‘I Returned Home Safe to My Wife’

Phila Siu Chi-yui, Senior Reporter, South China Morning Post. Phila’s wife gave birth to a “beautiful daughter” a few days before he wrote this very moving reflection.

My heavily pregnant wife broke down in tears when she saw me packing my full-face mask, helmet and press vest into my backpack one day in July before I headed out the door. I was about to cover a protest.

“Why do you have to carry this gear with you every day?” she asked me, her right hand holding her belly. I tried to comfort her. I promised her I would return home safe and that she had to eat her meals so our daughter would be born healthy and strong. I do not remember if I cried with her at that time, but I had done so numerous times before that, for all the stunningly shocking events that have taken place since June.

As promised, I returned home safe to my wife that day, as I did every other time I was sent out onto the tear gas-filled streets to report on the biggest crisis I have ever witnessed in my home, Hong Kong.

I have been a journalist for about 10 years. I hardly consider myself a veteran, but I thought I had already seen much in my career and I had covered the Occupy protests of 2014. Back then, an editor told me that I must treasure every chance I had covering the movement, as that might be the biggest news we would ever report on in Hong Kong. We were all wrong. And so, there I was, out on the streets, with police firing tear gas, rubber bullets and beanbag rounds on one side, and protesters throwing petrol bombs and bricks on the other. My wife, meanwhile, was sitting on our sofa at home, wondering whether her husband would emerge from it all unscathed. Whenever I had a chance, I would text or call her to tell her I was fine. She stayed up to wait for me, no matter how late I got home.

During these past months, I must confess there were times I wondered about my job, being out there on the streets. I saw people getting beaten up and my first instinct was to take photos and videos, instead of separating them. Minutes later, I would send information back to the newsroom for the live blog we were running for our readers around the world, and move on to the next scene.

One day, when I was covering a protest in North Point, three antiprotest men were spotted on a slope holding knives. Some residents warned everyone not to get close but our first reaction as journalists was to rush up to take photos. We took a few steps forward and they kicked two cans of suspected petrol on the ground.

When the police finally took the thugs into their vehicle, the realisation of the purpose of my job hit me: I was there to make sure the “first draft of history” was accurate, and that the whole world understood what was happening in Hong Kong. While I might not be able to stop a disaster from happening at the scene, journalism does not stop me from doing something human, from communicating to others the facts on the ground.

That night, I moved on to Yuen Long and got home just past midnight. My wife was waiting. I took a shower and soaked my clothes and protective gear in disinfectant. I knocked on our bedroom door and told her she could finally come out to the living room to give me a hug. She came out with a ready smile on her face. It was at that moment that I knew, I just knew, there was nowhere else like home.