The game changes: as Occupy sites are cleared, Hong Kong's democracy protesters go 'shopping'
As the clearance of Occupy sites at Admiralty begins, new forms of spontaneous and leaderless protest are starting to emerge
The "shopping tour" protest in Mong Kok on Tuesday night appeared at first as if it had lost steam. Only a tiny crowd showed up at the usual starting point, outside the Broadway Cinema on Sai Yeung Choi Street South.
Most of the younger "shoppers", whose numbers could grow to 200 each night, were nowhere in sight. Instead, a counter-protest group lurked nearby.
But then the "shoppers" popped up suddenly, right behind the counter-protesters and hurled sarcasm-laced chants at them.
Each night, the protesters turn on its head a call by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying for the public to shop more in Mong Kok, after the two-month-long street occupation was cleared on November 26. They show up to do just that - except that they only buy a few, inexpensive items and mostly walk up and down the pavements, singing and shouting slogans.
Sarcasm infuses the "shopping tour" as protesters shout "gau wu", a Cantonese transliteration of Putonghua's gou wu or "to shop". The expression became popular after a mainland tourist who joined an early anti-Occupy rally told a reporter she was there to shop.
This new form of demonstrating may just be the beginning of more to come as pro-democracy activists experiment with new ways to continue their fight after Occupy. The key features of the "shopping tour" protest - spontaneous, leaderless, sporadic and possibly skating on thin legal ice - give a hint of the emerging forms of social activism in post-Occupy Hong Kong.