also taking a quieter stand through signs, shrines, and art. Mainland Chinese poet Meng Lang shares these “best of” signs and slogans.
Click any photo to launch the gallery view.
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- Warning: Violent Behavior Under Surveillance
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- The flowers of democracy-seeking have already bloomed, and the sowers of the seeds have left them far behind; beaten down by the unrestrained hardship of wind and rain, is the resolve of the lost flowers still firm? What do we still need, really?
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National Day of Mourning: The sun rises as usual, the CCP is as despicable as always.
The “national day of mourning” is a protester’s spin on the PRC’s National Day, October 1. On that day this year, the director of China’s liaison office in Hong Kong, Zhang Xiaoming, responded to media inquiries about the protests by saying, “The sun rises as usual.”
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- The last victory belongs to Hong Kongers, because history and conscience both stand on our side!
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- Born of suffering, deciding our own fates, a city surrounded in October
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- Victory will not come walking towards me, I must myself walk towards victory!
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- There is one thing has no connection to the government position–conscience.
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- Even if we don’t know each other, we should look after one another, until the bitter end!
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- If you don’t fucking do it now, you’re just waiting to be fucked.
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Rise up! You warm-blooded Hong Kong youths unwilling to be slaves of the CCP: show your energy and vitality in the “Occupy Central” movement, “stand” up for Hong Kong’s new world! “Stand” up for Hong Kong’s new era!
–Citizens of the Proletariat Era Living By Lin Zhao’s Side
This sign plays on “occupy” (占领 zhàn) and “stand” (站 zhàn).
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- We are not revolutionaries, we are counter-revolutionaries.
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- Fighting for democracy, the opposition against the CCP has a future.
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- Fearless in the face of hardship–we maintain cool-headed restraint, we won’t be provoked by bystanders, we can do it!
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- Stop using violence!! Continue civil disobedience!!
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- Chinese people! Chinese people…! 5,000 years of blood and tears….! What did we do wrong…???
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- Democracy—the fumes won’t last, democracy will bloom!
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- Without universal suffrage, Mao Zedong-style governance will reappear in Hong Kong.
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- Life is not about money, fame, or credentials. Revive your soul and get back your conscience and sense of righteousness!
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- We are also afraid of getting hurt and shedding blood, but we are even more afraid that our home has no future!
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- You can do it!
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- I’m standing up not because I’m brave, but because I’m afraid of what is to come….
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- No human society on this Earth has such a thing as communism, and no society has this plaything called socialism. Please go to another planet to realize your communist ideals!
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- Release prisoners of conscience, give mainlanders back their right to know. –Citizens of Hunan
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- Mao Zedong: Anyone who oppresses a student movement won’t meet with a good end.
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- Warning: The government of the Hong Kong SAR doesn’t have the permission of all citizens, and is therefore illegally governing. Citizens have the right to protest!
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- Loving together this patch of earth, carve these words into your memory…
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- In sorrow or joy, in life and in death, this is always the land of Hong Kong!
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- Don’t hold back, goddamit!
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- Protect the students!
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- Famous philosopher Slavoj Žižek encourages the people of Hong Kong… “The oppressed people of the grassroots must join together, hand in hand—only when the people of the grassroots are by your side, the politicians with their mouths full of lies and the bigwigs carrying their guns will obediently step aside, and your dreams will finally be realized!”
Follow the Hong Kong protests with CDT.
Translation by Nick.
