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Civic Imagination

The cyclist, Sarah Lee

Lee Wai Sze, Sarah is a Hong Kong racing cyclist. She participated in multiple games and championships which she won medals for team Hong Kong since 2010. She is known for winning the bronze medal in the women's keirin at the 2012 London Olympics. Her career started at 2004 when a coach spotted her potential. Training for a road cyclist at first place, Lee became a sprinter cyclist soon after, where her true potential is. She started winning in international games soon. The road of becoming a champion is not easy. Suffering from injuries which were too critical that the coach recommended her quit riding, she persisted. Training soon resumed while she was still recovering. For many times, she crashed or hurt during competitions. Each of those times she got up and keep riding, eventually winning in some of the games after accidents. Growing up in an ordinary neighborhood called Ngau Tau Kok in Hong Kong, she earned a nickname ‘the goddess of cycling in Ngau’ (牛下女車神). The spirit of her not giving up in any circumstances resonates with the character which many Hong Kongers shared. She now becomes an idol of many youngsters and continues participating in international games.

I am an ordinary student in Hong Kong just like Sarah once was. The story of her appeared on the media soon after she won championships. Her resilience gained media attention which features of her were published widely. I first saw her story on TV news when she won the medals. I found it fascinating soon after that I looked up the internet for her story. Like many Hong Kongers, we all shared the childhood she had. We aspire for a place in the world, and the pride of being Hong Kongers. It was never easy for Hong Kong. It is through the hard work of our predecessors that built the prospers Hong Kong now. Hong Kongers are resilient, just like Lee. We insist until the last minute, regardless of the pain we have. It is now a few years after I first known about her. In these years, I finished my secondary education and fought my way through the brutal public exams. In hard times, I remember her story. As an athlete at the time, I shared her feelings of not wanting to lose. I got into a university that I aspired since a little kid at the end. The story resonates with the our community, I believed many of us was inspired and keep fighting for our dreams.

The story reminds the dreams we have, and how we should hold on to it. Even the chance of success is low, we should still keep our hopes. Although the story is not used for mobilizing people for actions yet, it recalls the passions of many Hong Kongers. Especially youngsters like me who felt lost in the cruel society. It would be useful for the people fighting for democracy, which never turned into reality in Hong Kong. After all the pain and suffering, hope remains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzbe9BX4AYk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMYJps4R4bQ

resilience

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2. Maus: A Survivor's Tale
7. How the tortoise got cracks in his shell
10. My Dad
11. Sanjay's Super Team This is an animated short film from Pixar directed and written by Sanjay Patel who based it off his experiences as a child. The story revolves around a young boy, Sanjay, and his father, an Indian-American migrant. Sanjay is watching his favourite superheroes on TV while his father is praying by the shrine in the same room. His father urges him to join in the ritual but Sanjay refuses so he switches off the TV and takes his toy in order to force him into it.
12. Freedom Writers: Bridging Racial Divides Through Writing Freedom Writers (the movie) is based on a true story of a school in Long Beach, California. The main character, Erin Gruwell, is a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School and placed with the students who are considered at-risk and unteachable. These students were almost entirely comprised of minorities, with the exception of one student. With such a diverse class and a group of students who had no apparent desire to learn, the film explores the real-world challenges that Gruwell faced trying to get her students to come to class wanting to learn, if they would even want to come to their classes at all. The class divides itself based on race, and fights and arguments breakout regularly. The class later finds common ground on their feelings and discussions around The Holocaust. Her students become inspired to break free from the things that originally divided them, most notably with one character speaking out against someone who she was being forced to lie for during a trial. She tasked her students with writing in a diary and then compiled those journals and writings into a collection of them all in “The Freedom Writers Diary.”
15. The Diary of Anne Frank
17. A Leader
25. The Light at the end of a Dark Tunnel
27. Train of Hope
29. Emmeline the Suffragist
33. We are all Martín Fierro
40. The Help
43. How I "Eat, Pray, and Love"
44. The doctors' team of the Aegean sea
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