As the protests turned violent, and took on an increasingly anti-China bent, this community began to feel nervous. At a protest in Central, a mainland employee of JP Morgan became embroiled in a confrontation with protesters outside his office, and when he said in Mandarin to the agitated throng around him, ‘We are all Chinese!’ (’Women dou shi Zhongguoren!), one black-clad protester leapt in and punched him.

It is interesting to pause on this statement: it may well have been intended as an attempt to voice solidarity, as an expression of fraternity. However, carrying as it did the political baggage of not just ethnicity but citizenship, nationhood, and therefore rule from Beijing, it was not an uncontroversial statement, especially when spoken in that context—and in Mandarin. It could have been understood by some in the crowd as an assertion of colonial rule, spoken in the language of the coloniser. But such were the complexities that mainland residents in Hong Kong increasingly found themselves having to navigate.