Laurel Chor Profile picture
My name rhymes with Pharrell. Emmy-nominated journo, photographer & filmmaker from 🇭🇰. @NatGeo Explorer. she/her. https://t.co/7lnfA0iTIc
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Jan 18, 2022 15 tweets 4 min read
Reporting live from the scene where the doomed, allegedly potentially Covid-infected hamsters live: 3 AFCD vans with staff in full hazmat, police officers (including plainclothes ones), police cordons, and camera crews. The police have blocked off the hazard area and are telling people to cross the road and use the opposite sidewalk
Jan 18, 2022 8 tweets 5 min read
Updating my CV properly for the 1st time since 2006 & I've been thinking a lot about how grateful I am to have cut my teeth as a journalist @CoconutsHK, where I had (almost) free reign to be sassy & salty AF, esp when covering the Umbrella Movement. eg: coconuts.co/hongkong/news/… It makes me so sad to think that future (and current) young journalists in Hong Kong won't get the chance to grow in an environment where they don't have to worry about whether their words will land them in jail. The loss of potential is beyond measure and unimaginably tragic.
Jan 17, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
I’m actually struggling to come up with an analogy to explain to those unfamiliar with Chinese culture just how offensive this is. I’m almost laughing at the thought of how my late grandma would react to this… I used to spend hours folding joss paper with her for offerings. This isn’t nearly as bad in comparison but it reminds me of the time I ordered pad thai in Paris (it was late and I was desperate for Asian food ok) and this is how it showed up.
Jul 1, 2021 32 tweets 12 min read
Quite the turnout for the rally for Uighurs/Tibet/Hong Kong outside the Chinese Embassy in London for the 100th anniversary of the CCP and the 24th anniversary of the HK Handover. It’s a sharp contrast from the somber day that Hong Kong had. There’s a man in all yellow and he’s begun leading the HKers to another rally in Chinatown.
Jun 9, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
I pay attention to trolls bc I’m a masochist but also bc they often represent not uncommon views. This guy who comments on my IG blames protesters for the CCP tightening its grip on Hong Kong *but not the CCP itself*. Image It’s a hypercynical, hyperpractical belief in the inevitability and inescapability of the CCP’s continued authoritarian rule. They think that HK was doing just fine & that ungrateful protesters who were otherwise enjoying a “decent” quality of life “forced” the CCP to crack down.
Oct 1, 2020 10 tweets 4 min read
Sidewalk march happening on Yee Wo St in Causeway Bay despite heavy police presence. #hongkongprotests And as quickly as it appeared it has dissipated. Some remain standing by bus stops holding up Apple Daily pages in protest. As has been the case for many protests this year, it’s hard to distinguish between shoppers, bystanders and protesters until they begin chanting.
Sep 6, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
At 1:20am, there are still a few dozen people waiting for those arrested to be released outside Hung Hom Police Station. Image The Arrestee Support Counter provided by Yau Tsim Mong District Councillors. The table, chairs and snacks make it clear this is not their first rodeo. Image
Aug 10, 2020 4 tweets 3 min read
3,000 people are watching a livestream of a newsstand in Mong Kok, where today's issue of @appledaily_hk will be soon be arriving, fresh off the press. There is already a line of people waiting to buy their copies. #HongKong #nationalsecuritylaw Image A man wearing a gas mask is the first person in Hong Kong to get their hands on a copy of today's @appledaily_hk after the arrest of @JimmyLaiApple and the raid on their offices. Image
Aug 4, 2020 5 tweets 5 min read
I produced this with @KarenYeReports for @VICENews in 2018: We went to a town in Shandong where a social credit system was being piloted and met an information collector who was paid ~USD50/month to write down information on her neighbors. There was a big sign in the town square explaining the social credit system. ImageImageImageImage
Jul 31, 2020 8 tweets 3 min read
New election date: Sep 5, 2021. Image Actually completely baffled that the HK government is admitting that the chief executive has to invoke emergency powers to delay the elections because otherwise, “it could be regarded as an abuse of power” ImageImageImage
Jul 26, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
They are both protests that intensified as a direct result of brutal police crackdowns, with protesters turning/expanding their focus to resisting the police and their abuse of power. Thus both protests appear(ed) increasingly battlelike, with protesters fighting back. 1/ They‘re both movements that have lasted for weeks/months & thus protesters have had time to develop tactics, gear up & grow bolder w/ experience. US protesters have directly borrowed + shared tactics from HK protests (eg how to deal w/ tear gas), largely thx to social media. 2/
Jul 21, 2020 22 tweets 7 min read
Odd vibes at Yuen Long’s Yoho Mall, where there is supposed to be a protest to mark the one-year anniversary of the attack by masked thugs on subway passengers and protesters as police did nothing. Tons of police and media walking around. At least one person is being searched. One commander in particular is being super aggressive to anyone who isn’t media, shaking his pepper spray bottle as a threat.
Jul 21, 2020 8 tweets 3 min read
I was just on my way to grab lunch when I saw officers wearing helmets and shields enter the luxury Landmark mall. They rounded up a handful of boys who had been staging a small lunchtime protest inside. #HongKongProtests Image Multiple police vans and a couple dozen cops to deal with 4 boys inside a mall. ImageImage
Jul 8, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
Fairly heavy semi-geared-up police presence in Tseung Kwan O on the 8th month anniversary of Alex Chow’s death. Image A dozen or so people attending the memorial on the street. Image
Jul 1, 2020 25 tweets 7 min read
Police have raised a yellow flag warning the crowd that they are breaching the law in Causeway Bay. Police have essentially kettled this section of Lockhart Rd, with the only way out one MTR exit. People are not streaming out. #hongkongprotests Image Police have so thoroughly blocked roads in Causeway Bay that @JessiePang0125 and I are forced to take the MTR one stop to get out. Despite there not being cars — because the police have blocked the roads — officers were still making ppl stay on the sidewalk.
Jun 30, 2020 11 tweets 3 min read
I am so sad and angry that I can't even read straight right now, but here's an important thread about the #NationalSecurityLaw that's now been in place in Hong Kong for less than 2 hours. More people translating/unpacking the National Security Law:
Jun 28, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
Full house at the Kowloon Union Church memorial service. #HongKongProtests Image So many people are attending the service that there is a spillover room inside the church where people are sitting on the floor to watch a live broadcast. Image
Jun 12, 2020 5 tweets 3 min read
Disband the police. Hong Kong independence. One nation, one Hong Kong. Fight until the end. Chants are deafening at this mall protest marking the 1-yr anniversary of police using teargas on anti-extradition protesters. It’s estimated that they’ve since fired 16,000 canisters. I happened to be behind this uncle when he began playing Glory to Hong Kong on his little speaker, leading the crowd into a rousing rendition of the song that allegedly got a schoolteacher fired after she let her secondary students sing it at school. news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/compon…
Jun 12, 2020 10 tweets 3 min read
Lunchtime protest happening right now at Pacific Place. You never really know how many protesters actually showed up (and how many are just curious bystanders) until you hear them chant. It’s one of the bigger lunchtime protests I’ve seen: the march has 50-100 participants.
Jun 9, 2020 6 tweets 2 min read
It is the one-year anniversary of the first major march of the #HongKongProtests. Earlier, people spilled over from Chater Garden into the nearby luxury malls. The chants were deafening in the pedestrian tunnel. Protesters had started marching westward, taking up at least half of queen’s road.
Jun 4, 2020 7 tweets 3 min read
The police are standing at Victoria Park warning people that assembly is illegal.... while hundreds if not thousands of people stream into the park in front of them to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. #HongKongProtests #June4 A trilingual message warning offenders they may be prosecuted is being broadcast on repeat. People DGAF.