Uncertain times

They say that last night's candle-lit vigil to mark the 26th anniversary of  the Tiananmen Square protests and to commemorate its victims, attracted fewer people than last year, as though it was somehow an admission of defeat. 

On the ground the event feels more like a victory though, albeit a restrained and dignified one. From Tin Hau MTR station to Victoria Park  the area is crammed with people of every demographic profile, patiently proceeding along a narrow route lined with colourful banners, women distributing leaflets, police officers, volunteers with collection boxes for the victim's of the crackdown, young men bawling into megaphones, and cheerful T-shirt vendors. The atmosphere is orderly and restrained but hot, noisy, political and electric too. I ask the women selling one distinctive yellow T-shirt decorated with black characters to explain the slogan. Her colleague turns the shirt around to reveal the English translation; "Uncertain times call for certain action."

By the time we reach the park, the assembly area is already full of thousands of people sitting, listening to the organiser's announcements with the soft glow of their candles piercing the dark night air. It is a moving spectacle and they remain dignified, defiant and determined as our procession files past into a secondary area on the Causeway Bay side of the park, where a large video screen conveys the events to the ever-swelling crowd.

This is the only place in China where a public event marking the military suppression off the Tiananmen Square student protest in 1989 would be allowed to happen and it is the first vigil since the Occupy demonstrations. It is peaceful, well organised, spontaneous and uncensored in any way. Perhaps it represents all that is best about Hong Kong and the event must be an annual thorn in the side to those dry apparatchiks of the Chinese Communist Party looking on from Beijing.

Given that many feared those idealistic young protesters in their tented settlements in Admiralty and Mon Kok might suffer the same fate as their counterparts in Beijing 26 years ago, this year's event is particularly poignant. In such uncertain times, it  seems tragic that some of the younger, more radical localist groups have boycotted the vigil as an irrelevance to Hong Kong affairs and not of their direct concern.

The unfortunate reality is that freedom of expression and civil liberty in China must be everyone's concern and this event deserves everyone's support, if only as a symbol of the distinctive identity and the essential values of Hong Kong.  

The Chinese kiss of death

Social kissing has become another version of public humiliation just waiting to happen and there seems to be no definitive guide on how to kiss in Hong Kong.

Who do you kiss and when and where? How many times and in what order?

It's painfully confusing and getting it wrong can be a social disaster.

At one exclusive  public reception at a smart hotel  in Kowloon, I was introduced to the hostess who offered such an alluring smile of welcome, that I inexplicably felt compelled to launch myself towards her for a social kiss. Stooping down and  puckering up simultaneously in a most unsightly manner, it must have made a terrifying spectacle for the poor woman.  As I aimed for her right cheek, her warm smile turned to a look of impending horror and like someone avoiding a nasty car-crash, she deftly stepped back a pace as I approached. I missed her cheek by a considerable distance and stumbling, collided heavily with a table of savoury snacks.

A simple etiquette guide would avoid this sort of social embarrassment. In France they seem to master these delicate social intimacy issues with consummate ease and  across South America people are embracing everyone like old comrades, so why are we so inhibited in this city?

One friend told me that at the conclusion of one particularly dreary private reception, he was invited to kiss his hostess's hand like a knight from the round table about to depart for battle in her honour. Instead, he left her snooty party only in search of a taxi that might transport him to to the Star Ferry.

And what about air kissing? Is that insincere or just more hygienic? What if your host or hostess is wearing a sanitary face mask?  Should you just  go for it anyway, safe in the knowledge you are unlikely to contract avian flu?

Perhaps the recent internet sensation of  "somersault kissing" should be introduced as the obligatory greeting at Hong Kong's premier social functions. For those not familiar with the popular manoeuvre, it requires one person to bend forward,  burying their head in the host's crotch. The host then flips their partner  backwards through 180 degrees by jerking violently upwards on their guest's buttocks.  If successfully implemented, the guest ends up  straddling the host's waste and is able to give them an affectionate peck on the lips.

Might be a useful ice-breaker anyway.