The Choi Yuen Village protest 千人怒撐菜園村

On Sunday a couple of friends and I headed to Shek Kong (石岗菜園村) to support the Choi Yuen villagers whose homes are in danger of being razed down to make way for a emergency station in the proposal high speed rail link from HK to Guangzhou.

It felt good to be out in the countryside, and the bus-trip from Kam Sheng Station (West rail) was much shorter than I thought it would be. When we arrived, the atmosphere was a bit overwhelming. Hundreds of people were jammed together at the bus-stop of vegetable station. We signed our names, took our photos and then slipped off into the actual village itself to get away from the crowd.

I have discovered that I have an aversion to this kind of crowd emotion. I always have, I think... when I sense some sort of mob emotion, my tendency is to step away. So for example, on the last days of high school, while everyone was getting all teary (and to be fair, we had lived together for two intense years); I was rather unmoved by it all. I think I am by nature skeptical of these mass emotions -- which is unfortunate, I think, because I did want to support them. But I guess each of us have to find our own way of expressing our feelings.

Earlier in the week I was having a conversation with Hin-yan about "protest as dialogue", and how one can protest in a way that provokes thought -- rather than a shutting down -- in all parties involved. (This was in reference to earlier protests with 夏韶聲, and also in protest of the mismanagement of The Link / 領匯 )

Later, everyone came into the village to take a big group photo to show our support for the cause. Josh and I climbed up on the roof of one of the houses and waved our banana leaves around.

Afterwards, they had a sort of discussion forum, which I really appreciated. where they had a number of eloquent speakers who spoke passionately about the meaning of this protest. In particular, Cho Ho Dick (朱凱迪) helped me contextualise this project as a general questioning of large and unnecessary infrastructure projects in Hong Kong

More poignantly perhaps, the Choi Yuen village  protest raises the question: do we have a right here in HK to choose a different lifestyle? The rail link is going to provide us with high speed access to the mainland, which will be good for business, which will make us rich. But do we really need to be so rich? Do we really need faster trains that connect to Shenzhen every 15 minutes?

If you look at the South China Morning Post today, "Cross-border railway to turn villagers into multimillionaires", behind this headline is an assumption: That it's only a matter of paying these villagers off, and the villagers are really lucky (and should feel lucky) to have held out for all this money. But as Mrs Lo who moved here 30 years ago, and built a home with four generations living under a roof says in this ATV news report, it's not about money. It's about a home, and just wanting to farm and live in peace. To move these people out (and surely we can find another place for this emergency station! I cannot believe that there is nowhere else to put this station than on someone's home) is to say as a community -- we put business and speed above all else. Anyone who wishes to seek a different lifestyle, and happen to be in our way -- just bulldoze them.

To learn more or to add your voice to the protest:
> Facebook group: 石崗菜園村關注組

> Villagers fight for Rail that will cut them out (SCMP)

> Train to Nowhere (HK Magazine)

> LEGCO meeting minutes (May 2009) --> (scroll to p.10)

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Note on photos - I deliberately didn't bring my camera, but a lot of other people did, and I've tried to credit them. If you hover your mouse over the photo you will see who took it. Thank you Daniel for whole resource of photos +  videos here. )


Related posts: Hamlet, the Tragedy of Inaction, 示威 11.29 Protest