You remember this one from the last blog post? Hong Kong, bright and shiny as it is described in travel guides and as you experience it on most of the sightseeing tours?!
Well, there is also another side of the coin. When you leave the main roads and head into the roads between the large buildings, you come across situations like this.
In the first moment we thought the person is doing whatever there, but then we noticed that he is preparing his bed to get some sleep. Other people are just sleeping at a walkway or in a tunnel whilst other are walking by on their way to work.
Of course we have people living on the streets also in Europe, not saying all is perfect at home, but at least to us it seems that at a place like Hong Kong it can be even tougher. But there is also some light, people making their living by working on small markets like this one…
… or enjoying the bank holiday celebrating together in the shadow.
Still it shows us how fortunate we are, being able to travel with too many thoughts about the future that might be ahead of us. But we did not want to ignore this side either.
However it got even tougher for us here in Hong Kong. Normally we avoid politics but this time we couldn’t. You heart about the on-going protests against the government from the news?
Well, we experienced it and we are still shocked about what happened…
Having a short chat with a young man next to the road, he explained a bit about the background and the reasons. But he also warned us and advised to leave. He mentioned that usually around this time the protests are getting stopped by the police and that typically escalates the situation. So we decided to follow his advice, still we had to cross the protests to get to the ferry.
It took us not even ten minutes to reach the ferry and during this time the situation escalated completely. We cannot say that we saw any signs of aggression, however the tension was touchable in the air already. But for example when an ambulance showed up, they gave space to it immediately.
That day it was the first time that during many weeks of protests, police shot at people. Local news are talking about at least eight shots, and from what we can find at least one person was wounded due to a shot.
Leaves us speechless to be honest. The only light at the end of the tunnel, history has shown that governments cannot work against their people forever!
There are of course always reasons for such escalations, however shooting at your own people is crossing a line that should not be touched.
Want to know more about the situation, we can recommend checking BBC news.
