From the archives: Occupy insiders give their verdict on the 2014 protests
The Occupy movement marked a coming of age for Hong Kong's 'millennials', often referred to as strawberries: self-centred, faint-hearted and easily bruised. In an article originally published in 2015, Mary Hui talks to three women who helped redefine a generation
It was around 10.30pm on a Friday night in Hong Kong. Hundreds of students had gathered outside the government headquarters in Admiralty. That week, starting on Monday, September 22, thousands of students across the city had boycotted their classes to protest against a disappointing political reform proposal put forward by Beijing. Now, the city was waiting to see what would happen next: would the movement fizzle out or would it intensify?
Before the students stood a hastily erected three-metre-high fence; beyond was an open area, dubbed Civic Square by the protesters. This was what they had come to take.
Standing on the front line, Gloria Cheng Yik-lam, 20, saw a small gap in the fence suddenly open. Why is not clear, but Cheng, a member of Scholarism, a youth activist group that had played a leading role in the protests, seized on her chance and pushed forward, forcing the gap open wider, and rushed in. Others followed. Some protesters had already found their way in by scaling the fence.
"I was surrounded by police officers as soon as I entered," says Cheng, a third-year student at Chinese University who had been on protest marches before. Then someone - either a security guard or a policeman - placed a lock hold on her neck. She found it hard to breathe. Behind her, chaos was unfolding as students and the likes of lawmaker "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung tried to push their way in and the police used pepper spray to try to keep them out.
Eventually, someone managed to free Cheng, and she bolted. To evade a policewoman, she pretended to faint, crumpling to the ground. Not knowing what to do with her, and perhaps having been called away, the officer left. Cheng got up and ran to the raised circular platform at the centre of the square. There, she sat down and linked arms with about 200 other students as the police looked on.
The students had taken Civic Square.
Evelyn Char Ying-lam, 29, a freelance writer, was having drinks with a friend that evening when she found out Civic Square had been stormed. She rushed to the scene, joining students and others outside Civic Square.