Opinion | What’s eating Hong Kong’s young protesters? Maybe it’s the city’s elitist culture

Hong Kong is a city with narrow definitions of success, which is fine if you are a straight-A student. But what happens to those young people who don’t feel validated by a dominant book-smart culture?

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A young protester in Tamar holds a placard that says “Carrie Lam is not my mother”. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 1:00pm, 28 Jun 2019Updated: 7:22pm, 28 Jun 2019

In a video that recently surfaced online, a young man in a surgical mask is seen in Revenue Tower, repeatedly preventing lift doors from closing. Presumably, this was a follow-up to the anti-extradition protests outside the Legislative Council and police headquarters, another obstructionist tactic to put pressure on the government.

A squabble breaks out in the video between an older man and the masked young man, who responds at one point: “I haven’t gone to school for a long time.” His tone sounds bitter and spiteful.

It isn’t exactly clear what he is responding to, or trying to communicate. But to a psychologist, such an emotionally charged remark will always invite curiosity and reflection. In a way, I think he has put words to the fear and discontent of some of Hong Kong’s marginalised millennials.

Although society has become polarised and some extreme actions have been witnessed on both sides, I understand protests in the past month have largely been peaceful and disciplined. It isn’t my intention to take sides; what is more interesting to me is what motivates human behaviour.

Despite Hongkongers’ complicated relationship with China, Hong Kong remains a society where old Chinese cultural assumptions die hard. In ancient China, few were as hallowed as the scholar. Numerous stories glorified people who studied hard to attain exalted status.

In modern Hong Kong, tiger parents subscribe to an elitism that is a cultural legacy of the meritocratic examination system in imperial China. It is a myth passed down from one generation to the next, and an unexamined fear among Chinese people: if you don’t do well in school, you won’t do well in life.

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