In 2014, when the Umbrella Movement took over the streets of Hong Kong’s financial district, the then 14-year-old Joyce felt frustrated by the police’s treatment of protestors. But she vowed she would never leave the city.
A decade later, she found herself with a one-way ticket to Canada.
“Hong Kong has changed in its nature,” she says.
For many youngsters, the Umbrella Movement was their political awakening. Joyce and her generation are digital natives, growing up immersed in special media and entertainment streaming services. While she previously had little interest in politics, and received no news about Hong Kong society, during the Umbrella Movement, political information spread fast through social media.
A youth-led protest culture was also generated by organisations such as Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students. These organisations inspired many students to take to the streets alongside student leaders Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow, who were later charged over their roles in the pro-democracy movement.
At the beginning of the Umbrella Movement, Joyce was a naive teenage girl with no special feelings towards the protests. She was too young to understand what was happening, and shared little connection with the protesters.
“Even when people on the street tried to hand me yellow ribbons, I didn’t want to take one because I had no idea what to do with it,” she says.
When the Umbrella Movement shifted from peacefully occupying streets to clashes between police and protesters, Joyce became frustrated by the police’s treatment of protesters: “We are all human, why treat them in such a brutal way?”
The Umbrella Movement inspired political participation across Hong Kong society, and eventually led to the massive 2019 protests, which became one of the largest movements in the city’s history.
The former president of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, pointed out that “the lack of hope for universal suffrage” and “social injustice” were the core reasons for the rapid eruption of the 2019 protest. He pointed out that the unequal distribution of resources in Hong Kong is most evident in the housing problem, which leaves young people feeling they have no opportunities for upward mobility or to improve their lives.
He asked: “Why is it that our generation, which grew up under the British Hong Kong education system, became what Beijing describes as ‘patriots governing Hong Kong’, while the younger generation that grew up under the Special Administrative Region struggles so much with their national identity?”
Media professional Tsang Chi-ho said: “From a macro-historical perspective, the Umbrella Movement can be seen as a warm-up for the 2019 anti-extradition bill protests.”
For Tsang, the Umbrella Movement’s occupation strategy taught Hong Kong people important lessons, particularly the need to protect what they value before it is lost. It also highlighted the ineffectiveness of using prolonged street occupations and creating social and economic disruption to force the government into concessions
These realisations inspired the development of new protest tactics during the 2019 anti-extradition movement, such as the fluid and decentralised “Be Water” strategy and widespread grassroots resistance.
“When umbrellas were raised in 2014, they effectively set the stage for the larger, more adaptive protests that would follow five years later,” he said.
When Joyce took part in the 2019 protest, she joined up to 2 million protesters to march against the Anti-Extradition Bill. It was the first time she had participated in a socio-political movement, and it radically altered her perspective on Hong Kong politics.
“I could feel the severe problems hidden in our society,” she says.
Nevertheless, she never thought of leaving Hong Kong, and when people left the city in droves after the 2019 protests, she dismissed them as traitors: they were “escaping reality, defectors who yielded to the government”.
Still today she avoids using the MTR, which protesters criticised for its ties to the police, and shuns “blue shops” – businesses associated with police support. These boycotts were a form of protest. Yet, in August 2024, she made the decision to immigrate to Canada.
“Although having a national security law did not make any deep impact on my daily life, if I want to have kids in the future, I don’t want them to grow up in such a restricted environment, especially with the increasing ‘brainwashing’ in the school syllabus,” she says.
In 2020, Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s former Chief Executive, blamed the education system for fuelling young protesters – particularly Liberal Studies, a mandatory senior secondary school subject that was introduced in 2009 and renamed ‘Citizenship and Social Development’ in 2021. The curriculum has been rewritten to include a strong sense of national identity towards China and with modules on personal development removed.
According to the Chief Executive’s 2023 Policy Address, a new curriculum – Primary Humanities – will be introduced in the coming academic year, with the implementation of Patriotic Education, which includes the cultivation of students’ sense of belonging to China, national sentiments, and sense of national identity.
Joyce agonised for eight months over whether to emigrate or not.
“It’s hard to sacrifice the things you have [in Hong Kong], especially when you’ve lived in the city since birth,” she says. “I had doubts about whether my choice was right when I bought the flight ticket. I can’t tell if I’m excited or nervous about leaving Hong Kong. I’m moving to a place where I have no house, no job, and no foundation. I might have a blank year, doing nothing as I start my life from scratch, and risk ‘losing a year.’
“But I would like to give it a try, while I’m still young,” she adds.
The article only reflects interviewees’ perspectives, which do not represent the stance of The Hong Konger.
