Silver linings amid fear, anguish

FEAR ON CAMPUS

Alice Lu, a master's program student at Hong Kong Baptist University, left the city by highspeed rail in November. Lu said her classes had been suspended for three days amid the chaos, and she felt her personal safety was threatened, especially with Chinese mainland students being attacked on campuses.

"I want to leave here as soon as possible," Lu said. "I feel like I'm living in a war zone.… I'm very tired physically and mentally. What upsets me the most is why innocent people have to suffer all of this."

Many mainland students at universities in Hong Kong fled to neighboring Shenzhen or returned home in November, after rioters targeted major campuses amid the escalation of violent protests.

The students, some of them 19 years old and in their first year in the city, said they feared the rioters' reckless assaults and worried about being bullied because they are from the mainland.

During a forum between students and the president of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, a group of masked protesters attacked a PhD student, surnamed Zheng, from the mainland.

Similar violence was reported at Chinese University of Hong Kong. Rioters at CUHK hurled heavy objects and gasoline bombs from a footbridge outside the campus onto the Tolo Highway, a main thoroughfare in the New Territories, jeopardizing the safety of motorists and commuters. The protesters clashed with the police, set fires and vandalized facilities in the nearby subway station. The violence forced the closure of the station and subsequently isolated the campus by cutting off transportation links for the students.

Various organizations from Hong Kong and neighboring Shenzhen helped the students, arranging buses and private cars to help transfer those affected to the mainland. Some youth hostels in Shenzhen also offered free accommodations to the students.

Linda Yin-nor Tjia, assistant professor at the Department of Asian and International Studies at the City University of Hong Kong, said her campus was in chaos. Tjia said classes had been suspended since Nov 11, and she opted to stay home because subway stations were vandalized.

She said most of her graduate students are from the mainland, and some had told her via social media that they had gone home because of the escalating violence.

"My students don't want to be involved. They came to Hong Kong just to study," she said.

A spokesperson for the University of Hong Kong said on Jan 3 that the university had notified students and staff via email that its second semester would begin on Jan 20 as scheduled. Students, staff and visitors on university-related business should have their valid ID card or relevant documents with them when coming onto campus.