Many of the barricades near Occupy Central began coming down this morning, but not without resistance. I took the above video at 1:40 pm today on Queensway in Admiralty, just below Hong Kong’s police headquarters, a few blocks from the main protest grounds. A group of older men, apparently frustrated that the two-week Occupy Central protests have blocked their streets, rip down the barricades while others chant, “Open the roads.” Some quick-thinking Occupy protesters immediately plant themselves in the middle of the street for an impromptu sit-in.

(Note: the video has been edited for brevity; the raw footage is here.)

Within minutes, police began rushing into the area to keep the peace. They would be needed, because within an hour, hundreds would congregate at this spot, chanting “rubbish” at one another across the dividing line.

I’ll have more videos, pictures, and words in a bit. (Update: more videos, pictures, and words.) For now, here’s a closer look at the protesters who replaced the barricades with themselves:

Screenshots from the video:

A dispatch from Hong Kong, where life – parties, business — continues as usual… with one high-profile exception.

It’s Day 8 of Occupy Central, or Umbrella Revolution, if you will. A few nights ago I was enjoying a nice steak dinner at La Vache! in the heart of Soho district when the conversation steered itself to the events happening only a few blocks away. As the wine flowed, so did the opinions of the dinner guests.

In case you haven’t heard, tensions are high here in Hong Kong. You feel it on the streets, at dinner tables, and of course on Facebook. The protests kicked off Sunday, September 28, when tear gas exploded, protesters covered their faces with makeshift masks and continued to hold their ground using the only tools they had, sheer numbers, umbrellas, and dare I say maybe a bit of force?… Monday morning came and the crowds dwindled, as peaceful protesters reported to work. As the 6 o’clock bell struck, protesters flooded back to the streets and Occupy Central was yet again in full swing. Rinse and repeat on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday saw public holidays here in Hong Kong and reportedly the largest number of protesters, who expanded their hold — Central, Admiralty, Causeway Bay, and Mong Kok had all been occupied. The city was forced to cancel its annual National Day fireworks.

Roads are emptier and the typical wait time at the cross-harbor tunnel is nonexistent, which is nice. The mass transit railway “MTR,” on the other hand, is getting a constant level of insane traffic, usually only seen on Fridays at 6 pm. Those wanting to be part of the action travel via MTR, as all major occupy zones are close to subway stations. Most of the city is still accessible, though some people are experiencing difficulty in maintaining their normal routines. Some schools have been forced to cancel activities, while many business owners are feeling the pressure to think ahead, as rent is due at the end of the month. And let’s not forget our outspoken Hong Kong taxi drivers, who now complain about a slowdown in business.

Outside of occupy zones, city life continues best that it can. The local watering holes in Lan Kwai Fong (Central) are filled with the usual rowdy expats and local ladies doing their best to navigate the steep terrain as they wobble in their four-inch red bottom heels. Shopping malls and restaurants in Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon) are full, and though I don’t have access to their financials, it appears it’s business as usual. On Thursday Hong Kong hosted the ever-trendy “Run For Your Lives” zombie race with thousands of people, which ended with a packed after-party including an outdoor concert and live DJs.

As the police sit back and allow the peaceful protesters to carry on, a new wave of Hong Kongers have hit the streets – the “blue ribbons,” who are protesting the protesters. Mong Kok, typically known as one of the more violent parts of the city, where in my earlier days I had been chased from a local karaoke bar in a classic case of a friend speaking to the wrong girl, has seen some of the most physical clashes of pro- and anti-government protesters recently. No surprise.

A group of masked men, who looked eerily similar to the yellow ribbons (the Occupy protesters) fighting on the front lines of Admiralty, also approached the Causeway Bay area and started ripping down barricades in an attempt to take back the streets. “Shame on those cowards for covering their face,” “it was a peaceful protest until they came,” and “where are the police now to stop the violence” are common Facebook status updates by my proud yellow-ribbon-supporting friends. If the police haven’t been overworked enough, they now have a new duty they’re destined to fail at – protecting anti-government protesters. Rumors are swirling that these blue ribbons are merely paid thugs, possibly from the Triad, ordered to create chaos so the police can come in and shut the whole thing down. To top it off, women are reportedly being sexually harassed in the confrontations. Sickening.

At this point, who knows what to believe. I’m no different from most people who’ve settled here and call Hong Kong a second home: I believe in equality and I want to live in a world where we all have a say in choosing the leaders who represent us. But I also understand the perspective of those who have built Hong Kong to where it is today, in spite of a previous generation of colonialists, and shudder at the thought of all that work being undone. So, is the student-led protest the right move for Hong Kong at this time? What about sitting back and doing nothing?

One dinner guest felt strongly that by not participating in the protests, you must be a blue ribbon supporter… maybe a bit strong, but it made me think, what is the other option? If not now, when?

Another friend recommended that the yellow ribbons consolidate to one occupy zone — this would help bring order back to the city and ideally end the violence.

A local friend stuck to his guns and commented that everyone just needs to go home. “You can’t win against Beijing, you’ve made your point, now go home.”

The unfortunate reality is, Hong Kong people are fighting Hong Kong people, and it’s hurting the city. Violence is not the answer, but is blocking the streets and shutting down our city? To end our dinner, we held a final glass of red in the air and yelled “yám bùi” (飲杯, cheers) and toasted to friendship, however divided we were.

At the end of the day, I’m really thankful to live in Hong Kong. I don’t want to see the city take the biggest loss, which I fear is the only outcome — everyone in Hong Kong will lose.

Neil is a Cantonese-speaking Canadian Expat who’s lived in Hong Kong for seven years.

Here’s Hong Kong chief executive CY Leung toasting with champagne to celebrate the People’s Republic of China’s National Day. Meanwhile, outside…

A different kind of commemoration…

Anger and tear gas. Ganbei!

[SCMP]

“Unjust”

The people huddled at the front gates of the US Embassy in Beijing last November were not there to protest the flight of US bombers over contested islands in the East China Sea. Instead, they chanted slogans such as, “Beat down corruption!” and, “The Communist party doesn’t care about the common people!” Plainclothes police officers stood nearby, conspicuous in matching black and gray sweatpants.

This is an almost weekly sight. Petitioners from across China — Chongqing, Henan, Shanghai — congregate at 55 Anjialou Road to engage in a practice as ancient as imperial China, when those seeking justice would journey to the capital to expose local corruption. Modern petitioners face enormous risks by coming to Beijing: the particularly obdurate ones can find themselves thrown into “black jails,” illegal prisons where they might endure abuse (and worse).

That was the experience of Wang Xiuzhen, an elderly woman who began protesting outside the embassy last summer and into the winter, claiming the chairman of her neighborhood committee in Shanghai had wrongfully accused her of a crime. The sign she carried every day told her story:

Aug. 7, 2012, An official at the Office of Justice took my ID, bag, and 200 RMB with gangsters at Hongqiao Train Station. They have used this unlawful method to stop me from going to Beijing. They even illegally kept me and broke my bones several times. The middle finger and wrist of my right hand were diagnosed as injured, and the pinky finger broken.

Apr. 16, 2011, My middle finger was squeezed till broken by Li Chunbao, a security guard at Deying Service Company. It has not healed to this day.

Sept. 6, 2011, I was bullied by a middle-aged man on Nanchang Road, and my right wrist was broken.

Aug. 5, 2012, I was kidnapped by a shameless bullying group in Huangpu area.

Nov. 6, 2012, My pinky finger was broken by someone at Mengxi Elderly Center at Songjiangyexie Town.

Oct. 6, 2012, I was again illegally kidnapped and kept prisoner with twelve people guarding me in turns. These are all illegal. Just because they have a little power, they treat me like this? Everyone should have their own constitutional rights, and I want people with a conscience to judge these unlawful matters.

It is impossible to know whether her claims are true. What is known is that in October, she wrapped herself in a banner with her story written on it and laid on the street in front of the embassy.

Petitioning at the US Embassy is just one of a series of tactics being adopted by demonstrators in China, who increasingly see press attention as the only way to have their causes addressed. These can range from creative to tragic. Last year saw a viral protest in the form of a Gangnam Style dance for unpaid wages; it also saw group suicide attempts to raise attention to causes such as land seizures and broken promises.

“There are whole villages of cardboard boxes that have popped up around official places to petition,” said veteran China reporter Paul Mooney. “By going to these places, you risk arrest or worse — even the US embassy’s rule of law guy was detained and questioned by the police there.”

Another popular protest location is the State Bureau for Letters and Calls, a state-sanctioned agency tasked with collecting grievances. But comparatively, the US Embassy might be a safer option, according to Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a Chinese historian who, like Mooney, has written judiciously about Chinese protests. He emailed:

“Being near to such a symbolically important and publicly observed location could make it harder for police or para-police to interfere with their actions without creating an incident. There may even be people who know that Chen Guangcheng, an important critic of corruption within China, came to the U.S. Embassy last year, and that this was a key stage in his odyssey. ”

Chen, a vocal critic of forced abortions in China, fled to this very embassy in April 2012 before being granted asylum in the US. This has given other petitioners hope. When asked why he chose to lodge his complaints in front of the American embassy, one elderly man told me, “America is good. It is a free country with real rights. Here in China, we have fake rights. Perhaps America can influence China’s government.”

It’s unlikely these people will receive any of the help from the US government. And yet, they return, again and again. “Protesters in Beijing come back all the time,” Mooney said. “They don’t have a choice. They have this rural stubbornness, and they are not afraid.”

(All images by Patrick Lozada)

The above was tweeted out by @beidajin this afternoon: around 10 am today* outside the US embassy in Beijing, four grandmothers from Xinyang city, Henan province took off their clothes and raised signs “to cry out for sons and daughters.”

*New Tang Dynasty, reporting from New York, says this incident happened yesterday morning, and that it’s to protest corruption in Henan. (“Henan’s corrupt officials are farm animals,” NTD writes.) NTD isn’t exactly an unbiased source, so take that with a grain of salt.

BJC contributor Patrick Lozada, who lives near the US embassy near Liangmaqiao, has written about petitioners on that road before:

Petitioners like Mrs. Wang have chosen to take their protest to the street in front of the embassy instead of going to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls, the government agency tasked with collecting grievances. Paul Mooney, a veteran China reporter who was denied a Chinese visa last November, has seen many of these protests before.

“There are whole villages of cardboard boxes that have popped up around official places to petition,” Mooney told me in a phone call. “By going to these places, you risk arrest or worse — even the US embassy’s rule of law guy was detained and questioned by the police there.”

More information if it becomes available.

(H/T Jeremy Goldkorn)

PEN America organized a protest called “Take a Stand for Free Expression in China: An Evening of Literary Protest” last Thursday, April 10, in front of the Brooklyn Public Library in New York. Ai Weiwei was more or less the face of the event, attended by several hundreds of people / bored Brooklynites, which was also had the purpose of raising awareness of persecuted Chinese writers. Art Daily reports that Ai Weiwei appeared via video message to thank his supporters. Surely he would’ve preferred to appear in person, but he still doesn’t have his passport — never has since his 81-day Beijing detention in 2011 for tax evasion.

Ai’s comments, via Art Daily:

“As an artist, I think freedom of expression is an essential foundation for any kind of activity,” said Ai, his larger-than-life image hovering on the Brooklyn Museum wall. “Freedom of expression is to encourage every individual to question authority, and to become creative, so these are essential values for artists to protect and to fight for.” The artist ended his video message with a strong statement: “We have to encourage individuals to become a part of the society through free expression … to bare responsibility and to contribute our ideas, our thinking about what kind of society we live in, and what kind of future we will have.”

And here’s a promotional portrait of Ai Weiwei that American artist Shepard Fairey created in his “Obey Giant” style:

In a televised statement on Monday at Lido Hotel in Beijing, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which has now been missing for 18 days, likely “ended in the southern Indian Ocean.” After his statement, family and friends of MH370 passengers were reportedly notified by text that “none of those on board have survived.”

According to NBC News:

The airline explained in a statement its use of text messages in disseminating the news to family members:

“It is with deep sadness that Malaysia Airlines earlier this evening had to confirm to the families of those on board Flight MH370 that it must now be assumed the flight had been lost. As the Prime Minister said, respect for the families is essential at this difficult time. And it is in that spirit that we informed the majority of the families in advance of the Prime Minister’s statement in person and by telephone. SMSs were used only as an additional means of communicating with the families.”

It was not a pretty scene at Lido Hotel, as ABC News reports:

The words “no survivors” triggered an explosion of grief and rage today in a Beijing hotel conference room filled with families of passengers aboard the Malaysia Airlines flight 370 who have been waiting 17 days for a sign their loved ones were alive.

The more than 100 families stopped listening to the televised news conference when the Malaysian prime minister said those two words. Screams and yelling erupted. Men smashed chairs and yelled, “Lies, lies.”

Several women fainted and medics quickly attended to them, taking them away on stretchers.

Today, the anger spilled over into the streets as protesters gathered outside the Malaysian embassy at Liangmaqiao in Beijing. SCMP reports:

Nearly 100 relatives and their supporters marched on the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing, where they threw plastic water bottles, tried to rush the gate and chanted, “Liars!”

Many wore white T-shirts that read “Let’s pray for MH370” as they held banners and shouted, “Tell the truth! Return our relatives!”

Malcolm Moore of the Telegraph, who live-tweeted from the scene, reports that the protest lasted about two hours before buses arrived to take MH370 relatives away. It was officially sanctioned in that authorities closed down roads to allow the protesters to march to the Malaysian embassy. Other than some pushing and flinging of water bottles, there was no violence.

3-4 public buses, with police on board, are ferrying relatives to the Malaysia Embassy MH370

— malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 25, 2014

The relatives lost their temper & attacked police on the buses. They are now marching to the Malaysian embassy MH370

— malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 25, 2014

MH370 relatives marching to the Malaysian embassy pic.twitter.com/LGyqByKWa4

— malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 25, 2014

All the streets around the Malaysia embassy now closed off MH370 pic.twitter.com/Up8WOCdH6n

— malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 25, 2014

Diplomats inside the Malaysian embassy spotted taking pics of the MH370 relatives, relatives start throwing bottles

— malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 25, 2014

Meanwhile, Australian authorities temporarily called off searches for MH370 today due to storms. The Wall Street Journal reports that this episode has affected how Chinese travelers see Malaysia:

And finally, Malaysian papers were printed in black and white today in memory of MH370. Via Straits Times:

And here’s today’s Malaysia Star (via Romenesko):

UPDATE, 6:54 pm: It’s not over yet, reports Xinhua:

In fact, if it was closure Malaysian authorities were seeking, then the Australian defense minister expressed an entirely different position.

“Lets be clear — to this point in time we have not successfully recovered or identified any debris from the aircraft in question.”

Minister [David] Johnston told Xinhua at Pearce Airbase outside Perth that the fate of MH370 was still ‘a mystery.’

“And until we recover and positively identify a piece of debris — all is speculation,” he told Xinhua.

The earlier declaration by Malaysian authorities that it was now — somewhat illogically — “assumed beyond reasonable doubt,” that the Malaysian Airlines flight that left Kuala Lumpar for Beijing went down in the Southern Indian Ocean, has drawn strong criticism from both victims families and commentators.

Those words — ‘assumed beyond reasonable doubt’ — would appear to be ill-spoken and ill-timed.

Adapted with permission from Hug China.

Four female students from Wuhan University in Hubei province demonstrated on February 14 to call for respect for sex workers in China.

One student held up a pair of underpants as a metaphor for the Big Underpants building in Beijing, i.e. the headquarters of China Central Television (CCTV), which has been pejoratively called “CCAV” (AV being adult video) by Chinese netizens.

The four students held pictures of blurred female faces to their heads, which they called “mosaics.” The two placards in the above picture read:

Sex jobs are also jobs; sex workers also have dignity.

CCAV needs big underpants; sex workers need mosaics.

The performance art has won the praise of Chinese netizens. Here are the two top comments from NetEase:

Sex workers are by far cleaner and more dignified than CCAV.

What Big Underpants cover up is much dirtier.

Guangdong police arrested 67 people and shut down 12 entertainment venues in a massive raid late Sunday night after CCTV revealed several hotels in Dongguan — China’s “sex capital” — were involved in illegal sex trade.

Both the CCTV program and the nationwide crackdown on prostitution have inspired heated debate, with some human rights advocates calling for the legalization of the world’s oldest occupation in China.

This isn’t the first crackdown on prostitution in China, or the media’s first time reporting about it. But what was particularly galling was that sex workers were exposed without reservation, and some were even shown naked in footage that aired across the country.

Wuhan students perform action art to protest… (Hug China) (Image via Icpress)

Confrontations over unpaid wages are common in China, especially in the run-up to the lunar new year (it falls on January 31 this year), as this is often the only time when migrant workers can return home. Many fear they’ll never be paid if they leave the city while still owed money.

But to get paid, some have to resort to extreme measures.

Six migrant workers threatened to jump off the roof of a nine-story building in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, on January 3 as protest over 240,000 yuan of unpaid wages, ChinaNews.com reports.

A group of Chinese dissidents and exiles ran naked on a chilly night outside the Stockholm Concert Hall on Tuesday, December 10, and published a declaration undersigned by Liao Yiwu (pictured above), Bei Ling, Wang Yiliang, Meng Huang, and Wang Juntao. As translated by China Change, the declaration begins:

We have come to Sweden to run in the nude, because it was here where Mo Yan, a defender of censorship and a senior Communist cadre, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature last year.

With our act, we want to remind this forgetful world that there is a staunch denouncer of censorship, a witness of the Tian’anmen Massacre in 1989, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who was sentenced to eleven years in prison for his writings and views, and he is now behind bars in China. His name is Liu Xiaobo.

With our act, we want to remind this forgetful world an outstanding artist named Liu Xia. She has no particular interest in politics, but just because she is the wife of Liu Xiaobo, she has been placed under house arrest since her husband was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October, 2010.

This is not the first time Liao Yiwu, author of Corpse Walker and the prison memoir For a Song and a Hundred Songs (which I reviewed earlier this year), has streaked in Stockholm. He did it last year with artist Meng Huang while Mo Yan was inside the concert hall attending a Nobel Prize ceremony. Mo’s decision to not present an empty chair in honor of Liu Xiaobo set Liao off.

From “Our Naked Declaration” again:

In a world all too surreal, Liu Xia cried out, “Both Mo Yan and Liu Xiaobo are Nobel Laureates, why are they treated so differently?”

Meanwhile, Chinese netizens have been talking about Liu Xiaobo in the context of Nelson Mandela, and the authorities would like them to stop doing that please. Via Reuters:

An influential Chinese paper lashed out on Wednesday at comparisons between Nelson Mandela and China’s jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, saying Liu was a common criminal not worthy of any praise.

Many Chinese internet users have noted the apparent contradiction of Beijing lauding Mandela’s legacy at the same time that it continues a harsh crackdown on its own human rights activists.

For more, see China Digital Times.

Chinese Author, Artist, and Dissident Streaking in Stockholm, Sweden (China Change)

Hitler?

This is the stuff I expect out of Global Times, not fellow Asian Americans. Speaking of Global Times:

Although the comment was made by a child, the episode has in some ways, offered a reflection of mainstream public opinion in the US on China.

Jesus.

It is difficult to read what the US is really thinking when it looks at China especially with China expected to play a bigger role in geopolitics alongside the US in future.

Stop.

Sino-US relations cannot be viewed in the same light as those of the former Soviet Union and the US during the Cold War. China and the US have a more complicated relationship…

Horse on cow dung clopping on your living room carpet. You see the people you’ve sided with, Asian American protesters? Does this convince you to stop?

Friends: if we can’t take an off-the-cuff remark from a 6-year-old child without referencing Nazis or building straw men with ridiculous hypotheticals (“what if he said that about Jews?”), we’re done. Finished. We’re hopeless, and we will never be liberal participants in an open society. We might as well shack up in the Singaporean subway system and count down the hours toward a copacetic death. If you want to begin a conversation with a friend about ethnocentricism and casual racism, try using YouTube videos as a springboard. But have a little bit of self-respect and realize, please, that we’re talking about Jimmy Kimmel and his brand of niche comedy, and a 6-year-old who really probably does not think we should kill all Chinese people. It is not a reflection of mainstream public opinion on anything, in the same way — looking at you, American media — that those San Francisco protesters are not a reflection of Asian American opinion on this issue.

H/T: 

My fellow Asian-Americans, portraying Jimmy Kimmel as Hitler does none of us any good: http://t.co/ftyz28tLMI h/t @samuel_wade

— Josh Chin (@joshchin) October 31, 2013

True objectivity in journalism may be an unachieveable ideal — the craft is as much about storytelling as reporting, with the requisite narrative structures that confirm or deny bias — but that doesn’t mean a journalist should actively neglect his or her duty to truthful storytelling.

Unless you work in Chinese media.

Residents of Yuyao in Ningbo, Zhejiang province reportedly clashed with riot police and mobbed a local television station on Friday night after a journalist allegedly understated the devastation wrought by Typhoon Fitow.

It led to one netizen, as found by Offbeat China, to comment, “The biggest problem is that Chinese media work for the government. The people have no voice.”

According to SCMP, “Online accounts say residents were infuriated after a journalist said to the camera that, ‘The flood in Yuyao is gone, and the people have gone back to their normal lives.’” The TV station in question “denied having said these words in the program.”

The TV station reportedly also denied that residents clashed with police, but photos clearly show hundreds of angry civilians overturning vans and police cars and confronting authorities:

Take a look at the above video for more visual evidence.

Offbeat China also has this picture, supposedly the journalist from Ningbo Television who issued the misleading report:

They thought the report was an untruthful representation of what’s happening in Yuyao and demanded the journalist to “explain” and apologize. Details are still unknown, but it seems that the negotiation between Ningbo TV journalists and local Yuyao people didn’t went very well.

Netizens have wondered aloud why there appears to be more police protecting a TV station than helping typhoon victims. Offbeat China again:

One netizen 狸咬灰夫斯基 commented: “The police care more than maintaining stability than helping the people with flood relief.”

Sad, isn’t it? How could this story possibly get worse…

Seagull Reference, take it away:

A recent crackdown of online rumor spreading might have caused the initial delay in rescue efforts. The government recently announced through the Supreme Court that any misinformation would be prosecuted with criminal code. The ‘misinformation’ was explained by a number of cases in the past weeks. For example, when 5 cars were involved in an accident, if someone posted online 4 cars were involved, then it would have broke the law.

Fewer people are daring to challenge the media’s government lapdog’s grossly misleading stories because they’re afraid of going to jail. The sun is shining, says Ningbo TV, while rain patters against the station’s windows. Meanwhile, floodwater continues to soak Yuyao, with shortages in food, drinking water, and electricity. Even Polyanna would be embarrassed.

(H/T Jonathan Alpart)

Hackers have infiltrated the local government website of the city of Shaoxing, Zhejiang province (sx.gov.cn) and replaced four of the five pictures in the “featured images” slider with mooncakes that display unflattering messages against the Chinese government.

As first noticed by Yaxue Cao, here are screenshots of the website and the offending mooncakes, which read: “Bite to Death the CCP” (Communist Party of China), “Overthrow CCP,” “Bitterly Hate CCP,” and “Get Lost, CCP.”

As of this moment, the subversive mooncakes are still on the website’s frontpage. Let’s see how long it takes someone to notice.

Mid-Autumn Festival is Thursday, during which mooncakes are given as gifts and subsequently re-gifted, and re-gifted again, and again, until someone throws them away.

For those who have been wronged in China, the last best chance for official redress is at the State Bureau of Letters and Calls in Beijing. When all other options fail, this is where the people go — and they do, by the thousands, every year, sometimes with little more than a handwritten complaint.

If you’re curious to know what problems these petitioners have, what desires for change or justice they harbor, you’ll want to turn your attention to a series just launched by The World of Chinese, called “Petitioner’s Tales.” The plan is to run one petitioner interview every day week “until they fire me,” says editor Tyler Roney, who writes in the series introduction:

The petitioners who come to Beijing are some of the most diverse, interesting, patriotic, and heroic people in China. These are their stories.

We start with a 48-year-old woman from Hunan province demanding fair compensation for developers building on her land without her consent. Go check it out.

Petitioner’s Tales: Vol. 1 (The World of Chinese)

On Saturday, more than 30,000 100,000 people marched in Taipei, as citizens remain furious over the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of 24-year-old conscript Hung Chung-chiu on July 4.

And then they gathered on a square and sang Les Miserables.

As the Wall Street Journal reports:

Mr. Hung died after being ordered to perform excessive physical activity as punishment for what his family said was an attempt by his superiors to prevent the corporal from going public on allegedly questionable behavior in his unit. Another massive demonstration is set for next weekend.

Mr. Hung died 72 hours before his scheduled discharge. He had planned to resume his graduate study at National Chengkung University upon completion of his military obligation, his family said.

Suspicion surrounding Hung’s treatment before his death stirred up anger against the government, but it was the MND’s subsequent inability to provide answers, such as disclosing missing footage of a surveillance camera where Mr. Hung was ordered to perform strenuous exercise before losing consciousness, that really infuriated the public.

(Update, 5:55 pm: Via AFP: “Organisers claimed 200,000 people joined the protest, while the government’s estimate of the crowd size was 100,000.” On July 20, in a separate protest for Hung Chung-chiu, “about 30,000 people demonstrated outside the defence ministry in the capital… according to Citizen 1985, an activist group that organised the protest.” )

As the protest went on into the night, thousands of people broke into song. Above (via Youku), the people sing a Chinese version of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from Les Mis.

CCTV has another version of the video posted on its official YouTube page.

We’ve said this before, but eventually someone will write Les Mis: Beijing, and it’s going to be heartbreaking and mesmerizing and great. We don’t mean a Peking Opera version, either.

A preview.

POSTSCRIPT: You can watch the entirety of the 25th anniversary Les Miserables performance from the London O2 Arena on Youku. It’s amazing, up to Alfie Boe’s rendition of Bring Him Home (105:55 mark, below) and through it, until the every end. You should do this sometime: