Transcription
Okay, rolling. Long time. My name is Ricko. I'm 24 years old, and I'm doing a Master in Fine Art. I am from the south of Vietnam, from Soim City. I don't like that. Now, a week before the student strike, my friend asked me, "Soia, are you going to join?" They brought me to Chinese University on the first day of the strike, and I found that pretty amazing because I had never done this before. This was my first time joining any strike at all, like any protest. I saw a lot of artwork and a lot of creative ideas that the students and young people have been doing. Filming is important; it creates a filmmaker's point of view about the city, about the political and social situation.
My name is W Jing Jing, and I come from Shanghai. I have been in Hong Kong for about two months. I decided to take my documentary about this project. I have never seen these activities or something like this in Mainland because we can't do that. I filmed some exchange students; they may be a little nervous. When I was shooting, I was very afraid that others would find out. I didn't support that. Most of the Mainland exchange students think the whole activity is useless.
My name is Ana, and I was born in Hong Kong. I'm the fourth generation in Hong Kong. We have food; actually, a friend of ours donated food. We have it from Pakistani and Indian friends, so they also support the cause. Thank you. I know everyone is hungry here; every day they're eating just biscuits and all that, so this food is good—very good, delicious. Thank you so much. We knew it's a bit risky. We are a very easy target; ethnic minorities are all Chinese there, and there are few faces like us. It's an easy target, but we had to take a risk because we had to show that we are also a part of the community and we want changes in Hong Kong for our family and for our upcoming generations.
The more friends I have from the local community, the more I know that Hong Kong people are not happy at home. Now I can see it; the people struggle to live. They cannot pay their rent, and I thought Hong Kong would be beautiful, like a diamond. After this tear gas incident, I was kind of shocked. Young people are actually the most important factor in changing society. Maybe now they cannot make any change, but in the future, what we fight for is our future generation, so it should be good.
My roommate, Jo, wants me to join them. Yeah, it's more important for students to study than to go to the strike. Maybe my documentary could tell what happened in Hong Kong to Mainland students, but maybe I think my documentary couldn't be shown in public in Mainland. What I found attractive about Hong Kong is that at night, you can see the shadow of the city and the shadow of yourself. So I just like to film exactly the shadow of me. I still feel like an outsider; that's why I film my shadow instead of myself. A lot of people say, "Why are you even fighting for Hong Kong? It's not your city." I'm like, "But I'm living here, so somehow the shadow still belongs there."
It's still there. In Vietnam, we always hope that we can kind of escape from China, from the big shadow of China. When I stay in Hong Kong, I think it's a chance for me because I cannot do that in Vietnam. After we opened up, everyone was around there taking pictures, and I was like, "Okay, here we go." People were clapping, yelling, "All of you are also our people!" It happened for the first time. All these years, I actually went back home and asked my dad, "Have you ever heard these things from any of your local friends?" He was like, "No."
So everyone came up to us, and we were like, "We accept you in, and we all make Hong Kong together." It was very warm. We were surprised; we were amazed. We had some friends with us, and actually, she really started to cry. She was like, "Wow, people are accepting us." I think it's a good thing for Mainland students to know what happened in Hong Kong. Yeah, but there is no opportunity; that's what a pity. The strike actually brings all the students of Hong Kong together. Everyone would try to be a community, I think, which is a utopia that we are trying to achieve here.