ABSTRACT
Debates over the process of political reform, particularly with regard to the selection/election of the chief executive in 2017, have consumed the Hong Kong public. The Umbrella Movement of 2014 was phenomenal in scope and scale. This chapter analyses the differences between the pre-handover decades and the current situation in Hong Kong. In particular, it highlights socio-economic conditions and cultural developments in 1970s Hong Kong relative to today's environment to explores how the pre-handover situation engendered a more muted demand for political assertion, whilst current conditions have precipitated a full-blown public outcry for autonomy. The theme of 'Below the Lion Rock' has come to represent the difficult but fruitful era of pre-handover Hong Kong has caught the attention of the HKSAR government. As public unrest mounted and culminated in the outbreak of the Umbrella Movement in 2014, protesters retook the theme and expressed their displeasure with social conditions in Hong Kong with reference to Lion Rock motives.
