International Women's Day 2020

Hello my friends, and fellow feminists - great to see you here tonight. 

Thank you to the Feminist Twins, Jenna and Kayla for inviting me to speak here today. I'm grateful to have a platform to tell my story, as an angry, aggressive, and loud woman.

My story is not happy or exciting, but it is of saddness and fear. Also to give you content warning, of gender based violence, harassment, & intimidation.   

I am a Hong Konger, and I am a dissident of the Chinese party-state. 

Since the start of Hong Kong's democratic movement last June, I shifted my activism and started working to support Hong Kong activists. I started taking Canadian media interviews, posting infographics on my social media, and planning events to raise attention. 

Around July, I noticed an abnormal amount of spam popping up on my social media *excuse my language* 

         "You dumb ugly fuck"

         "Democrazy"

         "You Hong Kongers are second class citizens of our great motherland China"

Then it got worse: 

         "You are a mutt. I hope your family explodes, & your ancestors' graves dug up"

         "I hope you get crushed by tanks"

         "Wash your mother clean, I will come gang rape your family tonight"

I started getting rape threats, death threats, and dreadful curses every day. Information about me started circulating on Chinese social media chatrooms. People were encouraged to harass me, to stalk me, and to intimidate me. They dubbed me "a race traitor", and must be punished for daring to speak up against "great motherland China".

I noticed people would photograph me on the streets, running away before I can confront them. I would receive anonymous phone calls, when I pick up, I only hear the heavy breathing on the other end. I even got a threatening phone call in my hotel room in Vancouver, which was booked under another person's name.

For dissidents and activists, whether here in Canada or worldwide, we know the ugly truth behind these seemingly unrelated incidents. They are coordinated efforts to suppress our voices through harassment & intimidation. This is happening to land defenders, to Indigenous youths, to the Black community, to climate justice activists here in Canada.

Those in power will always abuse their power to scare us into submission.

These incidents of harassment and intimidation will continue. Yet, I never gave a second-thought to stop my advocacy work or tone down my language. I refused to let them scare me into silence.

I'm not brave or courageous. I am exhausted, afraid, and angry. My activism is not a choice, it is about my survival, it is about the survival of my home. I must continue, no matter what is thrown at me, I must speak up.

We are gathered here to celebrate International Women's Day and the feminist movement. I wanted to tell you my story, because this isn't just my story. Those who came before us, they did not back down from intimidation, they fought for what we have today.

The road to liberation is far from over, we must continue that fight.

I'll defer to a saying in Cantonese - the literal translations is "we each climb mountain, we work hard". But it means we each have our own unique role, whether as frontline fighters or behind the scenes support, we do what we can in the larger movement.

In this colonial, patriarchical, racist, classist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophic world, where injustice is the norm, we must stand with each other.

In solidarity.