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Heiky Kwan

@heikykwan.bsky.social
361 followers 385 following 74 posts

(She/her/她/佢) Canadian Hong Konger Settler on stolen Coast Salish Territories aka Raincouver. Organizer/ diaspora /activist/ artist/ senior marcomm strategist/ Jesus follower. I talk all things equity, social justice, foreign affairs.

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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
June 12, 2019, was a wild awakening for Hong Kongers. What began as peaceful resistance was met with tear gas, rubber bullets, and batons. Protesters were students, workers, elders. Armed only with umbrellas and makeshift goggles. It was the moment many realized the government would not listen.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Anyone else on Threads? Holy smokes. The platform is so toxic.
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YTSL @ytsl.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
I bought this t-shirt at the Tiananmen Mothers stand in Hong Kong's Victoria Park one June 4th and wore it on a number of other June 4ths. Now if I wear it, especially today, another June 4th... I'll attract unwanted police attention and might even get arrested for doing so.
"Support The Tiananmen Mothers" and an image of a motherly woman with a flower in her hand standing in front of tanks on the front of a t-shirt"Tiananmen Mothers Campaign", complete with logo featuring groups of four and six flowers (symbolising 4th June), and symbols of what would be interpreted as a dead body and a mother with arms outreached, on the back of the same t-shirt.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
June 4. I came from a place that once lit candles. Now, even public remembrance is banned in Hong Kong. Those in power want to silence history. We cannot let them. If we still have the freedom to remember, then we must.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
We are honestly living in the shittiest timeline.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Stop trying to make Hong Konger's advocacy issues partisan.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
We need to learn about the past.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
There's different political stripes, and then there's evil. What we're seeing now, is evil.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
The uncomfortable truth is that many Hong Kongers (also Canadians & others) don’t truly believe in checks & balances, freedom of expression, or democracy. They embrace them only when it serves their side. When it doesn’t, they see them as obstacles/barriers. There are no principles.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Stop buying into US disinformation about Canada.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
The trade war/ tariffs flipflop had us all confused.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Why is Canadian media headlining with NO TRAITORS in the foreign interference inquiry is just baffling to me. The report clearly says there are legitimate problematic and ethical concerns exhibited. Why isn't that alarming? Are we reading the same thing??
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
How do you build a Nation without its people? Without resources? Without talent? If nation-building is the goal, why tear each other down? Why belittle those who support but are just trying to survive? What are you really focusing on? I'm saddened by the state of my community.
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Yuen Chan @yuenchan.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
The idea that joining xiaohongshu is sticking it to the man and that Chinese people all eat lobster for lunch is just so dumb it makes my head hurt.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
There’s a wildly sophisticated propaganda campaign unfolding regarding Little Red Book (quickly rebranded to REDNote btw - media literacy anyone?), and the discourse is split between red-scare screaming alarmists and 'the West is always lying' apologists. Insanity.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
This was way before all of his attacks on Canada. Current temperature check: they still are very much on the wagon and don't understand.
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Lindsay Brown @lidsville.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
Speaking from a comms/strategy POV, this photo & tweet reveals that Chrystia Freeland doesn't have a team that knows what it's doing. How did this go out? 4 phones is the opposite of populist appeal. 3 cups for tea refills? Decrepit table? Didn't bother to turn around to look at us? Chaos
Tweet from Chrystia Freeland described in the thread
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Tze Ming Mok 莫志明 @tzemingdynasty.bsky.social · 10/08/2023
When white 'leftists' have a total lack of solidarity w/ *their exact equivalents* in China - who are censored, persecuted, in prison, dead, or hiding - I'm talking community organisers, labour activists, indigenous & decolonial activists, feminists, queer advocates... they are doing A Racism. Deal.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Some people don't understand soft power and it shows.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
You know the other day I was surrounded by new newcomers (most were HKers) who asked me (and we're semi-complaining) why Canadians seem to hate Trump.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Fams, I'm trying to raise awareness in my day job around the pervasiveness & scale of gender-based violence (GBV). We put ads w/ the high rates of sexual assault in Vancouver neighbourhoods, asking folks to help declare GBV an epidemic. 💪🏻 Support & check it out: ywcavan.org/hiddenepidemic
Bus shelter ad highlighting the high rates of sexual assault in the area for YWCA's campaign to declare gender-based violence an epidemic.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
This is all of us living through collective trauma. I feel like I'm a completely different person with different priorities, values, mannerisms, and even the way I speak and my tolerance for profanity has changed. And I haven't even touched on my circle of friends, work and community organizing.
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Xun-ling Au 歐迅灵 🏴 @xunlingau.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
YSTL again reminds us that today hasn't happened in isolation, it isn't the beginning, its not the end & importantly that there are millions of Hong Kongers still in the city that really fucking love Hong Kong.” (我哋真係好撚鍾意香港) and are navigating the oppression the best they can.
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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 19/11/2024
Law professor Benny Tai sentenced to 10 years in prison for “masterminding” a plot to win an election and change the political system from writing through lawful means. This is what Hong Kong has become. 47人案.判刑|欲取過半議席圖癱瘓政府‎ 戴耀廷囚10年 www.hk01.com/article/1071...
hk01.com
47人案.判刑|欲取過半議席圖癱瘓政府 戴耀廷囚10年
民主派在2020年舉辦初選時,被指曾協議若民主派能取得過半議席,會無差別否決預算案,以癱瘓政府。47人涉組織及參與的人士事後被控《港區國安法》
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YTSL @ytsl.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
I am nervous, stressed and scared. I think many people in Hong Kong are. Those with hearts anyway. Because the sentencing of the Hong Kong 47 (well, 45 of them; since 2 were found not guilty) is something that affects us all -- though, of course, them and their loved ones so much more.😔
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
😢
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Dake Kang @dakekang.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
1/My colleague Fu Ting writes on a recent new, but unnoticed clampdown on independent bookstores in China - and how some are finding new homes overseas. At least a dozen have shuttered the past few months alone, with the owner of one arrested: apnews.com/article/chin...
apnews.com
As China cracks down on bookstores at home, Chinese-language booksellers are flourishing overseas
Independent bookstores have become a new battleground in China. They're getting swept up in the ruling Communist Party’s crackdown on dissent and free expression.
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Ai-Men Lau 劉羿雯 @aimenlau.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
You'd think by now my stomach would stop dropping everytime I read news out of HK
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
45 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong face sentencing—punished for standing up for the place they love. Some had to plead guilty, caught in a system that criminalizes dissent: apnews.com/article/hong-kong-prodemocracy-activists-sentencing-f2c36e5da3e974f54595447050280eee
apnews.com
45 pro-democracy activists face sentencing in Hong Kong. Here's who some of them are
The convictions of the 45 activists under the Beijing-imposed law are widely seen as part of a crackdown by China that destroyed hopes for a more democratic Hong Kong. They face sentences of up to lif...
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
We're in a happy bubble now. But folks will be in another shock when they translate YouTube videos or social media accounts of diaspora influencers/ KOLs. This happy place is dissociated from reality. Bluesky can't just become another echo chamber.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
I’ve spent most of my recent years showing the Canadian gov't & public that foreign influence is real & that foreign states are threatening dissidents in diasporic communities. Now, I see foreign entities smiling as big-money corporate influence does the dirty work, leading to mutual outcomes.
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Lynette Ong @onglynette.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Check out our new report on foreign interference in Canada based on a nationwide survey here:
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YTSL @ytsl.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Also, per the secondary title of the *2009* article: "Actor thinks country shouldn't have more freedom" variety.com/2009/film/ne...
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Howard Cheng @wherehowardgoes.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
I would have thought this was just a joke if it wasn't posted by @hongkongfp.com.
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Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
💪
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
100%
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A.J. Bauer @ajbauer.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
I don't see a path forward that doesn't involve creating a social stigma toward billionaires.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
As folks resume travel to Hong Kong and enjoy your vacation in the region, please remember the repression that's still happening and what that means for local communities.
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Nerys Avery @nerysonchina.bsky.social · 09/11/2024
Ok so something is going on in #China - students are cycling in their thousands from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng in the evening. Authorities are getting nervous youtu.be/FXIFqEUboAE
youtu.be
郑州大学生,为什么夜骑单车到开封?现场一了解才算明白了
YouTube video by 一人行走的远方
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
I honestly can't stress it enough. To everyone trying to analyze the recent US or BC elections, people's realities are what PERCEIVE to be their realities. Factchecking won't change minds. Start digging in and meet people where they're at. We're in a alt media/comms game now.
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Tze Ming Mok 莫志明 @tzemingdynasty.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
I... did not know this site was so based that it's named after the Chinese name that @jay.bsky.team's Mainland mum gave her, symbolising freedom of the people from Chinese govt oppression.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
Following.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
Honestly we just need to show them Beijing's own headlines.
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
Moots over at Twitter (I mean x) only know me for my organizing/policy analysis/ equity+ activism work/ foreign affairs commentary. But folks don't know me for my art 🥹.
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Niao Collective @niaocollective.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
I wrote most of this in 2020-2021, and reading it now, some of it is really cringe. But I won't apologize for the cringe, and I also won't 'update' the text to remove the cringe. Because if I ever not feel when I look back on what happened to my city, I can no longer be able to call myself a HKer.
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Niao Collective @niaocollective.bsky.social · 19/10/2024
Fighting Words A thread on HK protests slogans in 2019-2020. Everything in *very loose* chronological order - important and interesting to see how the movement and its hopes evolved through the months. Source: Apple Daily (Sep 27, 2019)
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Heiky Kwan @heikykwan.bsky.social · 09/11/2024
Hopping over. The other space is suffocating.
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