50 years on, Hong Kong protest pioneer has no regrets (but he’s got no time for today’s radicals)

Fifty years ago today, dressed in a turtleneck sweater, black jacket and dark sunglasses, a reedy 25-year-old staged a hunger strike outside the Star Ferry pier’s concourse in Central.

So Sau-chung, a translator, was protesting at the fare increase for the boat ride between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui, back then a vital link between the two areas.

His defiance drew sympathy from some members of the public. But it was his arrest the following day that prompted thousands to take to the streets of Kowloon in violent protest.

It sparked one of the biggest disturbances in Hong Kong’s recent history and led to an official inquiry, which admitted a chasm existed between the colonial government and the people. Fifty years on, the pioneer of social protest in Hong Kong has no regrets.

“My actions have awakened many young people since then and to some extent what I did had inspired the social movements in the 1970s,” So told the South China Morning Post in an interview last week.

But So, who became a Buddhist monk in 1996, slammed the activists involved in the Occupy Central protests and advocates of Hong Kong independence.