Social media post on the HK situation

As those of us on the list must know by now, the social media in China has been dead for a while. No one dares to post anything “politically sensitive” anymore. But I saw this singular post from a Chinese artist (and a WeChat friend) yesterday and managed to take a snapshot of it before it’s gone. The original appears below, and the translation is as follows:

Wang Wei (not sure who that is, perhaps a pseudonym) writes, “I am not optimistic about this movement. There won’t be a surprise at the end. ‘It’ takes one step after another, until Hong Kong is cornered into the turning point it wants. ‘It’ intends to thoroughly humiliate this city, peeling off its past independence and glory. The number of one million demonstrators means nothing to ‘it.’ For the soul of this city, this is a matter of life or death. The hope of changing reality through reason, held by the youths, will be smashed this time. This is a public prosecution of this city. Some will emigrate; some will kneel; some will be driven into “desperate audacity,” obtaining futureless subjectivities from negation, hatred, and nihilism. Perhaps this will become the 8×8 (June 4th) of this city, and the end of its soul. This is an ongoing urban tragedy.

Best Regards,
Chang Tan
Penn State University

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