Letters | Hong Kong protester’s attack on mainland banker belies city’s aspirations to be a free and democratic society

Hitting a man for expressing an unpopular view is no defence of freedom of expression. The inconvenient truth is that there are people with different perspectives being silenced for fear of threats and doxxing

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A screen shot from a video of a JPMorgan banker, holding his lunchbox, just before he was punched so hard, he lost his glasses, on October 4. To Hong Kong’s shame, no one in the crowd on onlookers came to his defence. Photo: Handout

Published: 7:25am, 9 Oct 2019Updated: 7:25am, 9 Oct 2019

A video clip showing a mainland Chinese man who works in Central being beaten up by a complete stranger in the middle of the day immediately went viral among us mainland Chinese in Hong Kong.

The poor man still had his lunchbox in his hands when he was attacked, after having been cornered by journalists and harassed by surrounding protesters who chanted “go back to the mainland”. He remained relatively composed throughout the entire interaction with journalists and protesters, and his statement “we are all Chinese”, which seemed to be the immediate cause of the attack afterwards, was far from combative.

People refer to us new immigrants with mainland roots, who moved here to study or work temporarily, as gangpiao (harbour drifters). Although we gangpiao are no longer strangers to the increasingly hostile atmosphere in offices and classrooms, getting beaten up on a work day in the central business district takes the animosity to a different level.

Before the protests turned violent, on any other day, the people who cheered this act on the street and those who condoned it would have been people we were crammed alongside in narrow seats in overpriced restaurants for lunch, students we went to school with or colleagues we worked with on the same deal. If we thought that the usual politeness and enlightenment of a high-end office environment in Central would affect those who inhabit it, clearly, we were wrong.

Unlike Hong Kong locals or mainland immigrants who live here permanently with their family, gangpiao are relative newcomers. We are a minority that lack access to political, corporate and religious allies.