The Sit-In

This should be recorded on 24th, but there were, as you can see, something more meaningful than that to be recorded, and I have to delay writing it down.

As I've mentioned in Anti-China & Anti-Mainland Part II, a majority of local students were struggling for their "Hall Position", and some of them think it is Mainland students that caused such problem. As I've been in Hong Kong for a longer time, I found that I'd badly underestimated how critical the problem of house was. In Mainland, providing sufficient dormitory is never a big problem, and the problem is how to compel all the students live in the dormitory. In Hong Kong, the situation is just opposite. It's never a problem to have students who beg to dwell in the dormitory, and the problem is whether they can get enough land to build dormitory for all the students. In Mainland, a lot of students would rather rent a room near the campus at a higher price than dwell in the uncomfortable dormitory. In Hong Kong, a lot of students would rather tolerate the dormitory than paying a 10 times higher price on renting a room nearby. (In UST, even if you're content to pay a 10 times higher price, you may probably fail to find a vacant room nearby.)

Knowing this, I became quite a bit sympathetic to the students there. If I am force to choose between spending 3 hours on bus every day and sleeping on the lawn in the campus (or sharing a bed with a close friend), I'll react far more violently than them.

On September 24th, the students who suffered from the situation above organized a sit-in. In Mainland, where the concept of democracy is less accepted, such a "sit-in" by students is definitely impossible-- the students will be dispelled by force and the leader (organizer) will surely be cruelly penalized. I saw the sit-in after lunch, and ran back to the my room to fetch my digital camera despite it was raining cats and dogs outside (and my pants got totally wet), and returned just in time to take a group of photos.

After taking these photos, I suddenly had a wild idea. I wanna talk to one of them and to know them and their idea more. It's quite a bit dangerous, because they might answer my question with fist. I prepared myself physically and mentally, and chose a bunch of seemingly kind student, and sat beside him.

"Excuse me, can I ask you a couple of questions please? I'm not a reporter of any kind. I'm just curious to your behavior."

They peered at me, "Sure", one of them said.

"Well, it seems that some of you are more or less against Mainland students, is it because of reasons like they've occupied your resources and grabbed opportunities that should have been yours, or is it just the problem of hall position?"

"We're content to have more friends from Mainland, were it not for the problem of hall position." he said.

"In fact, we are not against Mainland students, since it's not their fault. It is the university to be blamed. We're here today to declare our unsatisfactory to the university." another one said.

That make me feel much safer. I said, "In fact, I'm an exchange student from Mainland..."

"OK! So let's speak Mandarin."

Therefore, we had a good talk. They seemed confident with their viewpoint until I asked, "So, if UST solve the problem by cutting the number of local student it will accept in 2008 by half, what will you say?"

"That's ridiculous...So what shall those students do?"

"Go to Mainland! If more and more Mainland students are coming to Hong Kong, the universities in Mainland should have more and more vacancies."

"The universities in Mainland are worse and less famous!"

"That's right! So we can compete for the limited positions in UST. Winner gets all, loser sucks! There are more than 20 students who apply for exchanging to HKUST, and I have to defeat all of them! Is it because you're inferior academically than us?"

I thought my question can only be answered with fists this time, but they just smiled and avoided answering. It disappoints me!

That night, when I was coming back to UST with Feng, I told him that I talked to the sit-in students. He was shocked, "You may well probably get beaten!" However, I'm not, even after asking a offending question like that.