My Take | Mourning the queen may be a protest for many

By now, you have probably seen pictures of Hong Kong residents queuing for hours to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth outside the British consulate in Admiralty. Or perhaps you were one of the mourners.

One video clip of a young woman who cried and wailed herself to exhaustion has gone viral. It was quite unbelievable. I wonder if she would feel so emotional if her own parents or grandparents died.

Fortunately, it’s not known that any recently emigrated BN (O)ers have mourned so violently outside Buckingham Palace, otherwise it would have been really embarrassing among the more reserved Britons.

As reported in the foreign press, it’s probably true that a good deal of the public display of grief is actually a protest. By paying tribute to a British monarch, the mourners are thumbing their noses at Beijing. And police can’t do anything about it.

But while I don’t share their grief, I can understand it. An article in the current issue of Nature, the science journal, explains how people can identify with someone they have never met such as a celebrity, and grieve over their passing.