On 29 June in Hong Kong, a young woman aged twenty-one killed herself by jumping off a building. Before she jumped, she wrote on the housing estate’s wall in red: she demanded total withdrawal of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance amendment bill; she demanded the government’s retraction of the statement that labelled the 12 June protest a “riot”, and the release of student protesters. Her politically motivated suicide was the second this month. As I hear this news, I can no longer predict what the outcome of this social movement will be, nor can I predict what will happen at the next protest march. The frame of mind, and the will of Hong Kong’s people, feels irrevocably inclined towards an abyss from which there is no turning back.

Three weeks before, on 9 June, I and a million Hongkongers took to the streets to protest the extradition bill. I had some business in the Admiralty and Wan Chai areas to take care of first that day, so I did not arrive at the protest meeting place in Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park until after 4 p.m. The event had started two hours earlier, but a stream of people wearing white still flowed like slow-moving water towards the starting point. I kept checking for the latest news on my phone. Had the protesters at the head of the column reached the Central Government Offices? Had the tail of the column started to move? Had friends jammed together for nearly two hours outside the Sogo Department Store entrance started to march? Take a single step outside Victoria Park and it seemed impossible to take another. Tens of thousands of people spilled into the main road from every side street. They were determined, calm. Occasionally they shouted a slogan. University and social organisations’ banners drifted forward almost like small boats in the sea of people, every person a self-representative, their demands clear: to keep Hong Kong from becoming like China, to avoid the loss of current freedoms. Sweating, I followed the crowd as it slowly moved forward, oblivious to the darkening sky, and walked five hours in a haze. I turned and saw the many people still behind me like a meteor’s streaming trail. Having pledged to walk the entire length of that road, they were steadfast.

• Tags: Hong Kong, Issue 16, Lok Man Law