Censors

Beijing can stop Instagram, it can turn off cell phone towers, disconnect the Internet, but it can't censor people who travel on holiday.

While authorities in Beijing are eager to avoid dissent spreading from Hong Kong, with state-controlled media on the other side of a border just 20 miles (32 kilometers) away providing scant coverage of the protests, tourists are experiencing first hand the pro-democracy sentiment on display. Demonstrators are blocking key roads in shopping districts, providing backdrops for photos as mainland travelers visit the three main protest sites.

Over the last few days it has been frequently noted that Wednesday was a holiday in China, National Day. It commemorates the founding of the People's Republic of China, much as Independence Day does for the United States. There are fireworks, celebrations - and, yes, a day off.  This fortuitous coincidence meant that people in Hong Kong were free to join the protests if they desired, and many did.

What hadn't been noted as often is that people in mainland China often travel to Hong Kong on this day. Which means that they are getting a live-action view of the protests, unencumbered by government control of the media.

“You only need to look at the youngsters of a country to see its future: Hong Kong should be proud,” Ding, a middle school teacher from Shenzhen who toured the main protest site in the Admiralty district, said yesterday. 

Not everyone is happy about being there...

“I don’t know what the hell is going on in Hong Kong,” said Zheng Tian, 40, a tourist from Ningbo, who was trying to reach his hotel on Canton Road in the Tsim Sha Tsui shopping district. “It’s very inconvenient for me to drag my two luggages all the way to the hotel as taxi drivers refused to come to this area. Shops are closed, food is out of stock at restaurants, what am I supposed to do here?”

...but even those inconvenienced will see that, if only for a little while, the government is not all-powerful.