Awaiting a Democratic Hong Kong
On my birthday my friend called, “Happy birthday! What are you up to?”
“I am currently posting up a piece I wrote about a democratic China.”
“Sorry?”
“I am writing about how for my 30th birthday I would like to see a democratic China and that one day I believe it can happen, so if I disappear after Article 23 gets passed, you know where I am, ya?”
“Some gulag up in Northern China. You’re crazy.”
“I am exercising my right to free speech, when I still have some. What can they do?”
“Put you in jail for being a revolutionary… no a counter-revolutionary. Ha Ha”
“God damn it! I live in Hong Kong, we still have free speech on our books last time I looked.”
The phone beeps. “Hey it’s my sister in Australia, I gotta go! Talk to you later.”
Switch lines
“Hey sis! Happy birthday. What are your plans for today?”
“Well I just got called a counter-revolutionary by a friend.”
“That’s not surprising, had to happen at some point. What have you done now?”
“Writing about democracy in China on my blog. Want to hear it?” (I read it to her).
“Wow, that’s really great. They’re going to put you in jail.”
“I am exercising my right to free speech! Dammit! I still have some. Half a million people here marched for it! We still have it. But we will lose. They will put it in, and that’s when I am moving in with you.”
“If they let you out of the country.”
“Living in exile isn’t so bad. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. You don’t do what I do and not think it through. If you don’t you’re stupid. I mean, the likelihood is very very low, but we are all pushing limits and looking for the bottom line right? I mean one day things change, one day things don’t go the way you think. I know. I am not just being stupid. I know it might happen. But I can’t not do it especially when I still can.
You know we all joke about it because it take the tension from the realities. I mean you think people joke about going to jail for saying what you think in places like Australia? Not really because it doesn’t happen… well doesn’t happen much, it happens but not as often. It happens here. It happens right across the border. We joke about it a lot without thinking about it because it’s real. It slips right off our tongues. We talk about it among ourselves because we remember what happened in 89. We know that if you push the government far enough they will shut you down. People said it wouldn’t happen, and then it did. Then the world changed a little right? Because everyone was proven wrong. Ah. I can’t even decide if it’s paranoia, or that I am just preparing. Either way I thought it through. But I don’t pretend I don’t feel frightened sometimes.”
“Ah. As I wrote to mom and dad, you’re the revolutionary daughter.”
“The Counter-Revolutionary daughter. We’re in the context of communism. The revolution already happened in 1949.”
“Well someone has to say it. It’s like the Theatre of the Absurd. The whole idea was to write dark, disturbing not very entertaining plays, and forced people to confront their thoughts. Make the play slow, and bring up weird stuff so when they sit in the dark they have to think. If you don’t challenge them and make them uncomfortable, then it’s easy to let it wash over them. But then you can make them feel ucky and then they HAVE to think. They HAVE to feel something, even if they don’t agree.”
“Sounds like Glutter. I get so much hate mail.”
“Probably means you’re doing something right.”
“Yeah, even the love letters tell me they don’t agree but I made them think.”
“That’s the biggest compliment really. We don’t exist to think all the same, otherwise we’re a bunch of automatons without thought. Daddy says you write really extreme things, but it’s interesting.”
“X-Yan. Sounds like a super hero.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Hey, it’s my birthday, I get to feel special right?”
Yan is in China for a week. Where she can’t say what she wants without being put in jail. But Glutter (her alter ego) still can. Hail future post function!
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 