The Iron House

by Brian Hioe

The Hong Kong 47, a group of pro-democracy activists consisting of academics, activists, journalists, and others, were sentenced in mid-November on charges of “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the national security law imposed by China in 2020. Many of them have already spent years in jail.

The one I knew best was Joshua Wong, a leading figure in the Umbrella Movement of 2014 and in the subsequent protests of 2019-2020; he might not remember my name, but would recognize my face. The rest I never knew personally, but a number of them are friends of friends.

I first met Wong about ten years ago at a fundraising event for which he had traveled to New York City. He is 28 now, so he was still a teenager then. The organizers had decided to put on some sort of game show, quizzing participants on what they knew about Joshua. One of the questions was, “What is Joshua’s favorite toy?” The answer was “Gundam,” the Japanese science fiction franchise. After someone answered correctly, there was an awkward silence of a few seconds, broken by Joshua. 

“Yay! Amazing!” he shouted. He started clapping. Nobody else made a sound. He seemed impatient, perhaps somewhat bemused by the whole scene. Like many others, I was struck by how robot-like he came off. He seemed to live only for work—that is, for the cause.

Whenever I needed to reach out to Joshua for a quote, he always responded in record time. I’ve kept his example in mind when others have reached out to me for quotes. On the rare occasion he said something in a joking tone during any interview, he almost always took the joke out later on.