Author of book on Occupy protests criticises localists as ‘distraction’
Jason Ng, writer of Umbrellas in Bloom, first English-language account of 2014 protests in which he took part, says they were one step in a long fight for democracy, and likens students’ turn to radical localism to ‘grief management’
Jason Ng, a lawyer and SCMP.com blogger who has written the first book in English about Hong Kong’s 2014 “umbrella revolution” occupation of major roads in pursuit of full democracy, talks about his love for the city, local politics and his heartache at seeing students to whom he gave free law lectures at the protests take the same radical localist path as barred legislators Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus “Baggio” Leung Chung-hang.
SCMP.com: What’s your book Umbrellas in Bloom: Hong Kong’s Occupy Movement Uncovered about?
Jason Ng: It’s the last of a trilogy on the post-colonial development of Hong Kong. The first one, Hong Kong State of Mind: 37 views of a city that doesn’t blink, is a light-hearted book, poking fun at bizarre phenomena in the city and waxing nostalgic about the 1970s and ’80s when I was growing up in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong then was not angry like now.
The second one, No City for Slow Men: Hong Kong’s Quirks and Quandaries Laid Bare, published in 2013, adopted a more sombre tone as it was already one year into the administration of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. Chaos started to reign in society. So the book studies problems afflicting Hong Kong like real estate hegemony and poverty among the elderly.
The new one chronicles the reasons for the “umbrella movement”[also known as Occupy Central] and its development, and reviews the movement.
