Smile for the Camera ch. 1 - The Rebel City
After changing the battery out, Nick Wú-Yin Cheng flicked on the Canon EOS M50 and shoved the lens cap into his pocket. He shielded the screen against the glare of the setting sun with a hand. Half bent over it, he double-checked the settings were as he wanted for low-light shooting.
Recording at 1080p HD 60 fps, he switched the shutter speed, upped the ISO, lowered the aperture, increased the white balance (then, after thinking for a second, upped it again), turned autofocus with face and tracking on, and set the focus peaking options to manual. He made sure the external Røde VideoMicro II compact microphone was plugged in and secure on top of the camera with the correct gain level. When all the settings were to his liking, he wiped any smudges and dirt particles off the 15-45mm lens with a cleaning cloth, then turned the mode dial to the camera icon. A flexible ball head tripod was screwed into the bottom.
Straightening up, he pressed the record button and viewed the world through the digital screen.
Protesters crammed the street. Each person shouted to be heard. Some stood head and shoulders above the rest on the grassy roundabout; the ones on the edge kept spilling off.
Zooming out, he got a clearer picture of the protesters—a mixture of young and old in a variety of fashions.
The veterans were practical in their choice of attire: jeans, long-sleeved shirts, and jackets were the standard kit, and they wore masks to hide their identity—bandanas, ski masks, old N95 and cloth masks from the pandemic, even gas masks and respirators. Many wore gloves and knee and elbow pads in case they got knocked down. Brightly colored raincoats, construction vests, hard hats, and army boots accented the standard kit—all yellow, with some reds and whites. Their masked faces and hat-wearing heads let only their eyes shine through. Their backpacks were filled with extra food, water, first aid kits, and anything else they might need. One man was covered in Post-it notes from head to toe.
The newbies were shockingly unprepared. They could be recognized by the water bottle they carried, their lack of backpacks, and the chicness of their clothes, as if protesting was as much a fashion statement as a political one. Then again, why not look good while making a political statement? Nick had seen endless photos of westerners posing for photos during protests, accompanied by a hollow caption that outed the poster (most often women) as someone who didn’t believe in the cause and was only there for social prestige. The camera recorded plenty of that. These people were on the fringes. The serious newbies who believed in the cause did, at least, have the sense to cover their faces, except that guy staring at his phone. If Nick remembered he’d blur his face.
The grey-hairs, the old people, were unafraid to show their lined faces. They were serious and indifferent, and Nick had a hard time picking out the veteran grey-hairs from the greenhorns. They stood about watching the younger generations to make sure things didn’t get out of hand, though a few were passionately pumping their signs with them. Shorts seemed to be the uniform of choice for the men; a few even sported sandals both with socks and without. The women were dressed for warmth in long bubble coats. Somehow, these old people were dressed more impractically than their young compatriots.
Taken as a whole, they looked ready to dance in a K-pop music video. They brandished umbrellas, sticks, flashlights, garbage can lids, signs, and other dangerous accoutrements (like the man playing guitar to impress the ladies and the man wielding a slide whistle to try and lighten the mood). Their signs, raised high in the air, read: “Bad CCP,” “Free Taiwan,” “Enough!” and “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.” Their phones, too, were raised high, and recorded it all; some were even live-streaming.
These protesters and several thousand more surrounded the Legislative Council Complex (simply referred to by Hongkongers as LegCo) building that squatted over them. A helicopter flew around the corner of the building and rose into the sky to watch them. It quieted the protesters for only a second and sent Nick’s heart into overdrive.
The people of Hong Kong were once again protesting their government. At this point in history only the French outclassed them in this regard.
The first protest of the year came in January when all of Hong Kong woke up on the third to find out the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region had, at Beijing’s expressed orders, instituted China’s Great Firewall upon its citizens. What a terrible New Year’s present—and it was late too.
Protests had been a constant fact of life this year—as Nick knew, having been dragged to every single one by his friend—rivaling and at times surpassing the anti-extradition protests of 2019 and 2020 almost a decade ago. In many ways, the anti-firewall protests were a continuation of those anti-extradition protests (which had been quelled only because of the draconian COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns), which themselves were a continuation of the multitude of protests dating back to the Handover thirty years ago in 1997.
By the time August arrived, the anti-firewall protests began to lose steam as more people became certain that the government (both the Legislative Council and Beijing) wasn’t going to back down and reverse their decision in spite of the damage the Firewall had done to the banking sector and the perception of Hong Kong on the global stage. Tourism dropped by over half, too, though Nick admitted to himself the protests had not helped in that regard. (He wouldn’t dare say that aloud, however.)
With no change in sight, it seemed like everyone was tired of protesting. They were hopeless and disenfranchised, and soon the turnout began to drop as people wanted to save their shoe leather. By the start of autumn, the protests might have died out altogether.
Then came September 6.
China’s Limited Maritime Blockade of Taiwan, otherwise known as the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis, was an attempt by China to further assert its spurious claim of ownership over the island nation.
With the Taiwan Strait being a major shipping route with almost 90 per cent of the world’s cargo ships passing through it, the blockade impacted the whole world, and the world was not happy.
Besides global public opinion of China dropping by twenty points every week (except in Burundi and Pakistan), a few countries joined the US in placing sanctions on Chinese goods.
Over 40 per cent of Hongkongers took to the streets to protest against the blockade for three reasons: first, if the blockade worked and allowed China to assert more authority over Taiwan, then it would further embolden Chinese expansion in the South China Sea and their Nine Dash Line, but, more importantly, it would likely lead to Beijing stripping Hongkongers of more of their rights; second, they were still angry about the Great Firewall; and third, they wanted western countries to intervene and stand up to China, because any resistance against China was good for Hong Kong. So, the city saw more protests.
And now today, September 29, 2027, the day after China invaded Taiwan (it was being called the largest naval invasion in history), Hongkongers were taking to the streets again. With a stream of other students, Nick had once again left the safety of the university for the umpteenth time that year to document the movement.
Some were trying to go about their day as normal despite the world events happening very near to where they were, but much of the city was staying indoors if they could. To Nick, they were the smart ones.
Nick stood in a small parking lot off Lung Wui Road, connected to the roundabout on Tim Mei Avenue, the road which ran parallel to LegCo. A few cars and a motorcycle were still in the lot.
Panning the camera around, Nick shot the trees and the skyscrapers to the east, blurred past the Convention and Exhibition Centre, and raised the camera high to shoot the skyline of mainland Hong Kong a mile to the north across the water, beyond the palm trees. The setting sun hung in the clear sky to the right of the LegCo building.
Someone who allegedly worked for the government leaked that the chief executive, Matthew Lai Teng, was inside. The protesters wanted him to see and hear all of them, though they knew he wouldn’t change his mind.
“How much b-roll are you getting?” asked his friend, his face uncovered.
Curtain Zhōu Bówén was a fairly tall Han Chinese man who was skinnier than a lamppost. His shiny plastic windbreaker was half unzipped so the white taped E of PRESS was broken in two. A Hollyland Lark M2 mic was clipped to his jacket up near his neck. Along with the coin-sized microphone, he held the typical wireless microphone a reporter in the field would have. It didn’t have any batteries in it, but it made Curtain feel more professional when he did a piece to camera.
Curtain didn’t like his English name, but he also refused to change it for some reason. According to him, he picked it when he was eight years old when his family moved from Chengdu to Hong Kong; it wasn’t like it was his legal name. But, as Nick knew, arguing with Curtain was a pointless endeavor.
“I’ll get more later,” Nick replied. He wanted to get a shot from on the roundabout, but he also didn’t want to push through the crowd.
In a jacket and jeans, with PRESS in white tape on his front and back (Curtain’s orders), and his face uncovered, Nick kept imagining a giant target was painted on him. People’s eyes were drawn to them, and he feared the police, despite Curtain’s insistence that they wouldn’t harm them. The camera gear in his backpack weighed him down, as did the first aid kit, water, and energy bars—better to be safe than sorry.
Curtain and Nick were final-year journalism students attending Hong Kong University. The camera loved Curtain, and he was keen to stay in front of it—whether as a famous anchor in Hong Kong or as a world-renowned journalist for the BBC, it didn’t matter to him. For Nick, he preferred a job that wouldn’t put him in harm’s way or get him arrested, like covering scientific breakthroughs or filming commercials.
“Let’s cue the audio.”
“Testing, testing, testing,” Curtain said into the lapel mic, then clapped once. “Check, check, check.” Nick gave a thumbs up. He would match the audio with the footage when he edited it later today. “Alright, let’s interview some people to get a feel for this thing.”
“Can we do this fast? Please? Then we can go home?”
Nick’s stomach was twisting itself into a knot and his hands shook. Something bad was bound to happen, but Curtain still dragged him out here like he always did.
“Why are you always like this?” Curtain asked, not trying to hide his irritation. “We’re fine, stop worrying. The police won’t hurt us. We’re press—they don’t mess with people like us because of the backlash. They didn’t over the summer, they just went right by us and let us leave. Stop being a baby.”
“Fine. Go. I’ll follow,” Nick replied. He knew his cowardice made a bad journalist and an even worse cameraman.
Curtain interviewed twenty people in quick succession.
A Hongkonger businesswoman said, “I’m anti-war, I’m very anti-war and against violence of any kind, especially against animals. I’m tired of all the bad going on in the world and all the wars and conflicts.”
An old Hongkonger man said, “I don’t like the CCP! I want them gone! They want to completely own us. They want us as just another Chinese city. But I don’t want to be a part of the CCP. I want Hong Kong free again. Mao slaughtered so many! My family fled here, and they want our island! We can be like Singapore!”
A female Korean foreign exchange student said, “I’ve never been to a protest before, so this is really exciting. I’ve taken so many pictures! This is my second year here; I never went to any of the protests last year. Yeah, the photos I took are going crazy on my Instagram. So many people are giving their support its so awesome! My phone has been blowing up like crazy since yesterday, everyone I know is asking if I’m okay. This is so exciting!”
A male Danish foreign exchange student said, “China takes and takes and takes and steals and lies, and now they’re trying to take Taiwan. I’m against them one hundred per cent. We need to make our voices heard. I’d be doing the same in my country. China won’t listen, but other countries will, and they’ll be paying attention and maybe stand up to China, I don’t know.”
A female Chinese Australian foreign exchange student said, “Russia, China, North Korea, they’re all bad. I want people to prosper, not live in fear. If women ran the world none of this would be happening.”
A female Hongkonger student said, “What they’re doing in Taiwan, this is what they want to do to us! They’ve been cracking down hard on us, but if they get away with taking Taiwan, then we’re even more fucked than we are right now.”
A middle-aged Chinese man said, “Don’t film me! Stop filming me! Erase that!”
A Hongkonger businessman said, “People need to know we’re against it. Our kids will want to know if we stood up against the CCP and its authoritarian expansion. I was born here. I was in college in 2019 and was part of the Anti-Extradition Bill protests, which feels like a lifetime ago. I was in the streets then, and for the anti-Firewall protests earlier this year, which feels like a decade ago, so I’m ready for whatever shit they try to pull. Stay strong.”
A male British foreign exchange student said, “I’m pro Hong Kong returning to England.”
The male Hongkonger student next to him said, “Yeah! Long live the King! Death to Xi Jinping and Matthew Lai Teng! And to that Korean fat man!”
The interviews came to a close after that, and it was after four-thirty, and they stood in the middle of the street. The crowd around them had grown in volume both in bodies and literal volume. It was almost too loud for Nick to hear himself think.
“Ready to go?” he shouted over the noise. He got some b-roll from the roundabout, so he was happy.
He dropped the camera against his chest and unconsciously pressed the record button to stop recording, flicked the camera off, and stuck the lens cap on—one of his nervous habits.
“There’s videos of American jets taking out PLAAF planes!” a man close by screamed.
“No!” Curtain shouted back at Nick. “I haven’t done my piece-to-camera yet. Where do you want to do it?”
“Across the street. There.”
They pushed their way through the crowd and hopped over a metal barricade to get to a brick pavement lined with trees.
Nick wondered what his peers were doing. Almost every journalism student they knew was out here, somewhere. His friends Tim and Jon said they would be on the waterfront side of the LegCo building, and his other friends Henry and Beauty should be somewhere in that crowd too; he should text Beauty and see how she was doing. He said as much to Curtain, who told him to do it after his piece to camera.
Nick directed Curtain to stand in front of a metallic CITIC TOWER sign (home to the CITIC International Financial Holdings Limited who occupied the skyscraper above them) and next to a white dragon on a pedestal with its right forepaw resting on a sphere. A unique shot.
Once he got the framing just right, he gave Curtain a thumbs up and began counting down from three with his fingers.
The student reporter took a deep breath, set his shoulders back and stood up straight, exhaled, and put on a stern look of concern as he stared into the camera.
“I am here at the Legislative Complex building in Hong Kong amidst a sea of brave men and women opposing— protesting the People’s Republic of China’s invasion of Taiwan. People from all over are here—” Curtain had forgotten to breathe and gulped in air, “—are marching here, letting their voices be heard. A lot of people are also protesting the implemented— implementation of the Great Firewall, continuing the protests which have lasted the year—the entire year.”
Nick winced behind the camera. He’d never seen Curtain this nervous before, but then again, this was history in the making in a way the anti-Firewall protests hadn’t been, at least not on the same scale as this. Wars tended to escalate things to history-making status.
Behind them, the protesters began to chant.
“In front of me,” Curtain continued, stuttering every few words, “behind the camera, you can hear them chanting. I’m not sure what they’re saying, it’s hard to hear the words, but I can feel the sentiment. These are citizens— these are human beings who want a free Hong Kong, who don’t want to be under the thumb of the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party. The brave and fearless people of Hong Kong have filled the streets once more. And I don’t think these— and I don’t think the government will be able to shut down— shut these protests down.”
Curtain dropped his fake microphone and let out a huge sigh of relief. He looked at Nick, his eyes asking if that was alright or if he’d stuttered too much or made too many mistakes. Before he could respond, somebody shouted a single word that broke through the noise.
“Police!”