this is where we hold them! this is where we fight!

sunday. the day of days. the most awesome day of excitement thus far.

this is one of the reasons why you should and ought to come to hk. but you may not see this while u are here. it was not only a strike, it was a social work strike.


the sw students from hk chinese u.


news reporter also come.


block the whole street! this is only the tail end. the majority of the pple are in front. estimate about 1k plus pple. maybe even more.


i want to be that guy shouting. best job in the world.


YWCA no backbone!

the reason for the strike:

background:
apparently the govt was involved in pressuring YWCA about a social worker who was doing some work in the area of Tai-O (a fishing village). Cos the local district officers were not happy with the work tt the swker was doing. saying it was disrupting the harmony (sounds like a kind of excuse the chinese govt always gives). So there was some pressure from the govt on YWCA. So YWCA transfer the swker into another department. Not satisfied, the swker quit his job.

so.. cos of this. the swkers in hk, sw students from the universities, and probably some affiliated workers all went on strike. about 3 main issues:
1) unhappiness about political interference with the profession
2) YWCA's lack of backbone - i.e. bowing to govt pressure
3) there was one more but couldnt read the chinese words. (not me! MR!)

so, there's a write up about it here.
http://edu.sina.com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/show.cgi/15/1/4/41101/1.html

pretty awesome to get the whole profession, including students to strike cos of you. most of them were students anyway. like each uni sent bout 50 pple? there was hku, city u, chinese u, poly u, and other schools and organizations. naturally, i joined in to represent sw from nus. woo! but i didnt wear my sw hand shirt. damn. should have worn it.

so they marched from wan chai to the government house in central. (sth like walking from dhoby ghaut to padang distance) at the government house they "cooked" a crab. (fake one.) cos this whole issue is called river crab. The chinese word, hexie, sounds like harmony. so its about the govt's reasoning of "disrupting the harmony."

most of the chants and shouts were in canto so i dont really understand. only words i can pick up are "sei gong" which means social work. and some other random words. so although i did join in, couldnt really shout with them.

if only we could strike in singapore. would have been awesome for the resistance. cos the social work profession has been too mild in singapore. everyone (generalizing statement) wants to keep it safe and do what the govt wants, cos that's where the funding comes from. shouldnt the social workers be the ones telling the govt what to do, based on their professional knowledge?

whole street of pple!


songs!


police reinforcements coming.


then there's also this camel thing. which has a deep meaning.


for some of the meanings behind the camel and river crab, you can check out this youtube vid. rated M18.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKx1aenJK08
p.s. if u did watch it, click the read more option at the side, which would provide more explanations.

so its another great lesson on true advocacy. to be able to fight for your own profession. the social work profession. and to keep it free from political influence. i guess you may not be able to apply this in a singapore context, cos of the slightly different system here. but totally agree social work should be free from political influence. the key issue here is that even if the local district officers are not happy with a social worker's work, they should resolve it between themselves and not through engaging political pressure.

EXCITING! (9.5 out of 10 stars)


credit to MR and HX for some of the info.