Lanterns, torches, mobile phone, and all sorts of light-emitting devices filled the borders of Lion Rock and VictoriaPeak in Hong Kong, a combination of celebration and protest for Hong Kong residents.
Marking the start of the Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong, families gather around, watch the moonlight together, eat mooncakes, and let children swing their colorful lanterns to fill the night with light.
But as we all know about the current situation of Hong Kong were protests are everywhere, they still found a peaceful yet meaningful way to celebrate this yearly event. Equipped with anything that emits light such as mobile phones, laser lights, LED lights, light torches and, traditional fire lanterns, a huge number of Hong Kong protesters echoed the similar 28-mile human chain protest last August.
United we stand
A surrounding call filled the night as the protesters joined arms and chanted “Stand with Hong Kong, fight for freedom”.
Freedom from control and granting Hong Kong autonomy, a far cry from what the government is gearing for right now. The Sino-British agreement of 1984, granting autonomy for Hong Kong has been in question due to the issue on the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement.
The bill has been withdrawn for now but the government still draws flak from the ire of protesters now on several other issues concerning police brutality, democratic reforms, and other social issues.
As if to console the crowd, Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, posted on social media her intention of addressing a more important issue which is the job and rental issues in the country.
Housing is the priority of people’s livelihood. The Government’s measures to increase the supply of housing will only come in the next step.” as stated by the leader on her social media post.
Hong Kong government’s response to the housing problem
As the government’s bill to implement the vacant tax bill is yet to be published, the new 6 Housing policy measures are in place at the end of June, and the other 5 are:
(1) the price of flats will be delinked from market property prices;
(2) change 9 private buildings to public housing;
(3) the municipal authority is selling the “First place” project;
(4) the housing authority will set up a transitional housing task force to speed up the progress of various projects;
(5) Improve the pre-sale of “completed flats” to prevent developers from selling buildings.
This is quite a good move on the part of the government to ease out the tension after the series of protests that hit Hong Kong recently. As a whole, Lam has carried the situation pretty well as a leader. She even expressed guilt and responsibility for the havoc caused by the protests in her city.
Things are going back to normal in Hong Kong and we just hope that it will always stay this way for this country.
