10:29AM GMT 13 Dec 2014
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Jenny Li is 16. She likes dancing, she likes volleyball but most of all she likes Peppa Pig.
She carries her Samsung smartphone in a bright pink purse. In September she became a pro-democracy activist.
"I didn't really care about politics before – but I don't want Hong Kong to become like China or North Korea," said the bespectacled teenager, one of thousands who took to the former British colony's streets as part of the Umbrella Movement, which effectively ended this week when police cleared the protesters' final stronghold. "I want democracy and true democracy."
Wearing bright pink trainers and a blue school tracksuit, Jenny Li was one of perhaps 10,000 people – the overwhelming majority under-30s – who gathered at the Admiralty protest camp on Wednesday night, on the eve of the clearance.
After ten weeks of protests, they flocked to a carnival-like farewell party, shouting slogans such as "refuse to admit defeat" and "fight until the very end". The next day hundreds of police and bailiffs moved in, pulling down tents and barricades and making more than 240 arrests.
As cleaning teams worked to erase any physical trace of the camp, mainland newspapers celebrated a Communist Party triumph.
"The successful clearing operation officially spelt defeat for the 'umbrella revolution' – the Hong Kong version of the 'colour revolution'," declared the China Daily.
Yet the political awakening of Jenny Li – whose mother asked for her real name not to be used in case it affected her chances of going on school dance trips to mainland China – underlines the huge challenges facing Beijing as it tries to respond to the largest demonstrations on Chinese soil since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
For the government's intransigence towards protesters – coupled with growing discontent over issues such as job opportunities and a widening income gap – has served only to stoke anger among Hong Kong's youth, academics and veteran activists say.
A new generation of protester, like Ms Li, has been born. Its members are likely to prove a thorn in the Communist Party's side for decades to come.
"You may think I'm sounding a bit romantic but it is really for real this political awakening," said Claudia Mo, a veteran pro-democracy campaigner and legislator.
"The young have come to the realisation that we have to stand up and safeguard our freedoms. Freedoms don't just come to you out of the blue."
In the 25 years since Beijing's bloody crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square, veteran Hong Kong activists including Ms Mo have waged a vocal but largely ineffectual campaign against Communist rule.
Now, the baton is passing to a new group, including many young people who until recently had no involvement or even interest in politics.
The stirrings of this youth awakening go back just over a decade, to when key Umbrella Movement leaders now in their twenties started feeling the freedoms promised to them under the 'one country, two systems' formula introduced after handover in 1997 slipping away.
Growing disillusion came to a head this August, when China infuriated students by announcing rules for the 2017 leadership election that were immediately dismissed as "fake democracy".
When, on September 28, police used tear gas to disperse students protesting that decision it was the final straw. The Umbrella Movement – named after the items protesters used to protect themselves from police – was born.
"The older generation just didn't get it. They didn't realise that 'one country, two systems' was just a cover for a transition to 'one country, one system'," said Suzanne Pepper, a Hong Kong-based author who runs the political blog HKFocus.
"Young people have finally grasped it."
Some members of this new generation are very young indeed. Herman Leung, who is just 12, said he was already so alarmed by Beijing's meddling that he considered abandoning his home.
"Maybe I will change to another country – maybe Canada," he said during a break from homework at a "study corner" set up within the Admiralty protest camp. "They have better democracy there I think – and the environment there is nice."
Asked how he felt about Xi Jinping, China's president, the softly spoken schoolboy hinted at the growing disconnect between Beijing and Hong Kong's youth.
"I think he is China's president but I don't feel he is my leader," he said. "I don't want to be disrespectful, but that is what I think. To be a leader of a country you should listen to what people really need. He doesn't do this. He didn't listen to the demands of the students."
Joanne Fung, a 16-year-old who was also at the Admiralty camp, is another member of this new generation.
Until earlier this year, Ms Fung focused her energies on passing her Grade Seven violin exam. Then, on September 28, she watched on television, aghast, as police tear-gassed protesters barely older than her. She decided to become one of them.
"I came for the first time because I was angry at the police," Ms Fung recalled of her first day at the protest site, on October 1. "I thought Hong Kong was an OK place and then when I saw what the police did I realised that we are losing our freedom."
Since entering the world of political activism, Ms Fung's attentions have shifted from learning arpeggios to studying the complexities of Beijing's proposals for political reform.
"I can't accept it," she said of the Communist Party's current blueprint, which allows Beijing to screen candidates for Hong Kong's chief executive. "It is scary. Politics is dark."
On Friday, 24 hours after police swept into their camp, protest leaders vowed to regroup and return.
Yet for all the students' youthful enthusiasm, the inescapable question remains of whether they can ever hope to achieve any meaningful progress in their David against Goliath battle with Beijing.
"I want to praise them for their diligence, and their courage and their stick-to-it-ness," said Ms Pepper of the students. "And yet it was a failure.
"They are so dedicated. They worked so hard. They were so perseverant that it is hard to criticise them. But they need a plan. My fear is that Beijing is just going to out manoeuvre them again."
In fact, Ms Pepper said she feared an increasingly "dictatorial" Beijing would eventually force this new generation of campaigner into exile or submission.
"Partly they will leave, partly they will acquiesce like Chinese intellectuals did after 1989," she predicted.
"I don't think they can win any more. I think it is too late."
Not all were so discouraged. Leung Kwok-hung, an activist better known was "Long Hair", predicted this fearless new generation would prove even more troublesome to Beijing that his generation.
"We were too well-behaved," he said.
Alex Chow, a student leader who, at 24, is already a central figure in Hong Kong's quest for democracy, warned that Communist leaders would "simply lose a whole generation" if they failed to address protesters' concerns.
"Whether they can win them back depends on what tactics and attitude the Beijing government adopts towards the young generation."
The initial signs are not good. Within hours of the clearance an editorial in the People's Daily, the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, lashed out at the "obstinate" students.
"People of this age group are not mature enough, lack sound judgment, are easily influenced by the outside world and are very likely be used or hijacked by radicals," it said.
"Young people: return to the correct path after going astray – it's not too late," the editorial concluded.
Among Jenny Li and her friends – and thousands of other newly energised student activists – those entreaties will fall on deaf ears.
"I don't think it was a failure just because we haven't achieved our aim," Ms Li said.
"It will be a long, long journey and we must do our best to get there."
Additional reporting Ellie Ng
