Jackie Hung
On the Hong Kong Street
By Chaim Estulin
Posted Monday, October 4, 2004; 21:00 HKT
Jackie Hung's wardrobe is filled with slogan-emblazoned T shirts, one for just about every cause. For gay rights, she wears a shirt that shows hand-holding stick figures under a pink umbrella that reads, "We must love each other." ("That's what the Bible orders," says the 35-year-old married, cross-wearing Catholic.) Another, which protested a harsh antisubversion law proposed for Hong Kong in 2003, paraphrases Mohandas Gandhi: "An unjust law is itself violence; civil disobedience is an inherent right." These days, Hung chooses a shirt that proclaims "Power to the People," which is particularly appropriate: Hung was the chief organizer of the pro-democracy rally that brought as many as 500,000 people onto the streets on July 1, an amazing display of people power for nonconfrontational Hong Kong.
Hung was a 19-year-old aspiring stage actress when her social conscience was suddenly awakened on June 4, 1989, hours after the Tiananmen massacre. "My father came into the room that morning and told me the bad men in Beijing killed all the students," she recalls in a soft, earnest monotone. "I decided then that I needed to do something more important with my life." Shortly after, she withdrew her application to Hong Kong's Academy for Performing Arts, signed up to study political science at a university and started working for a range of causes: the plight of the poor and elderly, labor and minority rights, the legal dilemma of immigrants from the mainland. In March, she led a group of 30 other volunteers from the Civil Human Rights Front to start preparing for the July 1 event. They arranged government permits and crowd insurance, nudged other groups to participate and spent weekends distributing flyers in markets and train stations to drum up public support. Hung admits she was as surprised as anyone at the huge attendance. "We just created the platform," she says. "It was the people who took the stand." Hung gave up the stage for a bigger starring role—on Hong Kong's streets.
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