Any frontliners from the Hong Kong protest?

I'll answer all your three questions in one go since a lot of the experiences and emotions are inseparable.

I was on Tim Wa Avenue during 612 and that was where the first tear gas rounds were fired. I witnessed people being hurt by rubber bullets and my friend who went with me being beaten unconscious by police officers, and when I went home what I saw was the government cold-bloodedly labeling us as rioters (my parents watched TVB). The twisting of the facts triggered me a damn lot and frankly without that experience I wouldn't have been able to brave the frontlines for the consecutive months. During the Umbrella Revolution in 2014 I was actually against protestors using radical methods, and I'd have been the same if not for that one experience which opened my eyes to how much our oppressors were capable of (little did I know that was just the beginning).

As radical protestors, some of us go alone (that's very dangerous) but we often formed small groups. Some of us met in the earlier protests from June and the others were people introduced to us through Telegram, but we kept track of every single person in case they went missing. The co-operation was tight and each time we had clearly defined goals that reflected the defense strategy of the entire protest as a whole. And each time we made sure we had enough supplies before we entered the fighting ground. We do get free food because of the donations, and the sense of camaraderie is very strong. The guys tend to take the girls under their wing, and it was pretty nice to know you aren't just a disposable object to your compatriots just because you're supposedly the weaker sex.

I was part of the storming of Legco on July 1. It was a controversial event because we did vandalize a bunch of portraits hung on the walls (I remember the one of Rita Fan) and some of the property as well, but we did pay (i.e. leave cash) for any beverage we got from their refrigerator and AFAIK the money remained intact after the event ended. A guy on our side read a declaration, and it was uplifting, but the police came at around midnight and staged a mass arrest. A couple of individuals refused to leave and actually volunteered to martyr for the cause--we desperately tried to pull them away. We could have easily left people behind but one of the slogans of our movement constantly reminded us not to split, and it applied everywhere.

I'm female and not as strongly built as a lot of the guys you typically associate with frontlining, so in the beginning, I wasn't exactly at the very forefront fighting hand-to-hand combat with the riot police. I was often just behind the actual combatants and mostly I helped extinguish tear gas and throw them back at the police, relying on my agility and quickness to react. In August I learnt to make and throw molotovs, but frankly it was horribly scary and I really wanted to return to one of the peaceful protests. My parents also discovered everything I did and there were some very heated verbal (and physical) clashes, but I kind of got numb to the physical attacks at home because I've experienced worse outside. Still it pissed me off to hear my parents berating our movement and calling us cockroaches like how the police called us. I left them after that and stayed with my other frontliner friends I met through the movement.

A while later I finally quit being a frontliner and started doing more campaigning work because persuading people to join our cause, not fighting, was what I was best at. And around late 2019 there emerged a trend to do online campaigning work on Twitter, Reddit, etc (explained the mass increase in subscribers here). But the memories from June to August aren't things I'll easily forget. And I've met some amazing people through this journey.

When I was young I read a lot of stories about people dying for something they believe in. I don't want to die, but being a frontliner really allowed me to understand perspectives like this.

/r/HongKong Thread