1 July 2005

So, the 1 July 2005 rally is finally over. Were you there? Had you voted at the mock referrendum?

I was at Victoria Park last night to help a bit on the set up. It rained heavyly and I got all wet from top down. I took a hot bath after I returned home and drank a cup of hot lemon to prevent getting a cold.

I was at Victoria Park again at around 10am today. This year, I helped coordinating the "sales team" -- we were not allowed to fund raise at the Park and along the route of the rally, so we had to sell stuff. The staff had already helped finding sufficient people to join the sales team and arranged for most of the materials. So my toughest part was to "dispatch" the volunteers in groups in different locations around the Park and made sure all the money boxes returned.

It went quite smooth, except it rained again before the march and when we were packing stuffs at Central; the Police was giving us lots of trouble; and most importantly, not raising enought to support the operational cost of the rally.

I didn't "join" the rally both this year and last. I used transit to travel from Victoria Park to Central. Last year, it's because it's too hot and Ah O told me not to walk between the two spots or I would be sick in the middle. This year, it's because we would like to transfer the left over materials for sales. I really wanted to join the rally though. So I could see the street stations and interact with the public.

One of my friends said yesterday that I was keen to participate in CHRF's events. But I think more accurately, I like the sense of feeling that many people are joining the effort to achieve one single task, to fulfill one single dream. That's the sense of feeling I am searching for a long time.

This year, we have controversy about number of people joining the rally. The problem this year is the CHRF announced a number that many participants thought it was too low. But regardless the number is 17,000; 21,000 or 45,000, the fact is that when CH Tung stepped down; when the economy seems to be improved; when the society seems to have less to angry about, hundreds of thousands of people still walked on the streets to express their concerns, there can only be two reasons: (1) 1 July rally has become a HK culture; and/or (2) there's a common dream in our hearts.