For 53-year-old Perry Dino, a paintbrush and canvas are weapons for opposing the Hong Kong government as it faces mass protests against a now-suspended bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China.
Dino, who has painted many of Hong Kong’s social movements, including the pro-democracy “Umbrella movement” in 2014, considers it important to record what is happening in the Chinese-ruled city.
“I am already one of those standing on the front line to defend Hong Kong,” Dino said.
Photo: Reuters
Hong Kong’s government has indefinitely suspended the bill that would allow criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party.
However, activists — mostly students in face masks, hard-hats and goggles — are demanding the bill be fully withdrawn.
The bill has seen millions of people, fearing erosion of freedoms promised when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, throng the streets in protest, plunging the former British colony into political crisis.
Photo: Reuters
Braving tear gas, rubber bullets and beanbag rounds in recent weeks when protests turned violent, Dino says he has drawn and painted as much as he can about the mass rallies.
“I hope the future generation can understand what Hong Kong has gone through,” he said.
Dino, a part-time teacher, says he hopes that when Hong Kong has true democracy, he can donate his artwork to a “democracy progression museum.”
None of his artwork is currently for sale.
“Making how much money doesn’t matter to me. Only the future matters,” he said.
Among his paintings, which feature colorful brushstrokes, are ones showing demonstrators’ tents occupying major thoroughfares and a flower-etched tribute to a protester who fell to his death.
One painting depicts police firing tear gas, with thick plumes of smoke billowing across a mass of demonstrators. An abstract canvas shows activists shielding their eyes as they flee while a police officer with a rifle grins.
Since he started doing protest artwork in 2012, Dino has joined the annual June 4 Tiananmen Square vigil and made 25 paintings during the “Umbrella movement,” when protesters paralyzed parts of the financial hub for 79 days.
Dino said that during protests, Hong Kong police have told him to paint somewhere else.
In the mainland, Chinese censors strive to erase or block news or depictions of the protests.
Dino is confident he can keep doing what he is doing.
“They can’t hack into my computer and delete it like a photo, nor can they destroy it with a baton as I can always fix my painting,” he said.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from Germany tells Taipei Times. MORNING WALK Early on April 3, Mieg set out on a scenic hike through Taroko Gorge in Hualien County (花蓮). It was a fine day for it. Little did he know that the complex intersection of tectonic plates Taiwan sits
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50