Chow and choice at Central It was 1974 in Hong Kong when a colleague showed me herfamily's business at Aberdeen. They madevotive candles, she said, so I was expecting a storefront shop in one of thebuildings. I was shown a highlymechanized production of candles for Hallmark and the operation made themafford a 20-story building when Aberdeen was just a fishing village. They also lived in a compound on classy Pok Fu Lam Rd. It did not hurt that her father also traded theingredients for making candles into what cities use for fireworks and armiesused for armaments. She was the eldest in the family who attended college inRegina, Saskatchewan, cut short when her father died. She wanted the best for her family. She wanted to bring it out of HK as Britainand China began talking about the return of the colony to Beijing'sadministration. I met her in thePhilippines on her first trip to scout possible investment in real estate. She had no qualms about China. In fact, she had the classical "roundface" of the Tang Dynasty, and the full plump body to go with it! I came through Kowloon nine years earlier on my voyage toSan Francisco as a student bound for the US via Kobe, Yokohama, Honolulu beforegoing under the Golden Gate. I rememberbeing asked when I was eight after I opened a Postal Savings Bank account thatmy mother equaled any deposits I made, what I would do with the money. I answered, "I will take a trip toChina." I was twenty when I madethe trip to Hong Kong. The coolie-drawnrickshaw and the deceptively rowdy but well-orchestrated sidewalk chow mien noodle shopsat night were China enough to my imagination. In 1989, I finally visited the mainland, hitting Beijing'sTiananmen Square and its Forbidden City four months after the June workers'uprising, the Xi'an of Qin Shi Huangdi's terracotta army, then Shanghai withthe Bund looking abandoned and dilapidated, Huangpu overcrowded and the FrenchQuarters neglected, to the well-tended gardens in Suzhou and the tranquil WestLake of Hangzhou. It was an experiencetraversing the space by air and rail when Deng Xiao Peng and China went intoreform and opening up in earnest. I was in and out of HK in the '70s and early 80s, then inand out of the mainland since '89 to the present. Thus, it came as a big surprise to read theOct. 5 online edition of Time Magazine quote David Shambaugh of GeorgeWashington U's China program as telling the New York Times that Chinawas going through its most repressive period in 25 years. That would be since 1989 when I first visitedBeijing. I was resident of Washington DC within the beltway onthe Virginia side half of the 90s being Mr. Mom while married to an officer ofthe State Department. Shambaugh directsthe GWU China program so he presumably gets his materials from the CIA, a par for the course. The current prominence of Alex Chow and Occupy Centralin Hong Kong hinges on the perception of "choice" in the nominationprocess of HK's projected universal suffrage of 2017. The Occupy Central has annual marches throughthe financial district of HK in July, and this year Alex as the newly electedchair of the Federation of Students in HK went off script. After the march, locked arms-in-arms withfellow students, he led a sit-down on the main traffic of the Central Districtchanting, "Our Government, our choice." With China's national week starting October 1, OccupyCentral for Peace and Democracy, et al, including a Baptist Minister, planned arally but 17-year old Joshua Wong led students aligned with his 3-yr oldScholarism to protest on September 28. The rally tapped into the energy of the anticipated weeklong vacationand before he knew it, CY Leung, HK SAR XO, previously chosen by electoralvotes and approved by Beijing, was asked to step down. The "choice" at Central in HK is clear aboutwhat it is against rather than what it is for. For many students who had been taught imaginal rather than actualdemocracy, it is being against China. Unfortunately, vested interests in the west fan the flames of protest asa matter of reflex action, often, involving US policy that has moved lessinclusive and more assertive of the claimed prerogatives of Americanexceptionalism since Jimmy Carter. US "meddling", a claimed prerogative of theself-appointed world police, fomented the Arab Spring, and now, Occupy Centralin HK. It quickly lent its support ofpro-democracy forces. I watched my own denomination, the United MethodistChurch, move from the fresh progressive air of its General Conference of 1968to the alliance ironically between US evangelical missionary forces and thecritical presence of third world countries. I resigned. I am not one to condemn the US of A as malevolent. After all, a country that elected a"Black" President cannot be all that bad. But I am also clear that less than a third ofregistered voters exercise their rights. Choice, not ideology, but the practice, is the democraticcall of the times. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031@aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!