🏴 untitled 🏴
The world sees a ferocious fire spreading across a Hong Kong high rise apartment block for 43 hours. I invite you to see Hong Kong as Hongkongers do, without the colonial bullshit.
In my humble and biased opinion, Hong Kong is the best place on the universe.
Western media were quick to parrot Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government’s (HKSARG) political spin without independent fact check. Bamboo scaffolding had been in use for over a century in the city, resilient against fire, rain, storm, and weight. The outside world is eager to treat western centric knowledge as superior, it is too easy for outsiders to orientalize bamboo scaffolding as "backwards".
Fun fact: Bamboo is one of the most sustainable materials in the world.
- No irrigation required
- No pesticides needed
- Grows rapidly (bamboo invasion is a real thing)
- Releases more oxygen than trees
- Bamboo scaffoldings are resilient against the elements (ie. typhoons 250km+ winds)
Within hours of the fire, people across Hong Kong mobilized. Schools, stores, restaurants and public squares turned into impromptu service centres for people in need of help, overflowing with supplies and volunteers.
Social media flooded with crowdsource lists of shelter, healthcare, mental health support and other services. Regular citizens brought stacks of food, water, pet cages, menstrual products, blankets, portable batteries, and clothing. Supplies were systematically organized and labelled, volunteers formed mini stations based on services offered: phone charging station, food bank, water and warm beverages, volunteer vets & animal rescues, social workers & counselling.
ICONIC AF: PSAs went out to stop the public from bringing in more supplies.
Crowdsourced excel spreadsheets tracking every building, every floor, every unit, each resident and pets. Overnight, software engineers developed an app to help track rescue requests. Virtual support groups organized tutoring programs for students, pet hotels, carpooling, infographics for insurance claims, ID replacement, consular support, and helplines for survivors. Regular citizens transformed into citizen journalists, compiling open-source information into a repository.
During the initial hours of the fire, constituents were met with voicemails and automatic responses from their local patriots-only elected representatives and government officials. While these patriotic elected representatives were MIA, grassroots mobilization provided support systems for victims.
When the Chief Executive John Lee stepped in for a press conference, he first gave thanks to Xi Jinping and the PRC government. It wasn’t until he was half way out the door before he annoyingly turned around to responded to questions on why he didn’t bother to thank firefighters or first responders.
This tragedy is a story of institutional corruption and systemic mismanagement, enabled by undemocratic governance.
Residents contributed hundred of thousands of dollars into the renovation project.
Residents tried to alert others with the fire alarm, but the alarm did not ring.
Residents tried to suppress the fire with firehose, there was no water.
A year before the incident, residents flagged safety concerns over the flammability of the netting. For many years before that, local residents organized and fought to advocate for the community’s best interest.
Instead of using fire resistant netting, costed at HKD$90, the construction company opted for netting costed at HKD$50. What a steal... for a HKD$330M project. In a netizen’s video clip, the netting was dripping with burning materials. Many suspect the flammable netting helped the fire spread across the building complex.
HKSARG is eager to throw the law at the people involved in this construction project. A criminal case will provide an outlet for the angry public to direct their deep frustration. HKSARG is desperate to prove judicial independence and regain international confidence in Hong Kong's Court System.
This is not really about the flammable netting nor the few construction executives involved, the story is much bigger than that: Rigged project bidding. Kickbacks. Inflated contracts. Cost-cutting with cheaper materials. Corrupted relationships between officials and capitalists.
關愛隊 Care Teams will/already are using footage for patriotic propaganda: 『港共 中共 真好的 香 港 故 事』
In the coming days, we can expect HKSARG to be engaged in narrative warfare with the backing of united front networks - locally, nationally, and transnationally. HKSARG's paid "care teams" showed up: clocks in with a photo op & clocks out.
These government-appointed care team stuck out like a sore thumb in ugly vests. Standing around on their phones, pondering what caption to post with their photo op on social media. They swoosh open their massive banner and snatched photos of their official entity’s logo.
Three days after the fire, HKSARG mobilized "care teams" to take over from grassroots volunteer efforts. The Hong Kong Police Force came to disperse grassroots supply stations by threatening volunteers with criminal charges, as well as registering volunteer’s ID information. HKSARG fears the organic gathering of grassroots Hongkongers may turn political, "threatening" Hong Kong's regime security.
I have also spoken to a journalist that lives in the neighborhood and he has confirmed that the government "care teams" have started taking over relief centers, kicking out volunteers and taking over supplies donated by the general public.
— RazvenHK (@razvenhk.bsky.social) 2025-11-28T12:59:03.294Z
Under National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong, everything must be politically correct. Don't ask me what that means though, and I highly doubt HKSARG knows what that means either.
Local residents demanding accountability and independent investigation is a threat to “national security”.
The change.org petition was taken down on the same day, another has popped up since. Miles, a university student, was arrested by the National Security Bureau for creating the petition and "Four Demands for the Hung Fuk Estate Fire."
The Four Demands are:
一、持續支援受災居民，確保妥善安置
1. Continue supporting affected residents and ensure proper relocation
二、成立獨立調查委員會，全面徹查潛在利益輸送
2. Establish an independent commission of inquiry to thoroughly investigate potential collusion and profiteering
三、重新審視工程監管制度，拒絕祭旗了事
3. Re-examine the construction oversight system; refuse scapegoating
四、全力追究監管疏忽，問責政府官員
4. Thoroughly pursue regulatory negligence and hold government officials accountable
HKSARG is a government too fragile to confront citizens who dare to point out the obvious problems. Hongkongers dubbed this: 解決指出問題嘅人
At the time of me completing this essay (November 30th), there were two additional arrests by the National Security Bureau: Ex-District Councillor Kenneth Cheung and volunteer "Ah Ching".
Local journalist Boomhead reports that the two arrested, ex-District Councillor Kenneth Cheung might have been arrested after he verbally confronted the government backed "Community Care Teams";…
— RazvenHK (@razvenhk.bsky.social) 2025-11-30T17:28:17.649Z
There will never be governmental accountability in Hong Kong. Chief Executive John Lee is more worried about appearing ungrateful to Xi Jinping. Why should he give a fuck about the thousands of people who can't vote for him anyways?
Meanwhile Hongkongers demonstrated anarchy in its best wildest forms: Organic grassroots mobilization. No leader. No centralized agency. People just showed up and did what is needed for those victimized by this fire. HKSARG fears its people. How could we be so good performing the functions of a government, especially when the government suck so bad.
Hong Kong is a symbol of colonial capitalist values.
"where the west meets east" AKA the window for western capital to access mainland Chinese market
But yet, Hongkongers also have the anarchist potential to overthrow capitalist governance in under 24 hours.
我真係好撚鍾意香港
📝 Reading List 📝
11.26 Tai Po Wang Fuk Court Fire Documentary (Open Source Repository)
Change.Org Petition: 要求獨立調查大埔宏福苑火災 Demand Independent Investigation of Tai Po Wang Fuk Court Fire
Political Analysis on Social Media
While Hongkongers are mobilizing to get beds, student's textbooks, curtains, baby formulas, missing pets to survivors of the Tai Po Hung Fuk fire, western-centric discourse are quick to paint us as "backwards, unscientific, unsafe"... and I have zero patience for this racist bs.
— Cherie Wong 王卓妍 (@chercywong.bsky.social) 2025-11-30T16:43:52.083Z
Infographics
This is an evolving story, I wrapped up this essay as of November 30, 2025.
Comments ()