Why I Chose my Topic of Hong Kong Protests and My Research Process |
When choosing a topic to write my essay about, I wanted to have a personal connection and a level of sympathy for an ongoing issue. While searching for a topic, I was scrolling through Reddit, a popular social media site, and found many clips and news stories about the ongoing conflict of the Hong Kong citizens and the Chinese government. The Chinese government, a more communist and enforcing government, was opposing pro-democracy protests of the Hong Kong people. These protests became violent when these two sides clashed face to face. From what seemed to be just the Chinese police force protecting themselves from angry protesters, it was easy to see that this conflict was more of a tyrannical enforcing of power over people who are struggling to keep basic human rights of freedom and privacy. When coming across this apparent issue, I connected the story to one of my other classes, principles of business, and immediately thought of how these mass protests, consistently pulling 1 million plus protesters on protest days, affected large and small businesses alike. I could only imagine how these violent protesters affected the activity of consumers and tourists within the city. One would assume that these businesses would see a decline in numbers, as most people do not want to put their lives in danger by being anywhere close to the protests. After research, this point was proven and I soon figured that businesses were hit harder than I thought.
Originally my question only surrounded privately owned businesses, but throughout research it affected major industries, such as tourism and dining, and popular name brand stores almost just as much as the smaller businesses. I expected that these problems wouldn't have reflected on major corporations, as they already have a brand built with a feeling that they would never fail. Almost all business being held in the city, especially in major protest areas, have fallen into the building economic recession. Having almost all of the parts of the economy failing, the research aspect was seemingly struggle free as almost all of my questions could be solved in one google search. From the ease of access to articles pertaining to all aspects business within Hong Kong, I was exposed to the true struggles of the businesses. The number drops were much greater than I expected, with some businesses dropping close to 70% in sales. I didn't expect to see number drops that massive. |
From the time I'm writing this narrative, the protests are still ongoing and showing no signs of slowing down. The protests have been going on since early June 2019, and the once competitive and ideal place to set up business, no longer has that prosperous glimmer of success.