Remembrance Day

For someone who was born in an epoch and a place of peace like me, the concept of war is remote.

The Remembrance Day, a day widely observed in Britain, alerted me that wars were in fact not so far. In the past two weeks people in the streets were seen wearing poppies on their lapels, while troops from this country were fighting in Afghanistan and some might be sent to Syria in the near future.

On Remembrance Sunday I happened to read two newspaper articles from different parts of the world, which together caught my attention. One was a piece by British Prime Minister David Cameron published in the Daily Telegraph, giving a sentimental narration of his past visit to a battlefield, followed by his administration’s plans to commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War and pledges to improve the welfare of servicemen and veterans. He wrote,

  "Remembrance Sunday is a time not just to look back, but forward too – to what more we can do for those who serve in our Armed Forces today, and for our veterans. This government has taken the Military Covenant – which was frankly gathering dust on the shelf – and made it something meaningful, writing its principles into the law of the land."

  A voice from my home city of Hong Kong, which appears to have nothing to do with wars at present, emerged in the local Apple Daily on exactly the same day. It was a story about a retired British-Chinese soldier’s recent visit to London to lobby Members of the Parliament on his peers’ right of abode in the United Kingdom. Some of his fellow former servicemen had taken part in the Korean War and some had been sent to Cyprus to join the UN’s peacekeeping force, all under British Crown, but only those of higher ranks were given right of abode in the UK after HK’s handover to China.

  “Now hardly anyone knows of our existence,” said the campaigner. What would he to the Prime Minister had they met on this trip?

  Feeling even closer, since I came to Bristol I have met a retired nurse who worked in the British army in HK in the 1960s, and the granddaughter of a Canadian veteran who had fought to defend my city in the Second World War. These all make the Remembrance Day more meaningful to me.