VA Wong Sir, a visual art teacher in #HongKong best known for some of his protest artworks published anonymously online, lost his job after someone filed a complaint to the Education Bureau. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-09-11/hong-kong-teacher-purge

Most who followed the #HongKongProtest last year would remember this viral work. Wong was in fact drawing himself. Each night, he scoured the telegram groups looking at photos of the arrested, fearing he would find one of his students among them.

He is unable to join the protests himself, having to care for his ailing mother, who requires daily peritoneal dialysis. As a teacher, he is against his students protesting. He believes that's the responsibility of adults, not kids. He sometimes tries to convince them not to go.

"It is because your generation did not do enough, that is why we have to come out,” a student argued. Wong was left silent. One day, his student tapped him on the shoulder and told him he couldn't come to class next week. He had to go to court.

Wong was overwhelmed with guilt. He later drew a pic of himself sitting alone in the assembly hall. "Promise me, you will all be here for the class photo. I will wait for you."

Another primary school teacher went agains the grain and regularly shared news articles and videos with her students on the digital teaching platform. She invited students to comment and debate, but now faces the risk of dismissal over a complaint.

Feedback in the past had been positive. One parent, vehemently against the Hong Kong protests, thanked Tang for investing in her child. Another, an immigrant from mainland China, said the news articles helped the family understand and better integrate into Hong Kong society.

She did so knowing the risk but also believing it's necessary because "there will not be much space for them to debate and discuss in the future. I don't know even know what the textbooks then will look like. If I don't teach them now, they will never be able to learn."

I met Shiu, university lecturer dismissed from Baptist University over his participation in the Occupy Movement, on the first day #HongKong government banned dining in altogether. With nowhere to go, we sat on the train platform and did the interview with trains passing by.

To understand his loss, you must first realise what Baptist University means to him. He was the 1st in his family to enter university when he made it into then-Baptist College in 1989 to study social work. It was a dream he had dared not imagined and there he felt empowered.

In the decade after he graduated, became a full-time social worker serving the minorities, he returned to the campus whenever he felt weary and there he'd find peace and renewed strength. When he returned in 2007 as a lecturer, he kneeled in his new office, gave thanks to God

To him, to be let go and in such a way, is like being disowned by his mother. We met him in his office the day he moved out. He walked around the campus to bid farewell, knowing he will probably not be let in again and recounted memories at every corner.

He kept his position after he was elected as a legislator in 2016. Despite feeling drained after hours of meeting at the legislative council, he would take a 40 minute train ride and rush back to school for his lectures. “As soon as I step foot in the classroom, I feel alive,”

When he got out of jail in October 2019, after serving an 8mth sentence for his role in Occupy Movement, he was back at school the next day for a department meeting “not out of responsibility”, but solely because of his emotional attachment to the place where he belonged.

He knew under the exacerbating political environment, there would soon be no place for critical voices like him in academia. Still, nothing prepared him for what he saw: former mentor, who once taught him, now turned on him, stabbed him in the back, reported him to authorities.

Excoworkers “are now accomplices in the crackdown. The Chinese government may be threatening, but it doesn’t excuse the moral failure of the university and intellectuals. When you see your co-workers giving in one by one, it is not just loneliness you feel. It’s heart-wrenching.”

A lot of thanks to @dhpierson with his help on the story.