Hong Kong: Alvin Cheng is showing me around the protest encampment in the gritty Kowloon district of Mong Kok, where he and a few hundred other demonstrators stage sit-in protests around the clock.
He points out the spot where just hours ago a counter-demonstrator pulled out a hammer from a bag before being stopped by police. He picks out the unsavoury looking men, who huddle in groups of four or five, and stand at each corner of the camp all day, watching every move. And while dozens of police that stand guard on the road are pretty conspicuous, he points out that many plain-clothed officers have removed their identification badges from their police vests.
It is Cheng's job to be observant. He is acting as one of the camp's look-outs who watch for anything suspicious, with the mood in their camp remaining tense after coming under attack by groups of men on Friday, some later identified by police as having links to organised crime groups, known as triads.
Almost two weeks ago, Cheng, 26, was checking his Facebook account at home in Brisbane on a Friday when he saw the news that some student protesters in his native Hong Kong had been arrested after protesting at government headquarters.
As thousands more students, galvanised by the arrests, turned out to occupy the area outside government headquarters, Cheng packed his bags and was on the next flight back to Hong Kong.
By the Sunday, the Queensland University of Technology accounting student was at the frontline of protests calling for the right to choose their own leader in Hong Kong, as riot police struggling to deal with surging crowds responded with tear gas and pepper spray.
The ugly scenes swayed public sentiment further against the police and government and sparked hundreds of thousands to occupy city streets for more than a week in what has been an unprecedented civil disobedience campaign, and the largest mass movement in China since the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in the spring of 1989.
It has also prompted Hong Kong people living away from home – over the course of the past week we met some from the United States, Canada, as well as many from mainland China and Taiwan – to rush back to be part of what they see as a historic moment, whatever the outcome.
"People will be asking in 10 years, 20 years, 'where were you when Hong Kong had this social movement? What did you try and do for it?' " said Sam Ip, 30, who flew home from Seoul.
For Cheng, who grew up in Mong Kok but has lived in Australia since 2009, it is the idea that this is both the best and last opportunity for Hong Kong people's voices to be heard, as Beijing's influence grows increasingly stronger in the territory. Having long been angry at Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying for being too close to mainland China, the ongoing waves of protest were triggered by the Chinese government announcing it plans to retain the right to vet future candidates for Hong Kong's chief executive elections.
"If we can't fight for this movement, the government will just do whatever they want. They won't bother asking the people any more," Cheng says. "Before this, I almost lost hope in Hong Kong, I thought it is very hard to wake the people up."
Mong Kok has been the most volatile demonstration site, with many locals in the densely-populated concrete jungle openly angry and increasingly confrontational over the disruptions caused to their daily life.
The prevailing view among residents here, especially those who are middle-aged or older, is that two or three days of protest is reasonable or even encouraged, but for it to have dragged out into a 10th day is too much. Fear of any instability in the economy, or an extra hour added to work travel times, weighs heavily in this working class district, with many already living from paycheck to paycheck.
It is for this reason that some protesters have left, and attempted to convince others to join them. But most believe that tactically, keeping Mong Kok going will make it harder for police to clear them by force than if they just had the one main protest site outside government headquarters in Admiralty.
But as well as dividing opinion within protester ranks, the demonstrations have caused deep divisions within Kowloon itself. Part of the militant determination to stay in Mong Kok at all costs stems from the anger of being attacked on Friday, and police doing little, protesters say, to protect them.
Democrat lawmakers and protesters have accused police of colluding with triads in an attempt to intimidate and break up protests, which police have said is "unfounded and unfair". Locals say that while close ties between police and triads were considered an open secret in Mong Kok, with brothels, massage parlours and illicit gambling dens among the vice allowed to prosper, triad members were also affected business owners, who could be self-motivated to want to get rid of the disruptive Occupy movement.
Even though the Hong Kong government has agreed for its number two official, chief secretary Carrie Lam, to engage in talks with student leaders, protesters remain sceptical about the government's sincerity and the likelihood of any substantive change to electoral reform plans.
But Cheng, who like others who have quit their jobs or deferred their studies, says it is likely he will have to push his studies back a semester, as he attempts, however slightly, to push the needle toward a more representative and democratic Hong Kong political system.
"I think we are in a moment of history that we created, so I don't want to leave," he says.
