“I have known you for 30 years, and I had never imagined I would be chatting with you this way.” On either side of the clear acrylic panel in the visiting room of the detention center, two old men held onto their respective telephone receivers, and looked into the other person’s tear-filled eyes. On one side of the panel was Jimmy Lai, imprisoned, who has lost his freedom. On the other side, former Publisher of Next Magazine, Yeung Wai-hong, paused for quite some time, before responding, “Right.”

That was the Thursday before the regime slapped additional national security charges on Jimmy Lai. Yeung and I planned to meet at Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre at 9:30 a.m. At 9 a.m., he messaged me that he had arrived and was checking out the situation. He told me not to rush. Through the phone screen, I could almost see the eagerness on his face in anticipation of seeing Jimmy Lai.

Queuing, registering, going through the formalities, waiting…after an hour, Jimmy Lai, in a prison suit, appeared before us. Seeing us, he smiled, and slowly picked up the telephone receiver. So much to say, so little time, and so hard to begin. I kept asking about him, and he kept replying “OK”, that he got used to the food and the sleep. He reminded us to ask the colleagues not to worry, and keep reporting news.

Cheung Kim-hung had asked me to pass him a message that the wife of a colleague who had been with him for decades had a stroke the night before. Thankfully they got to her in time. He needed not to worry, as the company will take care of everything. Tearing up in his eyes, Jimmy Lai asked about the details with great concern. A clock was hung on the acrylic panel and counted down the time. 15 minutes flew by. It was like this: when he talked about himself, he was relaxed and calm; when he mentioned his family, colleagues, he would get emotional for fear that they would be affected.

Fatty Lai has always been an extremely optimistic person. I am the pessimistic, negative energy-sucker. At this moment, I felt like saying some words of comfort. I uttered, “We believers often say that everyone’s cross is different. Perhaps this is the cross you have to bear.” He raised his voice, “Yes, right. This kind of suffering is a kind of glory.”

We all know that Jimmy Lai is a Catholic, but never saw him as religious. However, later this day he would tell Chan Kin-man, who paid him a visit, that he “lives in God’s grace!”

On the eve of the bail hearing of the fraud case, he was charged with additional national security violations for his speech. On Saturday, he was brought to court with chains around his waist. Some colleagues cried at the sight. The correctional officers who chained up Jimmy Lai would not have imagined that they were to create a picture that would shock the world and go down in history. By the same token, the regime had never imagined that tyranny and oppression are sublimating Jimmy Lai towards becoming a martyr of freedom of belief, a hero and a warrior of the Hong Kong democratic movement.

Chan Kin-man later wrote on Facebook: The tyranny thought that this would humiliate him, but he saw those shackles as a crown of glory. #battleofvalues

That touched me, reminded me of the crown of thorns made by the Roman soldiers mocking Jesus Christ.

Someone did a drawing and accompanied with the words from the Gospel of John 1:7-8: “He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.” A colleague who is a believer exclaimed, “I have never imagined that the fatty who has quoted the Bible wrongly will one day become a witness of faith.” “The Lord really does amazing things.”

Postscript:

After the hearing at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Saturday, I was a “car chaser” for the first time. Waiting for the meat van on the pavement with my colleagues while being shooed away by the police in the name of the gathering ban, I struck up a conversation with a lady carrying the placard “Fatty Lai Fight on”. She told me she’s a newbie, and shared her tips and tricks taught by other car chasers. “It is a lot harder now.”

As a result, blocked by a web of orange police tapes and obstructed by my bodily inflexibility, when the meat van sped out from within, I had no time to react. With my feet glued to the ground, all I knew was to wave my arms at the car window and yell: “Fight on!”

After the crowd dispersed, the lady came by, patted us on our shoulders, and left us with “You all must fight on too” before heading off. If she happens to be reading this essay, I wish to use the opportunity here to tell her: Thank you. We will.

(Chan Pui-man, associate publisher of Apple Daily)

Click here for Chinese version

We invite you to join the conversation by submitting columns to our opinion section: [email protected]

Apple Daily reserves the right to refuse, abridge, alter or edit guest opinion columns for accuracy, length, clarity, and style, and the right to withdraw and withhold columns based on the discretion of our editorial page editors.

The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial board.

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play