Activist Edward Leung on Localism in Hong Kong

To listen to our June 6, 2016 Subversity Show Online interview with Edward Leung, click here.
2018 June update: Edward Leung was sentenced to a draconian six years in prison in June, 2018. Just prior to that, he wrote some thoughts on Facebook.   

Edward Leung Tin-kei (梁天琦) is a key Hong Kong localist activist who was barred from running in the recent Legislative Council elections that nonetheless resulted in fellow localists gaining seats, keeping alight the flame for self determination and even independence.  He would likely have won a seat too if he wasn't banned.

When I interviewed the Indigenous Party spokesman in June, 2016, a few days after his 25th birthday, while he expressed he would likely run in the 3 September 2016 Hong Kong Legislative Council elections, little did I expect him to go through the motions of retracting his commitment to the cause of Hong Kong independence in an ultimately abortive attempt to qualify for the election (he was still banned), nor did I expect him to be pushed to the ground in a "scuffle" with a Ta Kung Pao reporter last month.  However, he likely remains committed to the independence cause.

Edward Leung interviewed 6 June 2016 at HKU Starbucks.  Photos © Daniel C. Tsang 2016

The Subversity Show Online interview in June reveals this bright Hong Kong University philosophy student as articulate and forthright when asked about his views on Hong Kong independence.  In June, I was in Hong Kong attending a library sustainability conference, and had heard him speak the previous Saturday at an alternative June 4 forum at HKU, where he was one of five speakers (one from each generation of activism).  There, he eloquently explained in Cantonese why as a longtime Hong Kong resident (he came as a young kid from Wuhan) he identified as a Hong Konger and believed, as did the other panelists, that it was more important for Hong Kong people to discuss Hong Kong's future, rather than China's, which they saw as just meddling in local affairs. Leung, after all, had won an amazing 66,524 votes when he ran last March in a by-election (he didn't win), proving that his views have huge resonance among the population, especially those around his age (he's 25).

In the interview he describes how he became radicalized when he saw his friends beaten up (bloodied) by the police in earlier local protests.  He speaks out against the unfairness of immigration policies allowing Chinese nationals to be admitted to Hong Kong without Hong Kong government vetting (only China does it).   His group is known for demonstrating against mainlanders but he explained that the purpose was aimed at stopping parallel traders and smugglers.  While he himself came from Wuhan, China at age 1, his mom spoke to him in Cantonese from his arrival in Hong Kong, even though her Cantonese wasn't very good.  That is why he identifies as a Hong Kong person, he explained.

As for politics in general, he saw the decline of social leaders, such as Joshua Wong nowadays, when he "doesn't have the same influence". According to Leung, people criticize him (Joshua Wong) as changing his political ideology, seeing independence as "no use", but he later changed his stance, now advocating self determination. 

Ironically he expected people to criticize himself as well in future.  As for his earlier by-election vote totals, he was surprised as he thought he was more radical than the public but he got more and more support.  He explained what happened during the Mongkok protests (for which he has been arrested) and what led to it.  Police actually allowed them to remain with the hawkers but later the riot squad showed up and some people argued they were there to enjoy the food.  He was eating when a disturbance broke up, with the police declaring an "illegal assembly". 

He says he was charged with "rioting"  after the police shot two bullets into the air.  People were beaten up and people started to retreat.  We could "smell the gunpowder" and people became more angry.  He sees the potential sentence of five years as "quite harsh".

As for government surveilance he says he has heard "weird voices" on his phone. He believes that publicity or the media coverage is the only way to protect the activists.  Apps like Telegram are not safe enough; Firechat is not very useful.

On campus he has protested against the Hong Kong University Council head, with a class boycott on top of getting involved in the elections, thus missing more than half of the semester, but his department at HKU has helped him to rearrange his schedule so he could still complete his studies.  He still had one summer semester after our interview.

--  Daniel C. Tsang

“Breathin’ ”: Guangzhou Immigrant Eddy Zheng’s Inspiring Story

For a KUCI Subversity Online interview (recorded 22 April 2016) with Eddy Zheng, director Ben Wang and composer Scott “Chops” Jung, click here:

Eddy Zheng

One could say that Eddy Zheng (left) made something of himself despite being incarcerated at San Quentin prison for 19 years plus another two in immigration detention.   The Cantonese immigrant from Guangzhou, China, was only 16 when he waved a gun and participated in a home invasion.  

While he buffed up his body from careful exercise, he also took care of his mind. Reading about Asian American and other people of color struggles in the prison library – led him to enhance the collection as he managed to get the prison authorities to add many more books on such struggles.  He petitioned the authorities to implement Asian American studies in prison – instead he got put in solitary confinement – the hole – as punishment for daring to ask that.

Ben Wang, director

In the meantime, he earned an associate degree by enrolling in a prison program. And through it all, the activist community reached out to him, offering him support even as he got turned down repeatedly by the parole board, until the last time, which was successful.  But then he was placed in immigration detention because he was not able to apply for citizenship while incarcerated.

In the end, it was through a gubernatorial pardon (from California Governor Jerry Brown) that led to his deportation case being ended.  Eventually he was officially released in 2007.   Now free, he managed to get San Quentin to implement Asian American studies.

This man, now 47, remains committed to community service, and through an intermediary, successfully reached out to the mother he victimized when he was 16, with his written apology (in Chinese) accepted.

Scott "Chops" Jung, composer

Director Ben Wang (above, right) has put together a tightly edited documentary, "Breathin': The Eddy Zheng Story," on the power of reconciliation and redemption and about how writers like Helen Zia (author of Asian American Dreams and other works) inspired this inmate to commit his life to community work, while even within the dark recesses of solitary confinement. 

The film screened twice at the 2016 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.  -- Daniel C. Tsang.

 Photography © Daniel C. Tsang 2016.

Trailer for Breathin': the Eddy Zheng Story from Ben Wang on Vimeo.

Here's also a Cantonese audio interview found online:

A Comedic Take at Immigration Travails from the Philippines - A Film Review

"Toto" tells the story of a Manila hotel worker who seeks every way to get a visa to America.  Sid Lucero plays Antonio Estares, the Toto in the film, who in his jovial and friendly self tries to flirt his way with hotel guests – all with U.S. passports – to try to get one to sponsor him on his American Dream.   

This comedic look at the hopes of many outside U.S. to get to the land of many dreams exposes the harsh reality that without money, such a dream often becomes a nightmare.  The very hetero Toto even gets cruised by an American tourist staying in the hotel - will he succumb and sleep with the American just to get a chance at a visa?  

 The film tackles his dilemma (and that of the American) in an unexpected way.  Instead of depicting the American David Yeltsin (played by Blake Boyd) as a sexual predator after Asian young men, the director of Toto, John Paul Su, manages to resolve the dilemma in this feature drama (115 minutes) to the ultimate satisfaction of both parties, with Toto retaining his dignity and David also gaining what he needed.  I'm not revealing what happens in the end; I'm afraid you will have to catch the film somewhere.

But Toto (the film) did manage to get to America, screening last Sunday at the 2016 Newport Beach Film Festival at tony Newport Beach in sunny Southern California.  The festival ends today.

-- Daniel C. Tsang

"Finding Phong" (Tim Phong): A Review & Interview with Phong

For a Subversity Show Online bilingual (Vietnamese/English) interview with Phong, click here.  Thanks to Thuy-Van Nguyen for interpreting! 

Garnering the Community Spotlight Award at the 2016 Vietnamese Film Festival held in Orange, California, “Finding Phong” (Tim Phong) is an exquisitely beautiful and revealing 2015 film about a young Vietnamese man’s journey to become a young woman. 

Scene from "Finding Phong":  Mother (in background) with Phong

 Although the film lists two veteran indie filmmakers Tran Phuong Thao and Swann Dubus as co-directors, credit nonetheless also belongs to the subject of this documentary, Le Anh Phong.  Phong manages capture with small video cameras her own journey (while trapped in the body of a male), as she filmed herself talking to her mother who is far away back in their rural home in Quang Ngai province in Central Vietnam.  

Selfie scene from "Finding Phong"

Phong with Subversity Show host

Self-identifying as a girl in her childhood, the star of the film also manages to capture what must be an ethnographer’s dream footage, as sister, brother and friends talk explicitly about heterosexual sex including ejaculation and oral and penetrative sex.  In addition to her mother, in her 70s, who wonders why she is fated to have such a son (she had been happy the boy was born), the bearded father (in his eighties) is shown saying that it doesn’t matter boy or girl as long as there is support for the Revolution!

 

The film has been expertly and carefully edited out of 250 hours of footage and ends right after Phong manages to complete the physical transition at a Thai clinic.  It was totally unscripted, and could not have been, given the gems of humanity that remain in the film after its length was trimmed. 

Kudos to the producers Gerry Herman and Nicole Pham who have partnered with Phong to see this amazing film reach the festival audience worldwide.  It won France’s Nanook GrandPrix at the 34th Festival International Jean Rouch last fall, and furthermore a DVD of the film has been added to every French school library in an attempt at helping overcome discrimination against the transgendered.  

Phong at VFF

Most significantly, Phong tells me in our brief Subversity Show Online interview, Phong’s mother testified before state legislators, and Phong’s story of her gender transition no doubt was instrumental in the passage of Asia’s first law permitting transgendered to register in their chosen gender, when Vietnam’s legislature passed such legislation last November.  The law comes into effect in 2017 after 282 legislators voted in favor of it, out of 366.  Unlike Phong, who had to travel to Thailand for her operation, future Vietnamese transsexuals will be more likely to find receptive clinics within Vietnam.  Phong, who had moved to Hanoi to go to university and discovered she was not alone as a transgendered, now works for the state Puppet Theater there, painting the figurines that are used in Vietnamese cultural productions.  – Daniel C. Tsang.