Week 13: Self Reflection (Karen Lam)

Week 13: Self Reflection (Karen Lam)
I was born and live in Hong Kong for more than 20 years. I am a 100% local Hong Kong citizen. All the things, people, information and events around me formulate my identity as a Hong Konger. Cantonese is my mother language while English is my major learning instrument. I always go to Chinese restaurant to “Yum Cha” on Sunday with my family. Dim-sum, milk tea and egg tart are some of my favorite foods which represent the dining culture of Hong Kong. I love shopping in Tsim Sha Tsui and sing karaoke in Mongkok with my friends in the weekends. These are part of my daily life, which is closely related to the Hong Kong culture and every Hong Konger will share similar experience and habit.

Because of the demonstration of express railway, society put more concerns on the generation – “Post 80s”, which I belong to. Generally, our generation is always described as impetuous, lazy and irresponsible. To a large extent, such impressions towards post 80s mainly come from the media. For example, the news reporting about the chaos in the demonstration is one of the sources for the media to stereotype our generation. In fact, I don’t think our generation is that bad as the media descriptions. I do love my age and the collective memories that we share. For example, the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 and the bad times during SARS are some valuable memories among our age group. For me, joining the 4 June incident gathering last year gives me a deep impression and memory. 2009 is a remarkable year as the incident has passed for 20 years and it was the first time that I participate the event. When I was walking to the Victoria Park, I was wondering the majority would be old men and ladies. Unexpectedly, I saw many youngsters like me holding the white candles, sitting on the grassland. The theme of the gathering was “薪火相傳”and a group of university students came on the stage swearing that our generation would never forget the lesson learnt from history. The atmosphere was very touching at that night and it makes me feel proud of joining the event. From my viewpoint, post 80s is a group of people that is passionate, brave and rightful. And these characteristics are rarely founded in the older generations. Maybe it is because the older generations have much more other concerns other than fighting for justice, just like family and career burden. But no worries, I think now is a good time for us, the post 80s, to fight for the benefits for the society. Besides, some people may think our generation is lack of planning. However, I don’t think it is a weakness to us and oppositely we are flexible enough to adapt to the ever-changeable society. In fact, as a post 80s in the society nowadays, it is really hard to talk about “dream” achievement because of many restrictions and difficulties brought by the social system. For me, living healthily with my family without any worries is already an ideal life for me. The most important value is that no matter what kind of job you get in the future, never forget your reality and conscience.