Brave front: The pro-democracy guerrilla fighters taking on Hong Kong’s riot police

 Hong Kong

Mo Ming zig-zagged through the tear-gas. He ran across a central Hong Kong flyover in a low crouch he learned from the shoot-’em-up video game Counter-Strike. It was 1 October, China’s National Day, and the confrontations in Hong Kong were in their 17th week. I followed him as he picked a path through the thickening fog, slingshot at the ready for a counterstrike of his own against the police’s water cannon — their most formidable weapon, which sprays protesters with blue, irritant-laced water. It fired just short of our position, and we made it across to the far side, where other pro-democracy fighters had retreated. These were the Braves: the frontliners taking on the Hong Kong riot police with umbrellas, gas masks, kneepads and the occasional Guy Fawkes mask. Next to us, a small group tried and failed to light a Molotov cocktail brewed in a miniature screw-top wine bottle; others hurled bricks and petrol bombs. One in a hard hat exchanged a few words in Cantonese with Mo, then sheltered him with an opened umbrella as the pair pressed forward, giving Mo enough cover to fire off a few marbles from his slingshot at the police on a footbridge above. The day had started peacefully. In the morning, I visited Mo’s apartment in a southern harbour neighbourhood of Hong Kong island. I drank tea with his wife and met his four-month-old son. On my phone we watched footage of the 70th anniversary military parade in Beijing. Mo made fun of the goose-stepping soldiers and giant Soviet–style portraits of Xi Jinping, and asked if I’d seen the last military parade in Romania before the fall of Ceausescu. ‘I think the Communists need a kick up the arse,’ he said. Once his wife and baby left for a boat trip, Mo Ming — his pseudonym, literally ‘No Name’ — packed his backpack: gas-mask, eye goggles, black t-shirt, and a rubber catapult tucked into a military-style belt along with the pouchful of marbles he had bought from a corner store.