Preparing for the WTO Ministerial Conference

As some of you may know, some bigwigs are coming to Hong Kong in mid-December for some big WTO conference. The local authorities are anticipating the arrival of up to 10,000 protesters. I think the foolish professional demonstrators will be shocked by how expensive hotel rooms can be in Hong Kong. Then again, they'll probably stay in shitholes like those found in Chungking Mansions.

I'm a bit tired of these professional demonstrators. It's usually the same people at all these different demonstrations. Though they are articulate and motivated, I find that they are usually stubborn and misinformed. Perhaps most importantly, I think that their methods are far from constructive. What good does it do to blame Hu Jintao on the Tiananmen Square Massacre when he had nothing to do with it? Why insist on immediate democratisation of China when it would bring utter chaos? On the other hand, one thing they succeed in doing is they MIGHT raise awareness of certain issues. However, because of their annoying tactics and their gung-ho attitudes, they offend fence-sitters like me. I feel exactly the same way about pan-Green Taiwanese politicians.

I remember the riot at the 1997 APEC Summit, which was held at UBC. Hell, I was THERE! Well, not exactly. I had a Math tutorial that day, and went to the protest site to check it out. By the time the police were pepper spraying the more rowdy of protesters, I was already in class.

I noticed one very interesting preventative measure while walking around Causeway Bay the other day: all sidewalk tiles were glued down to the sidewalk. I wondered why the cracks between the tiles were glistening, and my friend pointed out that this was a measure aimed to prevent demonstrators from throwing these tiles at the police.

Battle in Seattle. _____ in Hong Kong?