Three young illegal immigrants from China caught by a Hong Kong marine police patrol in Deep Bay, in November 1979. Their raft is made of inflatable plastic cushions sewn together and covered with plastic bags.It was about midnight when Poon Yuen-ching and her fiance, Lo Ping-sum, stood at the edge of Deep Bay.
Poon told Chinese-language Hong Kong newspaper The Kung Sheung Daily News that working 12 hours a day fishing in peak season, followed by hours of learning the words of Mao Zedong, was too tough. Poon stepped out of the boat and her fiance's body was removed. She was sent to hospital and discharged the same day, before being questioned at the Yuen Long police station and released to live with a relative in the city.
The South China Morning Post ran a front-page story in 1974 headlined "Refugees a big strain on our resources". Among them is 62-year-old Lee Yat-keung. Lee had initially been coy about discussing his ordeal, believing that escaping to Hong Kong could be seen as shameful, a betrayal of state and family.
Students blew the whistle on their teachers for being counter-revolutionaries, as did children on their parents. When captured by Red Guards or by civilians devoted to Mao's revolution, these "enemies" were hauled off to "struggle sessions", paraded down Shangxiajiu to be denounced by the public.So in 1979, aged 18, Lee started to plan his escape. And he was not the first in his family to make the attempt.
"It was huge," Lee says. "Young people, around 18 or 19 years old, all wanted to escape. Chinese society was poor and undeveloped. A closed society had created many problems, which made all the young people on the mainland — especially those near the Pearl River Delta — long for Hong Kong." Frank Dikötter, China historian and chair professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong, puts the figure at 45 million deaths.
"We definitely could not walk during the day, because there were militia and soldiers at the border," says Lee. "The militia won't talk to you, but the army at the border will shoot you." Lee knew he was to climb out of the water in Lau Fau Shan, in northern Hong Kong, but had no idea what it looked like. "We just knew it was a place full of lights — like a rainbow. That strengthened our belief that we could make it," he says.
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: IndependentSG - 🏆 9. / 63 Read more »
Source: IndependentSG - 🏆 2. / 72 Read more »
Source: STForeignDesk - 🏆 4. / 71 Read more »
Source: IndependentSG - 🏆 9. / 63 Read more »
Source: STForeignDesk - 🏆 4. / 71 Read more »
Source: ChannelNewsAsia - 🏆 6. / 66 Read more »