'It's not fun': Occupy protester tells of sacrifices in the name of democracy
"When it’s hot it’s killing you, when it’s cold it’s killing you, when it rains it’s miserable too, and you have to walk such a long distance just to have a shower," says protester Vincent Lam.
Vincent Lam Ngo-hin has worn out two pairs of shoes since the beginning of the Occupy Central protests a month ago. Now he is wearing a pair of well-used black flip-flops, bought near the protest zone in Admiralty.
Like many other protest stalwarts Lam has to walk considerable distances each day for basic needs and to help care for others. The 19-year-old’s favourite Nike trainers were torn on October 13, when hundreds of anti-Occupy people – including about 50 burly masked men dressed in black – tried to remove barricades set up by the protesters.
Lam, a freelance audio engineer, found himself at the forefront of the confrontation as the men used cable cutters to sever plastic cords holding the barricades together at the junction of Queensway and Cotton Tree Drive. He was wrestled to the ground and beaten, he says.
More than two weeks later, he still has bruises on his arms, legs and ribs to prove it. “I grew up being beaten by others so I didn’t care,” says Lam, who quit school at the age of 17 and admits to a rough background.
“But there were ladies and students. I had to get up and protect them.”
The gangly teenager joined the pro-democracy sit-in on Harcourt Road in Admiralty on September 27 – a day before Occupy Central leaders declared that the occupation had begun. He says he got involved for the future of Hong Kong and because he dislikes Beijing and Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying for betraying the city.