I’ve known Eia since we were seven, but I didn’t know her until we were thirteen. That’s when she revealed, two months after the fact, that her mother had moved to live with her boyfriend, making Eia the primary caretaker for her brother and grandma. The news surprised me. Her bright, curious eyes had betrayed nothing.
Eia and I met at our all-girls Catholic primary school in Hong Kong, where we learned the mundane joys of sharing home cooked meals and the importance of abiding by the school’s strict regulations. Nail polish, hair dye, makeup, and earrings were strictly forbidden. Our hair had to be in braids unless it was shorter than shoulder-length, and hair ties had to be in our school colors of orange, blue, or black. Years later, we would realize that these rules embedded themselves into unconscious, people-pleasing habits and an overwhelming desire for self-expression.
Eia was born with a smart mouth—a useful skill in the world but an annoyance in school. She regularly showed up with silver earrings and a fiery attitude. Teachers despised her, but that mischievous grin evoked something in the rest of us: jealousy for her courage to speak up for herself and rebel against the figures we were taught to obey without question.
Eia and I are now seven thousand miles apart, and our weekly in-person hangouts have turned into annual FaceTimes.
On our most recent call, I sit patiently in my suite’s dimly lit common room, trying to fight fatigue—it’s nearing three in the morning. When I answer her call, I instinctually wince at the brightness of Eia’s room—I had forgotten there was a twelve-hour time difference. Eia’s distinctive toothy grin is projected on the pixelated screen, though her familiar school braids have vanished—she now rocks a fresh buzz cut. An unfamiliar British accent seeps into her sentences; her words carry excessive poise and there’s an extra pop in her p’s. When Eia completed her third year of secondary school around three years ago, she moved in with one of her closest friends, who’d immigrated to Hong Kong from London.
Eia’s unstable home life reflected her impulsive decisions. I would pick up the phone one day and find her with green hair, then in a hospital gown the next. Her mother divorced her father when Eia was five, and Eia began struggling with mental health when she was eleven. Without any adult to depend on, she spiraled into depression. Her forced admissions to the mental ward shattered her trust in family. To get through it all, Eia sought comfort in the arts—poetry, music, and eventually, songwriting. She transferred to a performing arts high school and, through music, found her community.
I hear a knock on the door, and Eia’s expression lights up at the entrance of someone off camera. Ko walks into frame and hands her a glass of water. Eia began dating Ko in 2022, right after he was released from jail for carrying a knife, a smoke bomb, and armor. Eia had told me about him while his trial was ongoing but had only ever described him as “her crush from school.” I remember the worry in her voice as she filled me in on her friend group’s efforts to testify in court, and the concentrated look on her face as she wrote heartfelt letters to him while he was incarcerated. Ko smiles and greets me; despite meeting him through FaceTime multiple times, our conversations never last longer than a “hello” or “how are you?” For the first time, I ask him how he realized his feelings for Eia. He tells me it was the letters. All the inmates looked forward to letters from home—they were a sign that you were truly cared for, that there were people waiting for you on the outside. He had never felt such raw sincerity from anyone before. Ko glances to the side with adoration; Eia, gazing out the window, is oblivious to it all.
Ko had been preparing for the next day’s protest when a group of police officers showed up to do their daily rounds, and he was caught in the middle of it. The protests in Hong Kong had reached their peak in 2019, when the Chinese government began to impose itself on Hong Kong, a special administration region that has its own laws and culture. A particular sticking point had to do with language. School lessons were typically taught in the local language, Cantonese; when this was replaced with Mandarin, it began to feel as though Hong Kong’s culture was slowly being eradicated.
Eia recalls the moment she realized this daunting reality. The protests gained momentum in 2014 during the “Umbrella Movement,” and she saw what it meant for her future as a young individual in Hong Kong. She wasn’t prepared to be thrown into the world’s contemporary issues as a twelve-year-old, but she felt she had no choice but to grow with them. The Hong Kong protests caused much unease, but it unified the people of Hong Kong more than any festival or celebration could. Through lagging audio, she told me with unwavering determination in her voice: “You have to do something if you want the change.”
Gradually, our call turns into a catch-up session. We reflect on how far we have come since the days where wearing a gray puffer jacket might as well be a criminal offense and can’t help but giggle over our former teachers’ absurd comments towards the “disobedient.” Those who did not see her potential will never know her brilliance. As Eia bid goodbye, with the sweetest expression on her face, and dimples as prominent as ever, she delivered the rallying cry of 21st century youth: “They can all eat shit!”
