









































protests in hong kong (2019)



The storming of the Legislative Council in Hong 
Kong by a group of local activists on July 1, 2019 
marked a turn of events in what was until then the 
largest ever series of political demonstrations in the 
semi-autonomous Chinese territory. In the months 
that followed, Hong Kong was shaken by violence 
and unrest unseen since the riots in the 1960s 
against the British Colonial rule. The emergence of 
these scenes of total chaos in a city where safety and 
efficiency of shared urban space and infrastructure 
are enormously valued and sustained at highest 
levels effectively generated a fundamental sense of 
destabilization. This article introduces an ancient 
Chinese cultural notion, jianghu, with the aim 
of contributing to an enriched and differentiated 
cultural understanding of these events and the 
transformation of urban space they effected. 

The first part introduces jianghu in contrast to the 
dichotomy of the public and the private so deeply 
rooted in Western civilization. The comparison is 
not so much about suggesting jianghu as a substitute 
concept to replace existing interpretations entirely, 
but an attempt and an invitation to open new 
perspectives of understanding of a place that is the 
hybrid result of a complexity of cultural influences 
and unique historical and political circumstances. 
The section that follows outlines an image of Hong 
Kong as a city during times of peace, as well as a 
very brief account of its political history, to provide 
the background for the subsequent description and 
interpretation of a Hong Kong shaken by protests 
as a contemporary form of jianghu. The last portion 
of the essay describes the actions within and the 
transformation of urban spaces during the violent 

Anonymity in Jianghu: Hong Kong’s 
Urban Space in Times of Crisis

Esther Lorenz



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protests in Hong Kong between July and November 2019 to illustrate the 
congruence between characteristics of jianghu as known from Chinese film 
and literature and the events that deeply unsettled the Hong Kong territory.

The Private and the Public 
The question of public space from a Western perspective is grounded 

in the dichotomy of public and private inherent in an understanding of 
the city that is deeply rooted in the Greek polis. While the existence of and 
stability of the family is a precondition for a productive engagement in 
public life in the ancient city-state, the duality between the two realms is 
distinct. Aristotle speaks about two lives that exist in parallel.1 As Hannah 
Arendt points out, Greek society maintains a sharp distinction between 
the home and the family on the one hand—dedicated to a life grounded 
in biological association and characterized by command—and political 
organization on the other—negotiated through the process of persuasion.2

In Chinese culture, grown from its own ancient roots, this sharp 
distinction between public and private has never taken place. The family, 
like in the Greek polis, is at the beginning of society, and in Chinese culture 
it is also at its core. Rather than forming a parallel realm, socio-political 
structures grow in expansion from the notion of the family and the home, 
and are deeply rooted in Confucianist thought. They establish a societal 
and spatial framework distinctly different from that in the West that Li 
Shiqiao identifies as “degrees of care.”3 

This resonates with the conception of tianxia, a term that dates back to 
philosophical writings from the Zhou period and that maintained a steady 
influence throughout China’s history. It literally translates as “all under 
heaven” and denotes a normative “world” that can be understood as the 
largest existing form of the family, deeply imbued with Confucian values 
of morality and hierarchy. Zhao Tingyang discusses the “isomorphism 
between family and tianxia” during the Zhou dynasty that ties together 
a political order of tianxia providing protection for each family with an 
ethical order that extends “family relationality into the tianxia institutional 
order.”4 Tianxia establishes a hierarchy grounded in morality and power 
and acted out by paying tributes, which correspond to giving respect to 
parents and ancestors within a family. Zhao points out the all-inclusiveness 
of tianxia as its fundamental characteristic that leads to a conception of an 
interiorization of the entire world with “no outside.”5

Yet, there are gaps that emerge between the extended circles of familial 
care, and there are limits to their capacity to be all-encompassing. There 
are positions of rejection and projections of alternative worlds. There are 
individuals who deliberately withdraw themselves from the hierarchical, 



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established order, acting upon a variety of motives. 
In fiction and in reality this realm outside the 
normative order is known as jianghu. 

Jianghu – an External Realm of Non-structured Action
Jianghu is a Chinese cultural concept that literally 

translates as “rivers and lakes.” The term can be 
traced back to the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi. 
In his writings the term denotes a life freed from 
officialdom, career aspirations and family ties. He 
uses “rivers and lakes” synonymously with the 
Way, the Tao, the natural realm for man and his 
thinking that is characterized by purposelessness 
and detachment.6 Zhuang Zi’s writings in a 
political sense promote non-hierarchical, dynamic 
organization of human life.7 

Over time the term has developed a rich 
spectrum of meaning both through fiction as well as 
through history. The aspect that remains constant 
between the evolving uses and interpretations of 
this concept is that jianghu establishes a position 
outside regulated systems, from which these can be 
reflected on, opposed, and overturned. This logic 
appears as a frequent feature in the narratives of 
Chinese martial arts tales and movies, commonly 
described as wuxia. The most influential tale to date 
to describe the realm of jianghu in relation to wuxia 
is the novel Outlaws of the Marsh or Water Margin 
(水滸傳, by Shi Nai’an, 14th century), situated in 
the period of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The 
book tells the story of 108 rebels who, frustrated by 
the political environment and the living conditions 
at that time, “became leaders of an outlaw army 
of thousands and fought brave and resourceful 
battles against pompous, heartless tyrants.”8 The 
protagonists withdraw from their everyday lives 
and hide in the marshes of Liangshan in Shandong 
province to prepare for and to conduct the fight 
for justice against the corrupt ruling order. While 
regular society is hierarchical and highly structured, 
jianghu does not have structure, it relies on alliances 

In Chinese 
culture, 
A sharp 

distinction 
between 

public and 
private has 

never taken 
place. 

The family 
is at the 

beginning of 
society, 

and is also 
at its core. 

“

”



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and honor codes that are fluid and subject to change. 
As the conceptual dwelling place for itinerant performers, healers, 

swordsmen, beggars, and outlaws both in real life as well as in fiction, 
jianghu forms the antithesis to home and the family. In martial arts tales, 
jianghu is frequently treated as a realm that one can enter, but also again 
leave, to return to home and family. It is distinct from shanlin, “mountains 
and forests,” the retreat for Daoist monks and hermits. While shanlin is a 
place for non-action and spiritual contemplation, jianghu is characterized 
by action that is committed to effecting change in society.9

In contemporary contexts, jianghu appears in academic discussions 
on the arts and the digital as a potential new realm that enables evasion 
of government control and censorship. But jianghu is different from 
Habermas’ public sphere, where society can openly debate issues of 
common concern. It is in fact a space external to societal structures and 
conventions, from which counter concepts can be envisioned, and battles 
against oppressive, corrupt, or unjust authorities can be fought.

Jianghu may denote the retreat from a regulated life, opposition to 
government in the fight for justice, lawlessness, or personal freedom; it 
signifies both a mental state and a space. While consistently implying some 
form of rejection of a status quo, it has remained vague and malleable in 
its interpretation, and in relation to specific socio-political conditions of 
any given era.

Governmental Care as the Normative Hong Kong 
Hong Kong is a city with an extremely high population and building 

density. The spatial compression produces a three-dimensional urban 
fabric of short distances. In conjunction with a highly efficient public 
transportation infrastructure, the city is primarily navigated on foot, only 
7.6% of the population own a private vehicle.10 Due to this prevalence of 
pedestrianism, Hong Kong’s population density is directly reflected in the 
mass of moving bodies that traverse the city through this three-dimensional 
pedestrian network. These spaces are not made for pause, contemplation or 
flânerie, they are spaces of flow designed to provide the most convenient, 
smooth, and rapid connections between places of living, work, education, 
and leisure. This priority is also reflected in the organization of the spaces 
themselves—surface markings on the floor and overhead signals, reminiscent 
of highway guidance systems, control the use of lanes and direction of flows, 
turnstiles and rail guards manage access and zoning, elevated walkways and 
metal barriers provide clear separation between pedestrian and vehicle space. 

Life in Hong Kong is characterized by an enormous dedication to 
maintaining the constancy, safety, and efficiency of this flow through a high 



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degree of management exerted by the government. 
While these spatial parameters and approach to 
governing are symptomatic of the needs of a city of 
a material and human density as extreme as in Hong 
Kong, conversely, the unique morphology and tight 
organization of the city must be recognized as the 
result of an underlying sociocultural framework that 
enables its formation and sustains its vitality. If seen 
through a Chinese cultural perspective, according 
to Li Shiqiao, the approach of the Hong Kong 
government may need to be understood as one of 
all-encompassing care,11 including the provision of 
open spaces and leisure facilities that are accessible 
to all, but that do not inherently constitute public 
space in a political sense. The level of care by the 
government in maintaining order is matched by 
a high level of compliance from its citizens. The 
cultural basis for this general tolerance of guidance, 
rules, and restrictions in Hong Kong’s population is 
often explained through notions of Confucianism, 
which resonates with the understanding of the city 
as nested scales of familial care that also implies 
loyalty and respect toward government. Hong Kong 
ranks among the safest cities in the world.12 For the 
average citizen violence is an extrinsic phenomenon. 
During normal, peaceful times, space, management 
and conformity are tight, and seem not to leave  
gaps outside the realm of governmental care, with 
few exceptions. In Hong Kong, highways, roads, 
and scarce instances of vacant or abandoned 
land, dangerous and unfit for bodily occupation, 
can be understood as spatial manifestations of 
jianghu, while triad operations embody the social 
manifestation of “rivers and lakes,” as the world of 
“bandits” that runs in parallel and exists hidden 
from and outside the realm of the established order. 
For most Hong Kong citizens jianghu does not 
touch upon their everyday lives but exists in a world 
of literary and cinematic fiction.

In contrast to this perception of stability and 
largely friction-free everyday collective life in the city 



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of Hong Kong there lies an inner struggle, which is rooted in the precarious 
political situation that is fundamental to Hong Kong’s existence—first as 
a British Colony following the Opium Wars, and since the handover of 
the territory to China in 1997, as a “Special Administrative Region” of the 
People’s Republic of China, operating under the motto of “one country, two 
systems.” The identity of Hong Kong people, who are largely comprised 
of immigrants from Mainland China and their descendants—92% of 
Hong Kong’s population are ethnically Chinese—has developed its own 
characteristics overtime, with a self-conception distinctly different from 
the mainland, and at the same time deeply rooted in Chinese culture given 
their ancestral heritage. For many of these immigrants, their transition to 
Hong Kong can be interpreted as constituting various forms of “entering 
jianghu” in relation to Mainland China, either as a realm “outside” allowing 
for alternative lifestyles and opportunities or as a place to evade the control 
of the Central Government. 

While Hong Kong had been open to Western ideas and influences since 
the incremental ceding of the territory to the British, starting in 1842, 
throughout its time as a colony it had been ruled by a governor who was 
directly appointed by the British monarch. The governing efforts of the 
British colonial rule prioritized the maintenance of stability conducive to 
the flourishing of trade and commerce. Absent of substantial provisions 
of democratic institutions and processes, a public sphere in the sense of 
Jürgen Habermas had not been established by the time of the handover 
in 1997.13 

The ambiguity of the Basic Law with regard to instituting universal 
suffrage, in combination with the stipulation that the Chief Executive is 
to be appointed by the Central Government based on a selection “through 
election or through consultations,” present provisions perhaps less 
committed than what contemporary supporters of democracy sometimes 
refer to as “promises.”14 Moreover, the impending end of the 50-year 
period of Hong Kong’s semi-autonomy in 2047 constitutes a looming 
threat that is virtually inescapable. This is exacerbated by instances of 
attempted introductions of new laws that seem to threaten both Hong 
Kong’s identity and stipulated level of independence. To Hong Kong’s 
citizens these appear as premature steps of the realization of Hong Kong’s 
full absorption into China—whatever this final scenario may look like in 
the future—which are feared to violate the provision in the basic law that 
the “The socialist system and policies shall not be practiced in the Hong 
Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system 
and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.”15 In the past these 
incidents triggered otherwise rare political demonstrations in Hong Kong, 



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such as the protests in 2003 against a new national 
security law, and the demonstrations against the 
introduction of a curriculum of “moral and national 
education” in Hong Kong’s education system in 
2012.16  

The proposition of a new extradition law in 
2019 that would allow criminal suspects to be 
surrendered to China for trial not only triggered 
vehement rejection by the Hong Kong people, 
but it also sparked more violent and sustained 
forms of activism, unseen in the territory for 
over half a century, and unprecedented in some 
of their characteristics and ways of utilizing and 
transforming the spaces of the city. Given Hong 
Kong’s political and cultural hybridity, we need 
differentiated perspectives to think with and 
through the events that took place in this unique 
territory. 

Hong Kong’s Space of Crisis as Jianghu
The protests against the extradition law in 

2019 are to date considered the largest political 
demonstrations that have ever taken place in Hong 
Kong, culminating in up to two million citizens—
more than a quarter of the territory’s population—
gathering in the streets on June 16, 2019.17 They 
came out in opposition to the proposed bill, and 
in protest against the Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s 
decision two days earlier to only suspend rather 
than drop the bill.18

The week before, on June 12, a smaller 
demonstration in front of the government offices 
turned violent when protesters threw bricks and 
metal rods at the police, who in return responded 
with the use of batons, pepper spray and tear gas.19 
In a response on the same day, Lam expressed 
her disapproval of the incident and reiterated her 
rejection of the demonstrators’ demands through 
familial metaphors: “If I let him have his way 
every time my son acts this way, I believe we will 
have a good relationship in the short term. But if 



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I indulge his wayward behaviour, he might regret it after he grows up.”20 
This statement is revealing of the government’s self-conceived parental role 
towards its citizens. In any case it did not resonate well with Hong Kong’s 
youth. The accumulative effect of the reactions by the government in the 
early summer of 2019 such as this one may in fact have unleashed deep-
seated disappointment and desperation in Hong Kong’s young generation, 
who felt increasingly not taken care of at all. These sentiments would 
certainly be grounded in the fear of their cultural identity, values, and way 
of life being jeopardized by the impending end of the “one country two 
systems” stipulation well during their lifetime. These emotions may have 
additionally been exacerbated by the progressive vanishing of perspectives 
in a Hong Kong characterized by an ever-expanding wealth gap in its 
population, driven by an extreme combination of land policy and capitalist 
real estate practices that go all the way back to British colonial rule. 

On July 1, 2019, the anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China, 
a group of activists broke into the Legislative Council building, smashed 
the façade and vandalized the interior, sprayed over the flag of Hong 
Kong in the Council chamber, and—strangely enough—raised the 
British Colonial flag in its stead. This sudden shift to violence marked “an 
irreversible step toward escalation”21 and a clear crystallization of two very 
distinct groups of protesters: The first group represented the large majority 
of those demonstrating peacefully and within the boundaries authorized 
for the rallies. While they did express their support for democratic values, 
they raised their voices specifically against the extradition law. After the 
announcement of its suspension, despite lingering disappointment with 
this incomplete concession, these large demonstrations came to an end. 
The anger and dissatisfaction of the second group—comprised of several 
disparate fractions of predominantly young people—did not dissipate. 
In contrary, they grew even stronger. These protesters turned to active 
aggression to provoke a strong response from the government. They 
expanded their demands—which functioned less as an agenda for political 
negotiation than as a declaration of the government’s failings—to a total 
of five with remarkably varying political weight, ranging from universal 
suffrage to elect the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive to amnesty 
for themselves irrespective of the nature of their actions. 

The distinction between these two types of demonstrators is relevant for 
the discussion at hand. The first group, while expressing disagreement and 
staging dramatic scenes of the city’s tight spaces packed with people, acted 
in full compliance with the rules and within behavioral conventions. In 
contrast, the moment of storming the Legislative Council building and the 
sudden shift to violence of the second group, I argue, can be understood 



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as an act of self-withdrawal by the activists from the 
familial care of the Hong Kong government and 
from the order of its societal structure, triggered 
by the sense of abandonment described above. It 
marks their entry into the realm of jianghu. This 
explanation is supported by the radical change in the 
behavior of these activists: the occupation of spaces 
not designed for sojourn, general conduct opposing 
governmental and societal norms, the remaining in 
a tenacious position of opposition throughout the 
government’s various attempts to open a dialogue, 
the active use of violence, the wilful embracing of 
danger, and the blurring of identities. On the surface 
these manifestations may not appear any different 
from political activism and unrest in other places, 
however, in Hong Kong more than anywhere else, 
these stand in stark contradiction to the territory’s 
normative way of life, and importantly, to the young 
activists’ own disciplined conforming to these prior 
to the crisis: “They were becoming something 
different from what they were, a metamorphosis 
that would have been difficult to imagine in orderly 
Hong Kong, a city where you line up neatly for an 
elevator door and crowds don’t step into an empty 
street until the signal changes.”22 

In what follows, I will lay out the corresponding 
implications in terms of the use and adaptation, 
movement within, and re-conceptualization of 
the urban spaces involved, all of which, I argue, 
constitute contemporary manifestations of jianghu. 

Inhabiting and Transforming the Infrastructures of Flows
At first, Victoria Park formed the primary 

gathering and starting point for the formally 
organized demonstrations against the extradition 
bill. As the largest park in Hong Kong, it serves 
as a frequent location for regular public events, 
including the annual Tiananmen vigil (suspended 
since 2019). After a while, the movement shifted 
from Victoria Park to transitory spaces in the city 

these 
manifestations 

may not appear 
any different 

from political 
activism and 

unrest in other 
places, however, 
in Hong Kong more 

than anywhere 
else, these 

stand in stark 
contradiction to 

the territory’s 
normative way 

of life.

“

”



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such as shopping mall atria, underpasses, elevated walkways, tram stops, 
roads, highways, traffic islands, and the footings of freeway columns; 
precisely those spaces that are dedicated to ensuring efficient traffic flow—
pedestrian or motorized—that are either not designed or even prohibited 
for sojourn. The choice of locations and the actions taken within them not 
only ensured greater visibility and impact of the movement, but they also 
led to a material and conceptual transformation of these spaces. They were 
rendered dysfunctional through the protesters’ actions that caused traffic 
to slow down or to come to a complete stand-still. This constituted a direct 
confrontation with both the government and the order of everyday life in 
the city. Hong Kong’s urban density further potentiated the effectiveness 
of these blockages due to its large population relying on only few high-
performing infrastructural arteries for their daily commutes. 

On the one hand, the transformation of these transitional spaces 
was established through the bodily movement and occupation of the 
protesters, which broke with common societal norms in Hong Kong. 
On the other hand, the spatial mutation was achieved by the physical 
alteration of the spaces themselves: The walls of underground tunnels and 
pedestrian bridges leading to major transport hubs—usually characterized 
by mute and sanitary tile or glass surfaces—were covered with post-its and 
flyers. In aggregation these formed a thick pixelated tapestry of Chinese 
poetry, messages offering emotional support, calls for political change, 
and practical announcements. Guardrails along pedestrian sidewalks 
were dismantled only to be rearranged into various forms of barricades, 
physically and metaphorically breaking with rules and regulations that 
shape Hong Kong’s everyday life. Roads and highways were sprinkled with 
arrangements of paving bricks that transformed them into so-called “brick 
battlegrounds.”23 These were more than simple barricades. The strategic 
composition and distribution of clusters of bricks presented tactics 
explicitly aimed at preventing police response. In the process they hindered 
general road traffic as well. These intentional arrangements produced their 
own aesthetics through the spatial and material transformation of the road 
into a new kind of urban landscape that was now inaccessible to cars: a 
jianghu sphere that called for a mode of movement and inhabitation by 
the human body different from the normative ways of navigating the city; 
perhaps a new form of qinggong—the ability to move lightly and swiftly to 
“cross difficult terrain and scale walls quickly.”24

Roads and highways constitute a most direct analogy between 
jianghu and Hong Kong’s physical urban spaces. Resonating with the 
metaphor of “rivers and lakes” these are spaces for flows of traffic; they 
are separated, dynamic, and they are dangerous to the unprotected body. 



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The occupation and transformation of these urban 
territories establishes jianghu both as an alternative 
space as well as an alternative mode of conduct, 
radically breaking with normative behavior, while 
at the same time exerting enormous pressure on the 
government by blocking the flows of the city that 
are synonymous with its livelihood and efficiency. 

Becoming Water
The Umbrella Movement in 2014 had adopted a 

sedentary approach, which involved the occupation 
of public sites in three locations in the form of 
temporary settlements, comprised of tents and 
managed collectively. In contrast, the 2019 protests 
developed an entirely different strategy—one of 
fluidity and anonymity.

The protesters took inspiration from Bruce Lee’s 
quote “be like water,” which—albeit originating 
in popular culture—is a direct reference to the 
martial arts tradition and the teachings of Taoism.25 
They rephrased it to describe their own tactics: 
Be strong like ice. Be fluid like water. Gather like 
dew. Scatter like mist. The protests were organized 
in a dispersed, temporary, and dynamically shif-
ting manner, popping up in various locations, 
making it difficult to predict when and where they 
would occur, and for police to respond. The non-
hierarchical organization without any identifiable 
leadership inhibited the police from pinpointing 
anyone responsible. The gear worn by the activists 
provided physical protection from teargas and 
basic equipment for defense and attack, and at the 
same time, it veiled the wearers’ identity, ensuring 
anonymity despite the omnipresence of security 
cameras, mobile phone cameras, and press cameras. 
The quasi-uniform outfit also led to the dissolution 
of the individual body into the group of acting 
bodies, foregrounding their alliance and cause, 
and the impression of both single parts and masses 
of dynamically changing matter moving in urban 
space. 



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With a heightened awareness of urban surveillance technology, activists 
took an array of measures to incapacitate or bypass it. These ranged from 
the spraying of surveillance cameras to more sophisticated spatial tactics, 
such as the occupation of and movement across roofs of buildings and 
elevated walkways—modes of traversing the city previously only known 
from Hong Kong’s gangster movies—to evade the field of vision of 
surveillance cameras in the city’s pedestrian walkway system, effectively 
hiding in plain sight. They became invisible to the authorities’ cameras and 
face recognition software yet remained highly visible to Hong Kong citizens 
looking up from the streetscape, over from adjoining walkways or down 
from office and residential towers. Hong Kong’s unique morphology and 
density significantly contributed to the formation as well as the increase 
in intensity of this confrontation and juxtaposition of the ordered and the 
unruly, the hidden and the visible. The explicit use of water metaphors led 
to the protests being named the “Water Revolution” in news coverage.26 
The variety of such metaphors used to develop, communicate, and 
perform protest tactics suggest an overall strategy of becoming water to 
find anonymity and a segregated space of action in the “rivers and lakes” 
that are jianghu. 

Digital Jianghu
Social media and the internet played a key role in the mobilization 

and organization of the movement, as well as in developing forms of 
counter surveillance directed at the authorities through the strategic 
documentation and subsequent broadcasting of actions conducted by the 
police. Digital tactics employed by the activists included a combination 
of online art, forums, and live streaming. Fearful that the Hong Kong 
government might increasingly adopt measures of internet surveillance 
and censorship known to be employed in Mainland China, the protesters’ 
set of social media applications and technologies of data sharing was 
carefully curated as to not leave any digital traces of their identities. The 
use of non-mainstream messenger apps—the Telegram application and the 
local lihkg Forum — in combination with the use of airdropping via their 
smartphones to exchange information, enabled them to carve out spaces 
of anonymity and to set up encoded channels of communication in the 
digital realm to match their strategies in physical space.27 

The working principles and the effectiveness of the social media 
platforms enabled self-organization without de-fined leadership through 
real-time aggregation and communication of individual initiative. This 
corresponds to jianghu as an anarchic, dynamic space, in which individuals 
act alone or in alliances yet without any hierarchical order of command. It 



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constitutes a parallel realm that stands in opposition 
to an established societal order and at the same time 
evades the grip of its control.

The Emergence of Contemporary Jianghu in Hong Kong
In times of normality, jianghu exists in films 

and novels in Chinese culture. In times of crisis 
and political change, this concept can transform 
actual spaces into versions of jianghu and to create 
a mental space for retreat from, reflection on, re-
projection of, and potentially the overturning of the 
status quo. 

What we witnessed in 2019 in Hong Kong was 
the emergence of a contemporary form of jianghu, 
as a hybridization of digital space, material space, 
and spatial practices. In absence of any certainty or 
promising outlook in the face of the expiry date of 
Hong Kong’s status as Special Administration in 
2047 and following a severe loss of trust in their 
government to uphold and defend the rights of 
Hong Kong citizens stipulated in the Basic Law, 
the radical branch of Hong Kong protesters took 
a momentous step to withdraw themselves from 
the established order and governmental care to 
fight for their own vision of political justice. In line 
with literary accounts of jianghu, they produced a 
new space of action through their own codes and 
tactics, a parallel world of alternative rules and 
negotiation of power.28 They radically transformed 
the space of the city to form the backdrop for their 
actions and to match their change in conduct. In 
the ever-increasing escalation of the confrontation 
between protesters and police the city had turned 
into a smoking chaos. By late fall 2019 the 
government had fully withdrawn the extradition 
bill, though this delayed move failed to generate a 
substantial sense of resolve. By that time, jianghu 
had fully unfolded in the territory and in the 
temper of its young adult generation. Clemens von 
Haselberg describes jianghu as a parallel world, as 
a counterpart to the “public” world of officialdom, 

Hong Kong’s 
unique 

morphology 
and density 

significantly 
contributed to 
the formation 

as well as 
the increase in 

intensity of this 
confrontation 

and juxtaposition 
of the ordered 
and the unruly, 
the hidden and 

the visible. 

“

”



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but also as its mirror.29 The protests aggressively confronted the Hong 
Kong government, expressing deep dissatisfaction and distrust. At the 
same time, the sudden cutting of ties with conformist behavior by its 
youth and their metamorphosis into radical subjects throwing themselves 
into a fight against an intricate conglomerate of forces plainly exposed the 
impracticality of the very foundations that the “Special Administration” is 
built upon—the political agreements that grant it a controlled autonomy 
with an expiry date.

The full ramifications of the emergence of jianghu in contemporary 
Hong Kong remain to be seen. The Hong Kong government’s hardened 
response to the unrest and the imposing of a new National Security Law 
by Beijing would have only amplified the lingering dissent. Meanwhile the 
movement has been brought to a halt by the global pandemic, and for now 
the streets of Hong Kong are muted by restrictive measures in the name 
of public health.

Whatever the consequences of these events will be, the emergence of 
jianghu in Hong Kong’s urban space demonstrates that a meaningful 
connection exists between cultural conceptions and spatial practices. This 
interrelation alters both the formation as well as our perception of collective 
life in cities and modifies the notion of what is normatively described as 
“public space.” Our discussion of the form and functions of shared urban 
spaces can be much enriched if we are able to introduce place-specific 
cultural conceptions and spatial practices in our understanding of different 
cities around the world.  

Endnotes
1. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, (Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1998 [1958]), 24.
2. Ibid., 28ff.
3. Li Shiqiao, Understanding the Chinese City (Los Angeles: Sage 

Publications, 2014), 98ff.
4. Zhao Tinyang, All Under Heaven: The Tianxia System for a Possible World 

Order (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 67.
5. Ibid., 62.
6. Zhuangzi, and Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 80.
7. Murray N. Rothbard, ‘Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social 

Change Towards Laissez Faire’, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol.
IX, No.2 (Fall 1990).

8. Shi Nai’an, The Water Margin. Outlaws of the Marsh. The Classic Chinese 
Novel (North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2010).



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9. Clemens von Haselberg, Erzählen von China: 
Genrespezifische Identitätskonstruktionen im 
Wuxia Film (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2019), 69.

10. ‘Number of private cars per one thousand 
population in Hong Kong from 2009 to 
2019,’ Statista, https://www.statista.com/
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1000-population/ (accessed June 28, 2021).

11. Li, Understanding the Chinese City, 113-114.
12. Global ranking 11 in 2020, according to the 2021 

STC Safety Index. https://globalresidenceindex.
com/hnwi-index/safety-index/ (accessed June 
28, 2021).

13. Peter J. Hutchings, ‘Freedom of Speech in 
Hong Kong & the Problem of “China”.’ Cardozo 
Studies in Law and Literature Vol.8, No.2 (1996), 
267–75.

14. Article 5, The Basic Law of the Hong Kong 
Special Administrative Region of the People’s 
Republic of China, effective as of 1 July 1997, 
https://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclaw/
chapter1.html (accessed August 25, 2022). 

15. Article 45, The Basic Law of the Hong Kong 
Special Administrative Region of the People’s 
Republic of China, effective as of 1 July 1997, 
https://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclaw/
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16. Amy Gunia, ‘A Brief History of Protest in Post-
Handover Hong Kong,’ Time Magazine, 20 June 
2019, https://time.com/5606212/hong-kong-
history-mass-demonstrations-protest/ (accessed 
June 28, 2021).

17. 2019 population in Hong Kong: 7.52 million, 
data retrieved from: ‘Population Estimates – 
Table 1A: Population by Sex and Age Group’, 
Census and Statistics Department, https://
www.censtatd.gov.hk/en/web_table.html?id=1A, 
(accessed June 30, 2021). 

18. Emma Graham-Harrison and Verna Yu, ‘Hong 
Kong leader suspends extradition bill amid 
protest pressure,’ The Guardian, 15 June 2019, 



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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/15/hong-kong-leader-
carrie-lam-extradition-bill-delay-protests-china (accessed June 30, 
2021).

19. Associated Press, ‘Hong Kong Extradition Law: A Timeline of Events 
That Led to the Current Mass Protests.’ Young Post, South China Morning 
Post, 12 June 2019, https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/news/hong-
kong/article/3055149/hong-kong-extradition-law-timeline-events-led-
current (accessed August 31, 2022).

20. Martin Purbrick, ‘A Report of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests’, Asian 
Affairs, Vol.50, No.4 (2019), 465-487.

21. Heike Holbig, ‘Be Water, My Friend: Hong Kong’s 2019 Anti-
Extradition Protests.’ International Journal of Sociology, Vol.50, No.4 
(2020), 325–37.

22. Tom Lassetter, ‘Revolution 101: The Hardened Teens of the Hong 
Kong Protests,’ Reuters, 13 December 2019, https://www.reuters.com/
investigates/special-report/hongkong-protests-radical/ (accessed August 
30, 2022).

23. Guardian reporter, ‘Mini Stonehenges: Hong Kong Protesters Take on 
Police, One Brick at a Time.’ The Guardian, 15 November 2019, sec. 
World news. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/mini-
stonehenges-hong-kong-protesters-take-on-police-one-brick-at-a-time 
(accessed July 3, 2021)

24. Robert Chard, ‘Review of Review of Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, 
by Jin Yong and Olivia Mok.’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and 
African Studies, University of London Vol.59, No.3 (1996), 606–607.

25. “Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put 
water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put it into a teapot, it becomes 
the teapot. Now water can flow, or creep, or drip, or crash. Be water, my 
friend.” quoted from: Don McDougall, ‘The Way of the Intercepting 
Fist.’ Longstreet, Season 1, Episode 1, Paramount Television, Edling 
Productions, Corsican Productions, 1971.

26. Jamil Anderlini, ‘Hong Kong’s ‘Water Revolution’ Spins out of 
Control.’ Financial Times, September 2, 2019. https://www.ft.com/
content/d1f60a3a-cd58-11e9-b018-ca4456540ea6 (accessed August 
30, 2022).

27. Yong Ming Kow, Bonnie Nardi, and Wai Kuen Cheng. ‘Be Water: 
Technologies in the Leaderless Anti-ELAB Movement in Hong Kong.’ 
Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing 
Systems. Honolulu HI USA: AC (2020), 1–12. 

28. Haselberg, Erzählen von China, 70.
29. Ibid., 70. 


