Author: Blackbeard

“What does Hong Kong mean to you?”

Due to the city’s changing social and political environment, Hong Kong has become a place many in the foreseeable future may not be able to return to. The question – “What does Hong Kong mean to you?” – is Blue Island’s central question, and is a complex one filled with mixed emotions, particularly for those who have fled and have been forced into exile, and also for the numerous families who no longer see a future for the next generation.

Blue Island tells the recent history of Hong Kong by interlaying three of its most important periods: China’s 1970s Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the 2019 Protest movement. The director, Chan Tze Woon, follows several protagonists who were deeply influenced by these times of cultural, political, and social upheaval. He also casted young HongKongers to reenact and narrate the protagonists’ memories and experiences. Reenactment in documentaries is a risky endeavour, as it may cause confusion to the viewers and take away the authenticity of the story. However, the interweaving of stories and memories seamlessly integrates the struggles, reflections and emotions of the generations both past and present. In this way, the enmeshment of storytelling and historical revisitation symbolizes how the boundary between imagination and reality – our memories, experiences and emotions – are often transfused together in a liminal space. Our history affects our present, and our actions today change the future.

The Great Leaps in the Flow of Time

The film’s historical journey begins in 1973 with a flashback of the film’s first protagonist Chan Hak-Chi and his wife as they flee through the mountains from China’s Cultural Revolution. In hopes of a better life, they swam many miles through the rough sea in the dark of night. As Chan dives into the water, the film cuts to present day Hong Kong, where he is now over 70 years old but still continues to swim in the Victoria Harbour as a daily ritual. One wonders what he thinks as he swims through the harbour. Is this ritual Chan’s way to commemorate and mourn for the homeland he left behind, for the brothers and sisters who lost their lives during the journey? Chan showed up even during a level 8 typhoon, recalling that he experienced a level 8 typhoon the day he arrived in Hong Kong all those years ago. His resilience and persistence embody the spirit of Hongkongers, who do not give up even in the face of death.

Two young Hongkongers, Anson Sham (b.1997) and Siu Ying (b. 1999) reenacted life in the village during the Cultural Revolution. Their roles as historical reenactors illuminated for the youngsters the truth of what happened – based on movies or history books many had of the Revolution otherwise. During the Revolution, intellectuals were forced into rural areas to farm. Government officials would host town hall meetings to promote Chairman Mao’s teachings. Eventually, Chan, along with many other youngsters at the time, chose to escape. But leaving also required courage, the willingness to be uprooted and to start from scratch in a foreign land. As Chan and his wife climb over the last mountaintop and see the promised land of Hong Kong, did they ever imagine that they would be on the streets decades years later in 2019, protesting against the Extradition Bill, having to once again fight for freedom and justice? The brutal violence that occurred throughout the recent 2019 protests reminded Chan of their own escape all those years ago. 

The thing that remained the same for Chan and his wife is the love between them as they held each other’s hands through the fear and uncertainty, a bond that cannot be broken when two people have experienced death and life together. 

The Struggle between Memory and Forgetting

As the story turns towards Kenneth Fong, a Hong Kong student who took part in the 1989 protest, it is undeniable that lessons have not been learned. Fong was in Tiananmen Square when the tanks moved in on the protesters on the night of May 35th. 

Fong would gather every year with fellow protestors to hold a vigil in memory of those who had been killed that night. A friend told him recently, “I have been taking medicine these days, so [things have] been better.” This simple conversation revealed the trauma still embedded in their lives. Though the violence they witnessed may never be washed away with time, one can hold these memories and stories and carry them towards a more hopeful future. As Fong attends his university reunion, he sees the next generation of young activists like Sham and he says, “We owe you too much. We owe your generation too much.” Fong repeated something similar during the annual vigil for the Tiananmen Massacre. At the sight of young protesters waving flags and chanting slogans across the park, he expressed, “Wow, they are really powerful.” 

It is clear as the audience sees Fong’s daily work and routine that he has never stopped caring for the city or the people around him. He is one of the few lawyers still willing to help protesters in court. But no matter how much he does to support Hong Kong’s fight for freedom and democracy, he seems to carry a sense of guilt, unable to forget those he left behind, saying, “those who came back all seem to be very lonely.” A similar sentiment might be found in Hong Kong’s exiles and diaspora, especially as they leave behind those who stood in the frontline, who used their bodies to shield others from tear gas, rubber bullets, who are imprisoned for staying behind. It’s as though the hole in our heart is impossible to fill, no matter how much we do. I have met a number of young protestors who worked various positions on the frontlines; from mentoring to parenting to logistical support to first aid to driving, no matter what role they played, the uncertainty about whether or not they made the correct decision to leave still lingers. These questions are on a daily loop in their minds, but there is in the end no point in dwelling on the past. We have to believe that we have given it our all in our fight for freedom. 

“The struggle of man against power is
the struggle of memory against forgetting”

~ Milan Kundera 

The final figure in the film concerns Raymond Yeung, a controversial left-wing protestor who was imprisoned for promoting propaganda against British colonial rule in the 1960s. Today, he is a successful Chinese businessman and a role-model for Chinese patriots, donating millions upon millions to relief aid in his contributions to China. The film includes a clip of Yeung speaking at Beichuan Middle School, the site that incurred the heaviest number of casualties during the Sichuan Earthquake in 2008. Ironically, a banner that reads, “Never Forget History” hangs over the auditorium. In reality, Beichuan Middle School has been completely demolished. As though it never existed, the old site is now a field of green grass. Many of the area’s residents are being driven out, their homes replaced by high-end hotels as the city moves towards becoming a model tourist destination. This pattern of erasing and rewriting history in a desire to glorify itself seems to be a common tactic of the CCP.

In one of the film’s reenactment scenes, a British officer questions a young Raymond Yeung (played by Kelvin Tam, a 24-year-old protestor who has been arrested and is currently waiting for trial), “You grow up in our colony, you study in our schools. Why are you fighting against us?” It is notable that a similar question is also asked of today’s protestors, “You live in our country, you are educated in our schools. You are Chinese. Why are you fighting against us?” Tam-as-Yeung responds, “I am a HongKonger. Hong Kong is my home, not China.” This scene is moving because it hits close to home. Tam now sits where Yeung once sat – in a cell. The parallel between the actor and the businessman is uncanny. Imprisoned, Yeung only needed to confess his crimes in order to walk free, but he didn’t believe that it was a crime to love his own country. He “committed no crime, I told myself, I must be right.” 

One would think that Yeung would understand where Tam was coming from - Yeung himself had fought for his beliefs and paid the price of imprisonment. So why does he support the government today? What happened? The story is not as simple as it seems. The left-wing patriots who were arrested then were sentenced. They lived with a criminal record. After they were released, their criminal record made integrating back into society a nightmare, as many were unable to find work due to the bias against ex-convicts. In the film, Yeung sighs and says, “We have become the forgotten ones of the riot.”

Responding to the Signs of the Times

I remember asking the young protestors and families who have to go into exile, whether they regretted making the decision to be involve in the movement, their responses to me were similar, “I have never really thought about this question. I just feel that Hong Kong is my home. Since it is my home, I have the obligation to defend it. Even if I were to choose all over again, given what I know would happen today, it still would not change my original intend.” If we do not stand up when the signs of the time call us, we will not ever get another chance and will be forever silenced. 

“Hong Kong is trying its best not to decay, but all it can do is slow down the decoy, but not being able to stop it.”  In the end, it is not about the results but about doing what is right, but in the face of injustice and oppression, we still stand against and confront it,  stand for those who are being oppressed and hurt, being the lone voice for the voiceless.

It is important to document, record and narrate the stories of and people behind the movement, not only the stories of well-known reporters, activists and leaders but also the stories of ordinary citizens – young, elderly, and even the anonymous who are a part of the movement.  Without memories, there can be no present and no hope for the future; Without memory of home, there will be no longing for homecoming. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author states that forgetfulness is the temptation for the exilic and homeless condition,

“The one who forgets to come back has forgotten the home he or she came from and where he or she is going… One who forgets, forgets everything, including the roads leaving homeward. Forgetting marks the end of human experience, and of longing too.” 

The biblical Israelites and even the present-day Jewish community have also experienced trauma, exile and displacement throughout history. Through their past, we see the importance of lament, storytelling and remembering. These disciplines are essential to the remaking, rebuilding and reimagining of our (cultural) identity. At critical moments of history, the peoples recited their hymns and psalms, reminding their tribe where they had been, the suffering and hardship they had experienced, but also how they have always been preserved. Theologian Brian Walsh writes,

“Nostalgia is that of imaginatively re-visioning and re-placing both memory and home. This is a reparative kind of nostalgia because it is a remembering that refuses to cover up the brokenness of the past, the painful and even home-destroying memories.”

As the city cleans up, places of remembrance vanish as well. As the residents and return to their ordinary lives and rhythm. Lennon walls are taken down and the bulletin boards in universities slowly disappear. The freedom of speech grows more limited day by day. However, one thing we learned from the Umbrella Movement in 2014 is that people’s beliefs and true emotions will not fade away, just hidden amongst the ashes. 

“We had lost our old city forever, and our old selves along with that. 

We had no choice but to reinvent ourselves.”

-- Louisa Lim,《Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong》

What Hongkongers can do now, in Hong Kong or those overseas, is to become the firekeepers, our knowledge keepers, the culture makers. We can continue to record and narrate the stories of what we learned and pass them onto the next generation. So that memories and histories won’t be manipulated or erased by those in power. We can continue to support and remember those who are imprisoned or trapped and those who had to flee to a foreign land, so that they won’t become the “forgotten ones of the riot.” We can continue to reflect on questions about our identity and our home, re-imagine our community and our common future, what is really means to be a HongKonger.

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. When the change of the tides comes, these little embers will ignite and become wildfires once again.

“What does it mean to be a HongKonger now?

“Hong Kong is our roots. It is the people, the HongKongers who make Hong Kong.”

The last few moments of the film are one of the most powerful. Silently, the camera captures the students, protesters, activists, documentarians, reporters, elected councillors, legislators. One cannot help but connect with their eyes while also wanting to look away, feeling a deep wave of emotion. “We just owe you all too much.”

Blue Island 憂鬱之島
97 mins｜Colour
2022 | Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan
Director: Chan Tze Woon
Winner: Hotdocs 2022 Best International Feature Documentary Award, CAAMFEST COMFAST XFINITY Documentary Competition Award and three awards from TIDF.

【 BLUE ISLAND in Canada】

BLUE ISLAND has 7 screenings at TED ROGERS Cinema in Toronto, and at VIFF Center in Vancover

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Screening in Toronto

📍 Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema

Ticketing：https://hotdocs.ca/whats-on/films/blue-island

📅
JUN 24 (FRI) - 16:00
JUN 25 (SAT) - 18:30
JUN 27 (MON) - 18:30
JUN 28 (TUE) - 16:00
JUN 29 (WED) - 16:00, 20:45
JUN 30 (THU) - 18:30

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Screening in Vancouver

📍 VIFF Centre
Ticketing：https://viff.org/whats-on/blue-island/

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JUL 1 (FRI) - 17:45
JUL 2 (SAT) - 14:00 18:50
JUL 3 (SUN) - 14:00
JUL 4 (MON) - 20:30
JUL 5 (TUE) - 18:00
JUL 7 (THU) - 20:10