Letters | Hong Kong protests: how a stranger’s offer of a lift home restored my faith in the city

My family has made Hong Kong our home for five generations. As I try and process the barbaric scenes playing out on our streets, it is clear to me that the Hong Kong I have proudly boasted of to outsiders for many decades is no longer one that I have any connection with. I have empathy for the people of Hong Kong, who deserve to have more certainty over their future, but the cowardly, degenerate thugs who rampage through our streets are from a world totally unrecognisable to me.

I was standing on the Central MTR platform on October 4 when services were suspended. Emerging onto the street with many others, confronted by an eerie absence of any form of transport, I decided to head on foot towards Happy Valley in the hope of flagging down a taxi.

This walk was not pleasant. The streets, devoid of vehicles, were a sea of young dressed in the livery of battle, with clusters of press in protective gear. I felt like I was walking through a movie set. From Admiralty, down Queen’s Road East, I eventually reached the intersection by the racecourse. I was very weary and had discovered that my business shoes were not great for urban hiking.