There are many layers of culture and politics to unpack here, but I thought about Wang while standing in the middle of a huge park in L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood. That simple statement led to doxxing threats and a backlash from some fans who viewed him as a traitor given his upbringing on the peninsula. Born and raised in Hong Kong and a member of K-pop group Got7, Wang fell in hot water after posting on Weibo (aka Chinese Twitter) that he was a “guardian” of the Chinese flag - likely a response to protesters defacing the flag in Hong Kong. A highlight line off the newest cut: “All I see is a beautiful dream, turning to nightmares / Can I say hi there? Hong Kong, they’re all liars!”Įlsewhere, it was Jackson Wang getting embroiled for his own nationalist pride. CD Rev has even dropped a diss track dismissing the protests, getting boosts from state-sponsored media in the process. The methods range from subtle to overt - Higher Brothers’ Melo and DZknow shared Instagram posts of the Chinese flag with short captions in support, while Vava and PG One (both from the reality show The Rap of China) shared a widely circulated meme stating support for the Hong Kong police. But a number of Chinese hip-hop stars, ranging from international crossover artists Higher Brothers to rising rappers to the longstanding collective CD Rev, have all stood up for China. is soundtracked by the likes of Public Enemy, NWA and Rage Against the Machine - hard-hitting music with roots in the cultural underground and a proud defiance toward authority and cohesion. Instead, they’re speaking out against the uprising. Yet some of Hong Kong and China’s brightest young musical talents aren’t seeing it that way. I never really realized how scary the situation is,” a 19-year-old protester named “Chloe” told Vox. I see how China is slowly taking control and the culture is slowly seeping in. It can never go back to the way it was, so I’m really going to miss how it used to be. “The protests really made me love Hong Kong even more. Like it is in protests around the world, young people have thrown their bodies with idealistic abandon into the front lines, shutting down airports and inspiring tough debates around police brutality. It’s no surprise that these latest protests, triggered in March by a proposed bill that would allow China to extradite suspected criminals, have evolved into a much bigger treatise on what identity Hong Kong should maintain in the face of a nation that wants to subsume it. But moves in recent years have made many Hongkongers suspicious that the peninsula is losing its independence. Hong Kong exists in a “ one country, two systems” configuration, with a separate governing system apart from the Communist Party in the Chinese capital, Beijing. Not that there’s been a lack of political turmoil since then. It’s the biggest political fight the streets of Hong Kong have seen since the “ handover” of the former British colony to China in 1997. Masked men and women in Hong Kong this weekend came face-to-face with police in one of the biggest battles of the ongoing protest, getting sprayed with water, tear gas and rubber bullets amid a chaotic tangle of bodies, shields and batons.
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