For seven successive years since the fatal 1949, the celebration of Double Tenth at Hongkong by our overseas has become more and more popular and the tempo of their sentiment toward this national day has risen higher and higher year after year. Unlike the Communists who plan and scheme through their party machine for a show at Hongkong on October 1 each year to celebrate their "national anniversary," the free Chinese in Hongkong plan and show their celebrations spontaneously as individuals. In spite of the superiority of the Communists in financial resources and other means and facilities available to the ruthless, the Communist show has dwindled in popularity year after year until now it serves no purpose except to remind the Chinese populace there that even in matters of celebration these stooges of USSR are deceptive and regimented, and to intensify their impatience for the time nine days later when they can show the whole world what a fake the Communist regime really is and on what false ground their claim to the people's support is built.
The 45th Double Tenth at Hongkong on October 10, 1956, is specially memorable not only because of the mammoth scale with which it was celebrated but also because of the incident that led to a casualty list of 47 dead and 370 wounded through the scheming of Communist agents in Hongkong and the blunder of the British authorities. The day was the occasion of the most widespread gaiety as well as the bloodiest riot that the British Colony has seen since 1925. Both are worthy of recording as an episode in the history of the Chinese people's struggle against Communism.
Placed on a cinematographic panorama, the gala event might be viewed through the camera eye from three angles: activities of the organized associations, unorganized activities of the people in the streets and the pageantry and the gala spectacle all over Hongkong and Kowloon. Celebration by the organized associations actually started the night before. In the evening of the 9th, the Publishers and Distributors Association stealt a march on others by gathering its forty-six members to a celebration party which lasted deep into the night. On the 10th, starting from 8:00 a. m. until the small hours of the following morning, hundreds and thousands of peoples gathered at each place, either in their own association premises or in public restaurants or theaters in every nook and corner of Hongkong and Kowloon and their suburbs, to commemorate the Anniversary; to give speeches; to report the sufferings of their compatriots inside the Bamboo Curtain in contrast to the happy lives of people in Taiwan; to encourage each other to make greater efforts for the recovery of the mainland; to enjoy personal association with fellows of the same profession, or fellows with the same surnames; to eat, to drink, to sing and to perform in tears and in laughter. The Kowloon General Chamber of Commerce started at 8 sharp to raise a thirty feet national flag atop its own building in front of a gathering of its 700 members with a school band playing the national anthem. Led by its Chairman Mr. Hsieh, the members spent the whole morning in a commemoration ceremony. In the afternoon, a cocktail party was spread and beginning from 4 o'clock a show program consisting of singing performances, Chinese boxing, chess competition, etc. followed which lasted until the middle of the night.
The Cultural and Educational Workers Association gathered 3,000 people in a Hongkong theater to commemorate the Anniversary from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., during which a galaxy of well-known cultural workers and movie stars such as Tso Shun-sheng, Ting Wen-yuan, Pai Kwang, Lin Tai, etc. gave speeches, and Miss Chang Lai-lai gave an account of her personal sufferings at the hands of the Communists. The ceremony was followed by important shows by famous stars.
The Hongkong and Kowloon Labor Union, which consists of 135 Free Labor Associations, gathered in a big restaurant in Hongkong at noon to celebrate the National Anniversary and concurrently to inaugurate its 9th Executive Committee. In the afternoon a cocktail party was given to its guests and members, followed in the evening by a mammoth dinner party of 1,000 people.
The Hongkong and Kowloon Free Professionals Association, which consists of free associations organized by the professionals such as owners and workers of machine factories, navigators and shipbuilding workers, teahouse owners and workers, hog sellers and their employees, Chinese physicians, mutual-help association workers, family and provincial associations, etc. etc., held a commemoration and dinner party at a restaurant under the auspices of the Chinese Machine Producers Association. A gathering for dinner of 3,000 other professionals and people engaged in other businesses was held separately in two restaurants at Kowloon.
The Free Cinema Workers Association gathered 400 of its members at a dancing hall in Kowloon; 300 alumni of the Central Military Academy gathered at a restaurant in Hongkong; the Fisheries Association gathered 400 members at a Kowloon restaurant; the Samshui District Residents Association gathered 500 people at a teahouse; and the Chinese physicians gathered all its members for another dinner of its own.
The biggest gathering was organized by the Chinese refugees at Rennie's Mill when 10,000 people enjoyed an inexpensive but gay party throughout the evening. Chinese residents in the suburbs of Kowloon and on the outlying islands of Hongkong all enjoyed their own celebrations in enormous mass meetings with spontaneous gaiety. At Ulong, for instance, thousands of people including residents and bus workers, Chinese employees of the British military units, etc. had dinner together at the local restaurants. The most spectacular gatherings were those at the seaside districts, where thousands of Chinese celebrated on ships.
The students were equally enthusiastic. Students of all free Chinese schools decorated their premises (one of them in open defiance of the local educational authorities) and pushed through their celebration ceremonies without any incident. At one Roman Catholic school, prayers were offered for people inside the Bamboo Curtain and one Chinese Father gave a speech to the students encouraging them to love their country, because loving one's country is not against the fundamental principles of Catholic belief as most believers think.
The pageantry and decorations for the occasion are worthy of description. National flags actually flooded whole districts in front and atop all buildings occupied by free Chinese residents. It was estimated that more than 90% of the schools were be flagged and one outstanding feature was that the Roman Catholic schools decorated their premises with Chinese National flags for the first time this year. From a bird's-eye view the whole Hongkong and Kowloon area could be seen as covered by an ocean of red and blue flags in day time and floodlighted with neon lights in the night.
There were more pailou, or decorated facades and arches, on the street this year than in any previous years and the structure and make-up were magnificent. On the main streets, in front of big restaurants, theaters, offices, etc. the pailou rose everywhere beautifully decorated with flowers, flags, neon lights and every other thinkable colored attachment with the inevitable twin cross and photos of Dr. Sun and President Chiang; and they attracted throngs of people all day long and deep into the night. Some of these pailou were very elaborate structures which called for long and fine workmanship. On most of them there were couplets written in beautiful handwriting, both of a commemorative and advisory tenor.
Individual activities were evidenced by pedestrians, peddlers, cyclists on the street and by residents and laborers who stayed at home or had to work in the factories on that day. Small flags flew in their hands, on their stalls or on their cycles or their buildings. When the groups happened to be students, they would fall to marching together. At one school where paper flags were distributed gratis, thousands of people gathered to get one and would disperse only when satisfied.
If a comparison is made of the Double Tenth celebration with the celebration show put up by the Communists on October 1st, the number of flags seen were eight to two, though the Communists show this year was better than that of the previous years, be cause they spent a great deal more money for its preparation. One conspicuous feature of the Communist show was the stale similarity of the pailou they put up. Both in structure and decoration they all looked as if they were manufactured by one workshop—clumsy and lifeless and apparently made without any personal touch. The result of their efforts, however, was only to stimulate the free Chinese to greater enthusiasm for their own celebration on the 10th.
So on October 10, 1956 the free Chinese in Hongkong and Kowloon literally turned the Crown Colony into a jubilant Chinese town far one day. But in the heat of the felicitations, the Communist agents lurking everywhere in helpless and jealous desperation sought and obtained an opening which they transformed into the bloodiest riot.
The immediate cause of the riot was a quarrel between the occupants of a resettlement camp in the Laichikok Village resettlement area near the city of Kowloon across the bay from Hongkong proper. The occupants, all refugees from the mainland who had suffered from the Communists and consequently were specially hateful of the Communists and tender towards their national flag, were infuriated by the arbitrary action of a Chinese settlement official who at 9 o'clock in the morning of the 10th tore off the paper flags pasted by the residents on the 5th floor of the building. Their anger was further incensed by the cheering crowd of Communist agents when the flags came down. Threatened by the mob, the official slipped away to ask help from the police. The police mediated for a peaceful settlement and it was agreed that the Chinese official was to replace the torn flags, to buy and fire a few rounds of fire crackers and to join in the parade holding a big flag. In the afternoon when some of the residents went to the official's office to verify, they discovered that he had not honored his promises in full, so a new dispute started and hundreds of residents gathered around the office. The culprit escaped from his office and was pursued by the mob and in the melee some police nearly became involved in a free-for-all. Police reinforcements arrived at the scene and fired tear gas shells into the crowd which temporarily checked and dispersed the demonstrators, who directed their attention to the official's office and destroyed its furniture and burnt its archives. More than a thousand policemen arrived land cordoned off the whole area and put out the fire.
The matter would have quieted down immediately had not the police arrested more than 200 of the rioters. In the evening the anger of the residents became directed towards the police, and the situation became serious again after 9 o'clock. At 9:50 a fire engine rushing toward the Ferry accidentally killed three pedestrians, which excited the crowd on the street to throw stones and bricks on the police and mammoth crowds began to gather swarming towards the area of disturbance. Meanwhile the police was largely reinforced to attack the mobs using batons and tear gas shells in their attempt to clear the streets; but the disturbance had spread to other districts of Kowloon.
Throughout the night up to 4 o'clock of the following morning, rioters in big crowds fought with the police and made havoc of properties. Before midnight, a candy factory and twelve of its trucks had been burnt down, police stations at Shek Kip Mei resettlement area had been raided and archives burnt, a fire engine on the street burnt, foreign occupants in an apartment house stoned and the shops in the vicinity attacked and robbed. The police used tear gas bombs but they only infuriated the mobs to do havoc elsewhere.
By 1 a.m. the crowd had been driven to the Prince Albert Road but they surrounded and stoned the Kowloon Police Headquarters, the Communication Department and the Mongkok police station. At 2 a.m. the mob split itself into groups of several hundreds each to destroy and burn pro-Communist shops and such bookshops and schools. By 4 a.m. the crowd on Nathan Road had been cleared by the police and dispersed into the side alleys. According to a preliminary estimate the total number of casualties up to then was about 42 dead and wounded.
In the morning of the 11th peace seemed to have returned to Kowloon. Shops opened for business and office goers passed along the main streets as usual and though crowds gathered in front of the shops that had been looted and destroyed in the night everything seemed to be normal. But the storm had only temporarily subsided at Laichikok where at 8 o'clock in the morning the residents after a few hours of sleep were reinvigorated to ruminate on the injustices and rough treatments they had received from the police in their honorable attempt to guard their National Flag. Some one hung up in the public square a human leg broken by the fire engine the sight of which incited the infuriated crowds to immediate violence.
They first broke into the settlement area offices and moved all the furniture and other things into the open for a bonfire. Thousands gathered to witness the sight and some climbed to the top of the building into the official storage rooms and threw whatever they could find into the fire. Police patrol cars and fire engines which came to the scene were driven away with stones and bricks and one policeman was seriously wounded. Before 10 o'clock the crowd had marched out for vengeance and Kowloon once again became the scene of violent mob actions.
By 11 o'clock mobs had smashed and burnt one Communist department store and one metal ware factory on Castle Street, set fire to another resettlement office and was intent on a rampage along Nathan Road and on the streets in the Mongkok area. The police fired on the mob at midday and killed one middle-aged man. The corpse was immediately covered with National Flags by the crowd.
The violence on the 11th was very widespread and gradually the riots took the form of an anti-Western character and became fights between the anti- and pro-Communist factions. Before the evening died down the Kwangtung Provincial Bank's branch office had been damaged and the Fire Station surrounded and a well-known shoe store raided and looted. At 8 o'clock the police killed another man with gun fire and the mob tried to rush the police on Nathan Road but was dispersed by tear gas shells. During the day an uncounted number of factories, shops, schools, etc. were smashed or burnt, and a number of foreigners were attacked. Thieves and hooligans played an important role. The fights between the anti- and pro-Communist laborers of the factories inland at Tsun Wan on the edge of the colony's New Territory were specially tragic as they resulted in the death of 30 people. The situation became so serious that British troops had to be called out. British army tanks and machine-gunners finally succeeded in enforcing an uneasy peace. The situation calmed down after midnight and the riot ended on the 13th, when the curfew was lifted. The total number of casualties as announced by the British authorities was 47 killed and 370 wounded, some very seriously.
One interesting incident in the turmoil was the sudden premium on the sales price of National Flags. Throughout the riot, those people and shops and cars with the national ensign were free from the mobsters' attention and many shops and people who had not one ready were glad to pay for one at exorbitant prices.
All observers of the riot, including the British authorities, are agreed that the riot was unpremeditated and was started as a spontaneous reaction of the patriotic free Chinese against the unwarranted, arbitrary actions of a petty official in the British government employ. While the British Government prefer, for understandable reasons, to place the whole responsibility for the later developments on members of secret societies and underworld organizations, irrefutable evidence pointed to the presence of Communist fingers in the pie. The incident from the start could have been localized or nipped, in the bud, had the British police, instead of arresting the residents of the trouble area, punished the meddling petty official for contravening a standing official order that celebrations should not be interfered with, and made an open apology to the residents. Once the anger of the patriotic Chinese had been roused, it naturally snowballed under the heat of the felicitations until thousands of people gathered to revenge what they considered a great common disgrace to their country.
Unfortunately, the indignation of the populace was utilized by the Chinese Communists to create trouble for the Hongkong government and for the Westerners. The first evidence of the Communist intrigue is the cry of "Long live Mao Tse-tung!" given by some of the rioters when arrested by the police. The second evidence is that, according to eyewitnesses, there appeared small groups of youths of both sexes in uniform white shirts and grey trousers directing the mobs systematically. The third evidence is that immediately after the start of the riot the Communist papers kept up a continuous accusation against Kuomintang agents with the obvious intention to direct the attention of the local authorities away from their own intrigues. That the riot turned into an anti-Western campaign is another evidence because anti Westernism is not Nationalist China's policy while it is an openly proclaimed weapon of the Communists in their united front tactics. The destruction of some of the pro-Communist shops, factories and schools might have been done by the infuriated anti-Communist Chinese on the spur of the moment; but it might equally have been the work of the Communists themselves who are known to spare not even their own people to substantiate a false accusation, to discredit the free Chinese in Hongkong and to create new conflicts, on which they can capitalize when the time is ripe.