Ringing in 2020 from Hong Kong

Protest slogan found near Victoria park. They had a massive demonstration nearby on New Years day.

It’s January 1, 2020 and I just dropped off my friend Xiao Yi at her bus that’ll take her back home to ShenZhen. It feels a little lonely sitting by my hotel window above Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong. I thought it would be weird to write a New Years blog post without mentioning the circumstances of this particular New Years in this particular place. Despite the fact that Hong Kong has been embroiled in pro-democracy anti-government protests for the past couple of months, it’s been an oddly normal vacation.

Hong Kong night lights near Central, I think I was honestly expecting more neon lights, but many of them seem to have been replaced by LED lights.

For those of you wondering, I booked my plane tickets in the summer when most people (including Hong Kong natives) thought that the peaceful protests would blow over in a few weeks and everything would go back to normal.

Walking along the beach near Stanley. Chill area with lots of tourists.

And for the most part, everything seems pretty normal from the point of view of a tourist. People are on the streets going to work, tourists are going shopping, everyone is going about their lives without much disruption from what I’ve seen these past few days. There are however, if you look past the busy streets and bright lights, signs that reveal how things aren’t fine, from the spray paint that graces the street with words like “fuck the popo,” to cardboard panels that cover what used to be glass store fronts, to the strategic closure of certain subway entrances, and the riot police that lined the streets on New Years Eve.

Almost all of the stations along Nathan Road were tagged with anti-police sentiments.

Which when I go and list it out, it sounds pretty extreme, but unless you’re at the site of the actual demonstrations (which aren’t widespread enough to just stumble upon) I’m not sure visitors would notice that anything was too off.

2020 marks the 25 year that I’ll have had the pleasure to live on our planet Earth. In the past decade I’ve graduated high school and college, got my first job. Moved to Kansas, Boston, and Yokohama. Traveled to Canada, California, China, Germany, and all over Japan.

As a 15 year old I had just moved from Long Island, New York to Leawood, Kansas. I was awkward and bad at making friends, so I spent most of my time hanging out with my brother and my online game friends.

Throughout most of my time in high school, lunchtime was an anxiety inducing event. Whether that was trying to find people to sit with, or trying to find a place where people would leave me alone. In class, teachers knew me as the quiet kid. I remember skipping out on model UN because it was easier to pretend like I didn’t want to do it than it was to find a group to join.

10 years later and I’m not sure exactly how much better at making friends I’ve gotten, but I definitely think that I’ve become much braver. Brave enough to move to Japan. Brave enough to put my ideas out there in Japanese. Brave enough to travel on my own, in Okinawa and now here in Hong Kong. Brave enough to live my life in the way that I want to live it.

Present day, I still often find myself beating me up for making mistakes and being awkward. But as I’m writing this and reflecting back on the past 10 years, I hope that in the next 10 I’ll find the compassion to be kinder to myself. Here’s to another decade of being brave. Happy 2020.

Trying one of the many bubble tea places in the area.