As hundreds in Canada sang Glory to Hong Kong, he sang a different tune: ‘Shame on losers’
- Vancent Zhu was a loud but lonely voice of dissent against a flash mob by Hong Kong protest supporters near Vancouver
- Zhu has previously protested in potentially hostile waters, sailing to the disputed Diaoyu Islands to assert Chinese territorial claims in 2006
When Vancent Zhu heard that supporters of the Hong Kong protest movement would be gathering at a shopping mall in Richmond, near Vancouver, to sing their de facto anthem Glory to Hong Kong, he knew he had to be there.
The electrical technician was going to be in Richmond afterwards for a party, anyway. So he drove the 15km (9 miles) from his home in Burnaby, another Vancouver satellite city, and made a day of it.
Hundreds of protesters dressed in black filled the railings of the multilevel Aberdeen Centre mall, which developer Thomas Fung built as the region’s first Asian-style shopping centre in 1989, catering to the pre-handover influx of immigrants from Hong Kong.
As the other protesters’ voices rose to the choral strains of Glory to Hong Kong, and then the familiar Cantonese call-and-response chants of their movement, Vancent Zhu cupped his hands to his mouth and began to sing, at the top of his lungs.
“SHAME ON LO-SERS,” he bellowed with a high-low lilt. “SHAAAME-ON-LOOOO-SERS”.
‘The Hong Kong violence makers, we call them the losers’
Zhu’s vocal dissent from the top tier of the mall on September 14 was mostly drowned out by the voices below. But it was immortalised on social media.
