Cheng’s Story
I was born in Hong Kong in the 1990s and have been living here most of my life. My biological parents, however, were from the Fujian province in Mainland China, and I was raised by my Hokkien-speaking, half-Indonesian, half-Chinese grandmother until I was 18 years old – so even though I see myself as a Hong Konger, I cannot deny that I was shaped by the Chinese way of upbringing.
Back in the 1990s, Hong Kong was a source of pride for Mainlanders. Although some Hong Kong citizens emigrated during that period in fear of the handover, my family were among those who migrated from Mainland China to Hong Kong. They always told me that Hong Kong was safer, more advanced and provided more opportunity than Mainland China. I unquestioningly took their word as fact until I was a teenager. Then, I started to see the Hong Kong government’s blunders and long-standing structural faults. When I finally traveled to Shanghai in 2018 and spent some time speaking with local people and expats, I determined that the supposedly superior quality of life in Hong Kong did not live up to the hype.
That said, Hong Kong is the only Chinese city where citizens are able to use the Internet to organize mass protests, despite increased surveillance and terror. Even so, I still find myself uncomfortable with the Anti-Chinese slogans that are sometimes screamed at demonstrations. It troubles me when sentiment against the Chinese government manifests as unselective violence against Mainland Chinese people living in Hong Kong. Opinions differ: is it blind discrimination or informed self-defense? Are Hong Kongers projecting their own frustrations about China, an overwhelmingly enormous political entity, onto the Chinese people we see in our everyday lives? Doubts like these often make me wonder if we are that different from our "enemy": a totalitarian regime that disregards individuality. What exactly are we fighting for and against?
I am lucky to work in a mainly pro-Hong Kong environment because I know some people have to hide their political inclination or risk being reported, sacked, or disqualified from their license. My mother, for example, works in a pro-China company. Her views swing between pro-China and pro-Hong Kong–sometimes she laments the protestors, and sometimes she complains about the police–so she always has to be careful with her words.
Occasionally, I find myself walking with her on days that are disrupted by protests. On bad days, I am not always able to contain myself. I know it hurts her to see me getting irritable at political matters and taking to the street. She used to be hesitant when I told her that I wanted to travel and try living abroad, but she also wants me to take good care of myself, and now she has become more open to it. "If that would make you happier", she says. "The world is far bigger than Hong Kong."
For more about Cheng, follow her on Facebook.
Artist Notes
“Cheng is a Hong Konger who acknowledges her Chinese upbringing. She is pro-Hong Kong and challenges bigotry against Hong Kongers by Mainland Chinese, but also talks about Hong Kong’s imperfections. I chose to represent this conflict in the form of a fabric made of different threads and patterns. These patterns represent different cultures, languages, people and provinces. No nation is permanently the same, its borders are fluid over time, and it is constantly changing. This fact is represented in the image by the circular patterns incorporated into the fabric, symbolizing fluidity. On the right side of the image, there is a small square fabric that has many hands around it, indicating pro-Hong Kongers fighting for its secession, and pro-Chinese fighting for its accession. ”
Published May 1, 2020
Updated Oct 25, 2022
