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?

Bertie Wai

Published: 1:00pm, 28 Jun 2019

Why you can trust SCMP

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.

When will Hong Kong realise that its exam-focused culture is failing children?

Grades are signifiers of individual differences, they are categories students are slotted into, and they presumably tell our children how good, smart and worthwhile they are. If you are top of your class, you win praise and are reassured of your worth. But what about those who don’t make it to the top 10, 20 or 30 per cent?

Erich Fromm, world-renowned psychoanalyst and author of The Art of Loving, writes insightfully about an existential problem the human race has faced since our expulsion from Eden, which is a metaphor for an undifferentiated psychological state. A central thesis of the book is that our awareness of our aloneness and separateness arouses intense anxiety.

Anxiety is inherently uncomfortable, and our instinct is to do away with it. One way humans mitigate the existential anxiety aroused by our separateness is through union with a group. In a group, the individual’s sense of separateness recedes, replaced by a sense of belonging. By conforming to a group mentality and identity, the individual is spared the frightening experience of being utterly alone.

If you belong to a group already validated by the dominant culture in society, you have some buffer against the existential anxiety of separateness, as you will find yourself fitting in with others who subscribe to the same values. You feel safe and secure.

Protesters raise their hands as they block an entrance to Revenue Tower on June 24. To the disenfranchised, a common discontent about a grim future could form a basis for a sense of belonging. Photo: Bloomberg

For example, if you are book-smart, get good grades, go to an elite school and hold down a professional job, you might still have problems, but they are unlikely to include the fear of not being validated by the mainstream culture. However, what about those who don’t feel validated by the book-smart culture? What recourse do they have?

When a city turns its police on our children, our trust is shattered

I am not saying troublemakers are the ones who don’t succeed in school, or vice versa. That would be a gross generalisation. But a common discontent about a grim future and a fear of a lack of opportunity do form a common basis for a sense of belonging and a group identity. It might not be explicitly spoken of, but it is definitely in our marginalised youth’s DNA.

As a society, we have a responsibility to think of young people who don’t find school particularly interesting, or who have little aptitude for written assignments and exams. In Hong Kong now, education by and large still means structured learning and it is disproportionately limited to reading, writing and arithmetic.

Yet, the human brain is capable of a lot more than that. Howard Gardner, an internationally known cognitive psychologist, puts forth a theory of multiple intelligences. In one version of his theory, he holds that there are eight separate intelligences: musical, linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinaesthetic, naturalistic and spatial. As a culture, however, we are disproportionately rewarding people in too few spheres of intelligence.

In Aristotle’s Politics, a good polis or city state helps citizens achieve their potential. In this sense, there is room for Hong Kong to improve as a polis, in much the same way that there is room for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to improve as a “mother”. Children want to feel nurtured by their parents, just as citizens want to feel supported by their city.

Dr Bertie Wai is a bilingual clinical psychologist at Beautiful Mind Therapy and Family Services in Central. She provides therapy to children, teens, adults and couples, as well as parenting consultation

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: HK’s elitist culture is to blame for its discontented youth

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