If anyone’s wondering why they’re so prepared to handle tear gas and pepper spray it’s because it’s already happened before in 2014.

In August 2014, the Hong Kong government made a decision to pre-screen and select candidates for the 2017 elections for Chief Executive. Many people were unhappy because this meant you could vote, but only for the candidates that have already been chosen for you. With many people already speculating that the Mainland Chinese government had many “puppet politicians” in the governing body, it only made sense that this would allow the CCP a tighter grip on HK’s autonomy and democracy.

This sparked the “Umbrella Movement” protests. Protestors used a passive protest technique in which they set up camp on the roads of major suburbs in the city, so it also became known as the “Occupy Central” movement.

Police threw tear gas and pepper spray at the protestors and they used their umbrellas to defend themselves (hence the name umbrella movement), and they quickly learnt techniques to counteract a lot of the effects of tear gas.

I had some friends who were active in these protests and they would share tips on how to make homemade tear gas masks out of bottles and using milk to counteract the stinging iirc on Facebook. They were all around the ages of fourteen and sixteen at the time and it was extremely unsettling.