This is the part of Hong Kong that is north of the Kowloon Peninsula.

Nothing is flat in Hong Kong, all mountains and hills. The only flat part of Hong Kong that is extended for any length or area, is the Kowloon Peninsula.

So when the population grows ... where do you build the new housing? You build it in the mountains. What happens is you get a community such as Sha Tin that you can only get there by road or train.

Admittedly, I haven't been back in a couple of decades, but this is what I remember of the neighbourhood, that there were a road leading into Sha Tin and some nice shopping mall built into the side of the mountain, and they built three of them which each mall was connected to the other via a tunnel on the surface of the mountain. It was so nice. It was big too. One of them had 6 floors the mall.

So the protesters were in the streets and the police advanced onto them. Well, where would you run off to if you were a protestor? In New York, you would run from Brooklyn to Queens. Actually you would run a few blocks. But here in Sha Tin, there is literally no where you can run on the streets! So they wind up in the shopping mall.

The subway was located in the shopping mall, eventually most protestors used that to escape. They did not run away, they took the train.

I was reading the headline here:
https://news.mingpao.com/pns/%e8%a6%81%e8%81%9e/article/20190716/s00001/1563216588014/%e5%9c%8d%e5%a0%b5%e5%95%86%e5%a0%b4%e5%9b%b0%e7%8d%b8%e9%ac%a5-%e8%ad%a6%e9%81%ad%e5%85%a7%e5%a4%96%e8%b3%aa%e7%96%91-%e8%ad%b0%e5%93%a1-%e7%a4%ba%e5%a8%81%e8%80%85%e6%81%90%e6%85%8c-%e7%9b%a7%e5%81%89%e8%81%b0-%e6%9c%89%e8%b2%ac%e5%85%a5%e5%85%a7%e6%8b%98%e9%81%95%e6%b3%95%e8%80%85

圍堵商場困獸鬥 警遭內外質疑 議員：示威者恐慌 盧偉聰：有責入內拘違法者

That "qwan sau dau" ... is just too funny! Chinese is such a beautiful language.

Literally it means "trap animal duel". And that is what it was.

The police chief said that. A thousand years from now, they will still use those words: "shopping mall cornered anmial fight" to describe these events in Sha Tin in the New Territories!