To Hong Kong with Love: Umbrella Diaries—The First Umbrella

The people of Hong Kong have spoken, over and over and over. They voted overwhelmingly for universal suffrage in the city-wide privately-sponsored 2014 referendum. Then they came out in record numbers for the Umbrella protests of 2014 and the Five-Demands-Not-One-Less demonstrations of 2019, finally codifying their commitment to democracy with the historic landslide election of reformer candidates in the December district council elections. Of course, Beijing and its puppet executive Carrie Lam did not want to hear them. Yet, there was a time in 2014 when activists genuinely hoped the Communist government would abide by the principles of “One China, Two Systems.” James Leong documents those hopefully early days of the movement in Umbrella Diaries: The First Umbrella, which screens as part of the Metrograph’s ongoing film series, To Hong Kong with Love.

Occupy Central with Love and Peace, the democracy advocacy organization founded by academics Benny Tai and Dr. Chan Kin-man only wanted to “occupy” Central as a last resort. They conceived of the 2014 referendum as a means of expressing Hong Kong’s democratic ideals and aspirations. Unfortunately, Beijing arrogantly insisted on pre-selecting the candidates, which they described their brand of democracy, in aptly Orwellian terms. The leadership of Occupy Central was profoundly disappointed, but the students of Hong Kong just weren’t having it. They jumped out ahead of Occupy, launching massive demonstrations, forcing Chan and Tai to scramble to catch up.

The violence unleashed by the Hong Kong Police Force in 2019 was so brutal, it makes the tear-gassing and thuggery recorded in First Umbrella look comparatively mild. Nonetheless, it is clear from the anguished responses of parents and students looking on from behind police cordons, Hong Kong’s innocence died during 2014. The HKPF murdered it.

Leong mainly sticks to a strictly observational approach, but he captures key players at pivotal moments. Tai, Chan, Joshua Wong, Oscar Lai, and Agnes Chow all appear at length. The film also turns out to be admirably fair and balanced, given the equal time it allows pro-Beijing activist Robert Chow, who subsequently became notorious for his “snitch line” to inform on student activists and their schools. He is slick, but his smooth talk is undermined by his followers’ crude attempts to harass and intimidate young pro-democracy students. Indeed, this might be the most important part of the film, because it foreshadows the rampages committed by pro-Beijing “white shirts” in 2019.

Margaret Mead ’19: Mong Kok First Aid (short)

Tragically, history has repeated itself this year in Hong Kong. Five years ago, Hong Kongers were stunned when HK police used brutal riot tactics against peaceful protestors. They even targeted emergency medical volunteers. Five years later, the Mainland-dominated (and most likely augmented) police are following the same playbook, but with greater severity. Mavis Siu collects the testimony of eight such medical workers who experienced the crackdown on the 2014 protests first-hand in the short (20 minute) documentary, Mong Kok First Aid, which screens during the 2019 Margaret Mead Film Festival, at the American Museum of Natural History.

The interview subjects all share two conflicting concerns: outrage that the events of 2014 might very well be censored out of Hong Kong’s collective memory and fear that their participation will result in reprisals. Both are well warranted. Although the eight care-givers mostly (but not entirely) supported the democratic goals of the 2014 Umbrella protests, their primary purpose in Mong Kok (and the Admiralty before that) was to provide medical attention. To that end, they even provided aid to injured police officers.

In return, several suffered physical injuries and some were also threatened online by police trolls. Even though the first aid station personnel maintained strict neutrality during the protests, they now face an uncertain future in Hong Kong, simply because their presence could be held against them by the Mainland-controlled authorities.

Sundance ’17: Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower

A teenager should not feel personally responsible for saving his homeland’s values and way of life, but this is the role Joshua Wong has voluntarily assumed. As the founder of the student activist society Scholarism, Wong has challenged the Mainland Communist Party’s plans to impose Party indoctrination in Hong Kong schools and its relentless efforts to undermine the “One China Two Systems” promise of HK democracy. Viewers will see what genuine democracy protests look like and how perilously high the stakes can in Joe Piscatella’s documentary Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower, which screens during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

To promote obedience, the Education Bureau of Hong Kong proposed, at the Mainland Party’s behest, the ominous sounding Moral and National Education (MNE) curriculum, which was essentially Communist propaganda combined with criticisms of democratic forms of government. In response, the not quite fifteen-year-old Wong founded Scholarism and began coordinating a campaign of protests and outreach. Rather remarkably, the Mainland’s dedicated servant HK Chief Executive CY Leung gave a bit of ground, making the MNE curriculum voluntary, at each school’s discretion.

Ironically, the partial MNE victory may have given Wong and Scholarism too much faith the Mainland’s political puppets would listen to reason when presented with the overwhelming will of the people. Tragically, that would not be the case during the 2014 Umbrella Protests.

To say the Western media’s coverage of the 2014 demonstrations was inadequate would be a gross understatement. Frankly, Piscatella’s documentary is crucially valuable just for its lucid step-by-step chronicle of the Umbrella movement—so named because the demonstrators (the vast majority of whom were high school and college students) deployed umbrellas to combat police tear gas. For 79 days, the students hung tough—and when the police shock troops started using military-style tactics against them, the normally rail-thin Wong launched a dangerous hunger strike.

As in Chan Tze-woon’s more verite (but equally valuable) Yellowing, the one thing that immediately strikes viewers of Teenager is just how shockingly young Wong and his Scholarism colleagues look. Both films will make you wish you could travel back in time to the Admiralty and Mong Kok to protect them. What is nearly as significant in Teenager is how explicitly and ardently Wong and his classmates identify as Hong Kongers, not Chinese.

Piscatella follows a pretty standard documentary playbook, utilizing media footage and talking head interviews. However, many of his commentators are unusually insightful and honest in their analysis, such as the journalist who describes the current Beijing-Leung strategy as the shrinkage of One China-Two Systems to One China-1.9 Systems and then to 1.8 Systems, and so on.

Even though everyone really ought to know how the Umbrella Demonstrations turned out, viewers will still get caught up in Teenager’s narrative. It is a highly compelling, emotionally involving film by any standards. There is no false optimism, but Piscatella leaves the audience with some hope, once Wong explains how he and his fellow activists have learned from the mistakes of 2014. If you want to protest, protest Xi Jinping and CY Leung (frankly, this film could very well be why the festival was hacked). If you want to see a great doc, make every effort to see Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower when it screens again this afternoon (1/22) in Salt Lake and Wednesday (1/25) and Friday (1/27) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance.

HK at the Roxie: Yellowing

During these over-heated times, we should stop to look at what genuine democracy protests look like. Starting in late September 2014, HK students spontaneously came together to occupy key locations in Hong Kong’s business district. They were not motivated by sour grapes or misplaced loyalty to an office-seeker. Instead, the students were demanding Hong Kong’s right to choose their own candidates without the threat of Beijing’s veto and for the right of universal suffrage.

They were disorganized and naïve, because they were so very young. Most of the protestors were college students, but there were high schoolers there too. We will meet many of the idealistic young Hong Kongers and consequently start worrying for their safety during Chan Tze-woon’s remarkably immersive documentary, Yellowing (trailer here), which has not so mysteriously been frozen out of HK theaters, but screens this Saturday at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, presented by the Northern California Hong Kong Club.

                                                                                                     

At twenty-seven, Chan was one of the older cats seen at Umbrella protests sites, in his case primarily the Admiralty and Mong Kok. He quickly earned the trust of the yellow-ribbon wearing protestors, most notably including “Rachel Senior,” an extraordinarily camera-friendly first year law student. No doubt, his tendency to grab his camera and run into tear gas helped establish his credibility. Things are already looking pretty ominous by the time sixteen-year-old “Rachel Junior,” arrives at Mong Kok, which Chan clearly implies was the more dangerous occupation site. Frankly, seeing her there is as distressing as it is inspiring.

Through his lens we see the disorganized chaos of the Umbrella Movement. Although there were rival organizing committees, the real decision-making process was decentralized in the extreme. Yet, we watch as supply stations, tent cities, and even makeshift study halls are spontaneously organized. We also witness the HK police’s violent crackdown, on which Chan several times found himself on the receiving end.

Thanks to Chan, the Umbrella Movement is no longer faceless. They are just kids, but they are also Hong Kong’s future. Unfortunately, the older generations really hung them out to dry. Had the protestors more closely followed the revolutionary blueprint of Dr. Gene Sharp, they would have had more senior citizens in their front lines and more protest signs written in English. Of course, they were contending with erroneous accusations of foreign funding right from the start. Several times we hear volunteers cheekily distributing water and supplies “provided by a foreign power.”

Be that as it may, the Umbrella protests were eventually swept aside, defeated by a combination of many factors. The Rachels and their friends deserved better. Viewers really do feel a strong rooting interest in them personally, over and above their just cause. Yellowing is fly-on-the-wall observational in its approach, but unlike the God’s eye-swarming masses perspective of some of the Ukrainian Maidan documentaries, it is also acutely intimate. Viewers will be ready to go to the barricades for these young idealists by the time it concludes, but that begs the question why some many HK “grown-ups” turned their backs on them. One of the year’s best, Yellowing needs to be seen by Hong Kongers, so hopefully many will be sufficiently gutsy and open-minded to attend its guerilla screenings. Very highly recommended for all audiences, in all nations, Yellowing screens this Saturday afternoon (11/19), at the Roxie in San Francisco.