Language of the Unheard

A series of mass protests in Hong Kong started in June 2019 against plans to allow extradition to China. There was widespread concern that “one country, two systems” would be undermined. I was born in 1984, the same year when the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed between the People Republic of China and the United Kingdom. It declared the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty with effect from 1 July 1997. I was raised in a highly capitalized colony and now lived in a city of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The public outcry has uncovered a hidden landscape of the city, and my self-identity has always been in dispute, which aligns with the fate of the city: between east and west, glass and grass, shadows and reflections, the heard and the unheard.