Keeping Up Morale

A Lego dramatization of the Umbrella Movement on show at Admiralty

A referendum was supposed to take place tonight at Admiralty to gage what protesters thought should be the next plan of action.

But it was called off hours before it was due to start, mainly because protesters had different views about how to move forward and felt the poll would not achieve much.

Have your portrait taken at the site with an "umbrella"

"The public may feel that there are problems with the movement's organization and leadership, and we admit that... I promise that in the future, we will have sufficient notification and discussion with protesters, before making a major, formal decision, said Occupy co-founder Benny Tai Yiu-ting.

Federation of Students' Alex Chow Yong-kang said some protesters felt there was no need for a vote because them occupying the streets proved they supported the issues in the referendum.

It's an embarrassing gaffe for the Occupy/Umbrella Movement, but tonight there was a strong turnout in Admiralty.

There was a mini concert held, a guy with a guitar sang a few songs followed by speeches by others to fire up the crowd, marking Day 29.

A yellow umbrella mobile hanging by the escalator

The newest thing now is to take a portrait at the protest site and with the camera shutter open for a long exposure, a guy with a yellow light "draws" between two people to make it look like they are holding an umbrella.

We also saw a young woman using a whiteboard marker drawing on the hood of her convertible -- how did she drive it in there? She wrote "I love students" complete with a drawing of an umbrella and lion with the banner "I want true democracy", referring to the Lion Rock banner stunt. She invited two kids to write "add oil" in Chinese.

There wasn't any hard feelings about not having the vote -- it was probably for the best.

However this weekend Robert Chow Yung's group was out in force, collecting signatures to support the police, an indirect pro-Beijing reference. They were in every neighbourhood including mine soliciting signatures, though I heard even children's autographs were accepted, which may explain why they had some 300,000 on the first day.

A woman draws on the hood of her car

This numbers game just creates a greater divide between people instead of trying to inch closer to some kind of consensus...

But it got really ugly in Tsim Sha Tsui last night, when some anti-Occupy supporters had scuffled with journalists, when a RTHK reporter was dragged to the ground, and a TVB reporter and two TVB cameramen were injured.

And people try to claim Umbrella Movement protesters are inciting violence?