Protests in Hong Kong against a controversial extradition bill have entered their sixth month. Last week, police forced their way into the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to arrest people, triggering a violent confrontation with protesters. Subsequently, Taiwanese students in Hong Kong were forced to return to Taiwan. Despite being safe at home, they have lived through a week of unbearable anguish, always worrying: “How can you know what’s happening in Hong Kong while you are asleep?”

They will never be able to forget these nights.

The sun is shining brightly outside a coffee shop on Xinsheng South Road in Taipei, yet its warmth does not reach the hearts of these young women, because they are preoccupied with the volatile situation in Hong Kong.

“During the past few days it was impossible to fall asleep because you could hear the sound of gunshots and police sirens outside,” recalls Y, who is sitting at the front, her voice often sounding strained and hoarse. “I still can’t sleep that well, even though after having returned to Taiwan I don’t hear these sounds anymore,” notes Y. Student H, who sits next to Y, nods her head once in a while, silently confirming Y’s narrative.

Taiwanese student Y, a returnee from Hong Kong, wore a white baseball cap throughout the interview. She says, “I still can’t sleep that well, even though after having returned to Taiwan I don’t hear these sounds anymore.” (Photo by Ming-Tang Huang/CW)

As the Hong Kong protests continued to rage for more than five months, a city-wide strike named Dawn Action was launched November 11. Amid the action, police forced their way into the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and shortly afterwards a violent confrontation between protesters and police erupted at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Y and H, who both study at CUHK, were on campus at the time of the standoff. They were also among the first batch of Taiwanese students for whom the Mainland Affairs Council arranged flights back home.

When asked why they weren’t able to sleep, the two young women respond: “How can you know what’s happening in Hong Kong when you’re asleep?” At this moment, the sound of every single teargas cartridge being fired and the specter of people moaning in pain seems to fill the silence inside the coffee shop.

The girls are second-year students at CUHK. Y is attending the Business School, while H studies at the Faculty of Engineering. Another Taiwanese student, W, is studying in his third year at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. The three students returned to Taiwan on flights on November 13 and 14, but their hearts remain in Hong Kong.

“We took interviews because we hope that people in Taiwan can hear about the situation in Hong Kong,” says H, a petite, quiet individual. “We are doing quite well, but Hong Kong is not doing well at all.” This phrase seems to aptly express what everyone feels.

CHUK, which holds rank 46 in the QS World University Ranking and has produced five Nobel Prize laureates, is the territory’s leading research university. “When the Nationalist government came to Taiwan, most exiled scholars remained at Chinese University. Therefore, the university has preserved an academic spirit that differs from the other universities in Hong Kong,” observes Cheng Sze Lut, a former vice convener of the Hong Kong pro-democracy group Civic Human Rights Front. 

                               

One week before the clashes with police at CHUK, the university held its graduation ceremony. On roads inside the campus, people had sprayed the slogan Together We Stand with white paint, and someone had written, “The black night has given me black eyes, but I use them to find the light” on a wall. Fluttering in the wind were black banners proclaiming “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our Time”. Aside from rumors that Chinese students were marching on campus wielding fruit knives and singing March of the Volunteers, China’s national anthem, everything seemed “normal” as students and faculty were waiting for the term to end at the end of November.

Black banners with the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our Time” flutter in the wind next to a blazing fire on the CUHK campus. (Source: GettyImages)

In the evening of November 10, as people communicated via the encrypted instant messaging service Telegram, everyone felt that Dawn Action was about to unfold. “At 9 a.m. the following morning police began to fire teargas cartridges. I heard a guy downstairs shout at the top of his lungs: ‘teargas’.” The dormitory is not far away from No. 2 Bridge where the clashes erupted. The protesters kept throwing roadblocks onto Tolo Highway underneath to block traffic, which triggered a concerted firing by police. H quickly closed doors and windows, hearing gunshots immediately afterwards. Someone was shouting, ordering students to retreat to their dormitories.

“We knew that a city-wide strike (involving employees, students, and businesses) had been called for that day; we thought this was just a normal protest action and didn’t expect the situation to turn so serious,” remarks Y, who had happened to just have returned to Hong Kong from Taiwan that day. She took a taxi from the airport to the Chung Chi College Entrance at CUHK. She walked half an hour across campus to her dormitory, suffering a stinging sensation in the nose from the teargas fumes that hung in the air. The situation seemed utterly out of place for a university campus.

We and They are One and the Same, We Aren’t Outsiders

Although the students do not hail from Hong Kong, they do not regard themselves as outsiders. Before the protests began, they felt that Hong Kong meant fierce competition, a fast pace of life and rational, pragmatic thinking among the students. The events that H and Y witnessed over the past months showed them another face of the territory – Hong Kong people demonstrating solidarity and a humanitarian spirit. Parents delivered water and other supplies to the universities in their private cars, medical personnel set up first aid stations on their own initiative, and students, no matter whether they hailed from Taiwan or China, were all willing to lend a helping hand.

The media put the spotlight on the raging fires but failed to film how students across the entire hill mobilized to help distribute supplies to injured people on the frontline. “When we walked across campus, people would always ask us whether we needed water and whether we were hungry,” says H. They weren’t afraid of the students but feared the police. Inside the campus, they actually felt safe.

The situation became increasingly perilous as time passed. On the afternoon of November 12, police arrested students and then launched another teargas attack. H, who was in her dormitory room, rushed to the lobby on the first floor, where a group of people in black outfits who had barged in from outside were taken care of. People kept buying coke with their Octopus stored value smart cards, using the beverage to help the protesters rinse their eyes to relieve the stinging and burning from the teargas. Some deposited coke containers outside the front door for others to use. People were heard shouting constantly as schoolmates were arrested. The air thick with irritating teargas fumes, the atmosphere was laden with grief and resentment, the sound of sobbing occasionally penetrating the chaos.

“Like us, they are someone’s beloved children, but when we, the Taiwanese students, cried, they would console us,” mutters H as she tries to describe the scene at the time. “We don’t understand how this could happen on campus. Why are they being labeled as ‘rioters’?”

In the evening, when CUHK President Rocky Tuan negotiated with police, the students thought that the standoff would finally come to its end. But within less than an hour, police began again to fire teargas, attacking with even greater might and aggression than before. Y and H and other Taiwanese students living at their dormitory put on protective clothing and then went out to join the human chain that spanned 1.4 kilometers across hilly terrain to funnel water, ice bags, clothing and other supplies to the frontline.

Suddenly there was news that a water cannon truck was on its way. H recalls someone yelling “Don’t keep spreading this,” that night. Subsequently, the crowd pulled back breaking into a frenzied run as they tried to escape the water cannon, which doused the protesters with blasts of a blue liquid. When the students realized that the liquid contained irritating chemicals, they panicked as they had no clue as to what to do. 

As soon as the water cannon left, the human chain formed again. The students were joined by people from all walks of life who had rushed to the side – white collar employees, office girls wearing high heels, and even elderly men and women. Later that night, the Taiwanese students who live at a dormitory uphill also joined one by one.

“Many injured people were helped to their feet. When they took off their face masks [you could see that] they had a determined gaze; they were not afraid. They only wanted to defend this place,” says H. The students come from various faculties; they are medical students, law students and business school students, the kind of people who make up the backbone of Hong Kong’s professional elites and certainly not people who have nothing to do or don’t have a future, she posits. “Over the past months, there have been many rumors such as people who committed suicide by jumping from building showed no signs of bleeding and a person who was a good swimmer turning up drowned. They are afraid that the universities will be attacked and that more people will be arrested.” 

Hong Kong police block off CUHK on Nov. 12 (Source: Reuters)

Today’s Hong Kong is no longer the Hong Kong that they used to know. And it has taken on another meaning. As W talks, he always uses the pronoun “We”, not distinguishing between “them” and “us”. When asked whether he has been to the “frontline” he shakes his head.

W admits that even though he can’t fight on the frontline, he also does not want to distance himself from the movement. “Blue supports the government, yellow supports Hong Kong. We all sympathize with yellow. I am a student; I live in Hong Kong, so, of course, this is my business too.”

On the morning of November 13, H went to the supermarket on campus wearing a black top and black pants. Schoolmates were cooking food at the canteen, some people were driving school buses, and inside the stadium med school students and students of Chinese medicine had set up makeshift medical stations. Some Taiwanese students left campus to buy necessary supplies, witnessing how citizens drove up to the gate in their private cars, volunteering to transport goods and people. Inside campus, protesters were busy clearing debris and sorting supplies. 

Even if everyday life seems utterly unexceptional, they know deep inside that nothing will be the same in the future. H empties out the contents of her bag, taking out a laptop, a jacket and her passport, nothing more. These are the only personal belongings she brought back from Hong Kong, because she has planned on returning to Hong Kong all along.

“The Taiwanese students were told to withdraw, so I had to follow in dealing with the situation,” says H, who seems to still feel some regret for having left when talking about that day. As more than 60 departing Taiwanese students were lugging their luggage toward the school gate, protesters clad in black rushed forward to help them carry bags and suitcases. A young mother with a five-year-old child in tow approached them to offer help, escorting the group as they kept marching for 40 minutes before they found a shuttle bus to the airport in Ma On Shan.

They had not yet reached the airport when news spread that CUHK had announced that the term had been ended prematurely. “Because the term is over, my parents wouldn’t allow me to remain in Hong Kong,” notes H. Traveling light, H boarded the flight back to Taiwan to put her parents’ mind at ease.

Taiwanese Students Keep Returning Home, Many Good-Byes Unsaid

As Taiwanese students kept returning from their embattled universities in Hong Kong, Taiwan’s leading universities such as National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University and National Cheng Kung University were quick to offer them spaces.

When asked whether they would want to continue their studies in Taiwan, the trio seems to struggle for an answer. “We are very grateful that so many schools are willing to take us, but we are all CUHK students; that’s our home in Hong Kong,” says H, her voice trailing off as she adds: “There are many good-byes that have not yet been said.”

“If we can return, we will definitely go back,” says Y with a determined look in her eyes that shows that Hong Kong does not only stand for their daily lives but also for an emotional attachment they are not ready to let go.

W left Hong Kong one day after Y and H, departing in the wee hours at 4 a.m. Upon arrival, his mother asked whether he would stay to continue his studies in Taiwan. “I can’t make up my mind yet because the situation is not clear,” says W, who keeps worrying about the many friends he has found in Hong Kong. “Unlike us, they can’t just stay out of it; it’s their home.”

The Hong Kong experience has changed these young students for good. H once scored top in the comprehensive assessment program for junior high school students in her city. She also won a space at NTU, Taiwan’s top-ranked university, yet decided to study in Hong Kong to broaden her horizons.

“CUHK changed my life, for sure. I will look at the world from an entirely different perspective in the future. I never regretted choosing CUHK; if I had to choose again I would make the same decision,” asserts H. “I have seen the courage of the students, the courage to defend freedom, democracy and justice.”

Before, Y used to turn a cold shoulder to politics. She frankly admits that the life she envisaged was diligently pursuing her university studies and then looking for a job in Hong Kong after graduation or pursuing an advanced degree elsewhere abroad. Now her outlook on life has changed. “Seeing [the situation in] Hong Kong, I came to understand what makes a true university student: the CUHK students exert themselves protecting society,” observes Y.

Over the past few days, not a single piece of good news has come out of Hong Kong on social media feeds.

“When we asked our Hong Kong friends how we can help, they all say, please go home and vote. Hong Kong can only help you by giving you this experience once.” Time in the coffee shop seems to have come to a standstill as H and Y remain silent. Although the new term at CUHK begins on January 6, the pair booked their return flights for January 12, the day after the people of Taiwan go to the polls in the presidential and legislative elections. It will be the first time for the students to cast their vote, and they hope it will not be the last. “We will definitely vote, and we will also vote in the future, let’s hope that we can all still cast our votes then.”

【Annie Zhang Column on HK Protest】
♦ From 'Be Water' to 'Liberate Hong Kong' - The Evolution
♦ Decoding the Deep-Seated Reasons Behind the Awakening of HK
♦ Why One Country, Two Systems Framework Could Survive in Name Only

【More Insights】
♦ Anson Chan: ‘Electing a Leader Won’t Turn HK into Beijing’s Enemy’
♦ Violence Reveals True Face of One Country, Two Systems
♦ Taiwan President Issues Statement Regarding HK Protest

【More Voices on the Ground】
♦ 'I’m from China, and I’m Against the China Extradition Bill'
♦ “Why Should We Hide Our Faces?” HK’s Voices on the Ground
♦ Opinion: Today’s Hong Kong, Tomorrow’s Taiwan?

Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by TC Lin, Sharon Tseng